Philosophical Psychology
September 8, 2025
Mina Caraccio, Katherine Cheung, Sebastian Porsdam Mann et al.
3 citations
The current revival of interest in classic psychedelics and other psychoactives such as ketamine and MDMA, coupled with changes to their regulatory status in many jurisdictions, necessitates rigorous ethical guidelines both within and beyond clinical and scientific contexts. This paper examines crucial ethical, philosophical, and policy considerations needed to ensure psychedelic use across...
The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health
September 2, 2025
Khaleel Rajwani, Edward Jacobs, Lori Bruce et al.
6 citations
The potential use of psychedelic-assisted therapy for adolescents with mental illness has sparked both interest and concern. Modern psychedelic research has focused on adults, and adolescents younger than 18 years are typically excluded due to ethical and legal challenges. To explore whether adolescents have been included in 21st century psychedelic research, we conducted a scoping review of...
Wellcome Open Research
July 8, 2025
Khaleel Rajwani, Melanie Almonte, F. Feroz et al.
2 citations
Background Recent years have seen renewed clinical interest in the therapeutic potential of classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline. While modern studies have focused on adult populations, adolescents under 18 are routinely excluded due to regulatory, legal, and ethical challenges. Although there exists observational data and historical studies from 1959 to 1974...
European journal of cell biology
March 1, 2025
Masanori Kataoka, Takuya Niikawa, Naoya Nagaishi et al.
22 citations
This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of the ethical, legal and social issues in human brain organoid research, with a view to different types of research and applications: in vitro research, transplantation into non-human animals, and biocomputing. Despite the academic and societal attention on the possibility that human brain organoids may be conscious, we have identified diverse...
Bioethics
March 1, 2025
Emma C. Gordon, Katherine Cheung, Julian Savulescu et al.
8 citations
A prominent critique of cognitive or athletic enhancement claims that certain performance-improving drugs or technologies may 'cheapen' resulting achievements. Considerably less attention has been paid to the impact of enhancement on the value of moral achievements. Would the use of moral enhancement (bio)technologies, rather than (solely) 'traditional' means of moral development like schooling...
Wellcome Open Res
January 13, 2025
Samuel Streicher, Christopher Register, Xiu Lim et al.
2 citations
Background: Moral bioenhancement typically refers to the deliberate use of drugs or biotechnologies, potentially alongside other practices, to attempt to improve oneself morally. In addition to general concerns regarding moral self-bioenhancement, the possibility of using psychedelic substances for such purposes raises distinct ethical questions. As a first step in analysing these questions, we...
American Journal of Bioethics
May 2, 2024
Edward Jacobs, Brian D. Earp, Paul S. Appelbaum et al.
29 citations
The first Hopkins-Oxford Psychedelic Ethics (HOPE) workshop convened to discuss ethical matters relating to psychedelics in August 2023 at the University of Oxford.The organizers (BDE, DBY, EJ) aim...
AJOB Neuroscience
February 5, 2024
Julian D. Sandbrink, Kyle Johnson, Maureen Gill et al.
13 citations
The psychedelic psilocybin has shown promise both as treatment for psychiatric conditions and as a means of improving well-being in healthy individuals. In some jurisdictions (e.g., Oregon, USA), psilocybin use for both purposes is or will soon be allowed and yet, public attitudes toward this shift are understudied. We asked a nationally representative sample of 795 US Americans to evaluate the...
Sci Eng Ethics
February 5, 2024
Masanori Kataoka, Christopher Gyngell, Julian Savulescu et al.
AbstractHuman brain organoids are three-dimensional masses of tissues derived from human stem cells that partially recapitulate the characteristics of the human brain. They have promising applications in many fields, from basic research to applied medicine. However, ethical concerns have been raised regarding the use of human brain organoids. These concerns primarily relate to the possibility...
The Journal of medicine and philosophy
February 1, 2009
Guy Kahane, Julian Savulescu
126 citations
Neuroimaging studies of brain-damaged patients diagnosed as in the vegetative state suggest that the patients might be conscious. This might seem to raise no new ethical questions given that in related disputes both sides agree that evidence for consciousness gives strong reason to preserve life. We question this assumption. We clarify the widely held but obscure principle that consciousness is...
Progress in Brain Research
2009
Neil Levy, Julian Savulescu
62 citations
Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that its ethical significance is less than many...