Alexander Pruss's Blog

On a purely statistical views of health, the health of a bodily system is its functioning near the average or median. This leads to the absu...

From childhood, I remember the Polish Christmas carol “Amidst the Silence of Night” from around the beginning of the 19th century, and I re...

Let’s suppose disease X if medically unchecked will kill 4.00% of the population, and there is one and only one intervention available: a c...

After listening to a talk by Christopher Kaczor, and the ensuing discussion, I want to offer a defense of a moderate position on the state n...

Here are some facts about sex and consent. Without valid consent, sex is always seriously wrong. Merely proxy consent for sex (say, by pare...

Let's grant that my ability to use my hands is normal. Suppose a world-class violin maker loses the little finger on her non-domina...

I don't think you have much hope of having a distinction between treatment and enhancement unless you have the notion of the normal stat...

Plato was impressed with the idea that he who can best heal is he who can best kill. I doubt it. The big brawny person with the nail...

Compare the metalworker and the swordsmith. The metalworker's profession is defined by a particular technique for achieving h...

Consider this argument: (Premise) It is not professional for a physician to perform a procedure when there is not sufficient scien...

Here is a new blog on abortion, by a physician and a friend of mine.

In this post, I am not going to distinguish between a doctor's "helping" a patient kill herself and the doctor...

Derek Humphry wrote, as part of a defense of Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS): The help of a physician [in PAS] is imperative, b...