It is widely supposed that it is important to imbue patients undergoing medical procedures with a sense of hope. But why is hope so important in healthcare, if indeed it is? We examine the answers that are currently on offer and show that none do enough to properly explain the importance that is often attributed to hope in healthcare.

Defenders of male circumcision increasingly argue that female ‘circumcision’ (ritual cutting of the clitoral hood or labia) should be legally allowed in Western liberal democracies even when non-consensual. In a recent article, Richard Shweder (2021) gives perhaps the most persuasive articulation of this argument to have so far appeared in the literature.

In June 2020, numerous companies that advertise on social media platforms withdrew their business, citing failures of the platforms (especially Facebook) to address the proliferation of harmful content. Many were inspired by the #StopHateForProfit campaign initiated by the Anti-Defamation League. These events invite reflection on an understudied topic: the ethics of boycotting by corporations. Under what conditions is corporate boycotting permissible, required, supererogatory, or forbidden?

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 in England and Wales (MCA) is explicit in prescribing a values-based legal framework, centred around the concepts of ‘mental capacity’ and ‘best interests’. In legal proceedings, the specialist Court of Protection must grapple with fundamental questions relating to the interpretation and application of the MCA’s principled requirements, with each case having its own distinctive factual matrix and a unique person at the heart of the whole process.

This paper develops a novel argument to show that prospective research subjects can validly consent to participate in a study without understanding (most of) the content of the required disclosure. Its point of departure is the right subjects standardly have to waive (most of) the investigator’s duty to disclose. Things get worse for autonomy based defences of informed consent because this right to waive is very well grounded in an individual’s autonomy.