Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden …a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one (Ursula Le Guin)

Hello, I’m Owen Dempsey, an ex General Medical Practitioner in the UK, and more recently a post-doctoral reseacher interested in the psychopolitics of disease screening and totalitarianism in general

The Pandemic and an Ethics of Responsibility

Hanaamayer (usefully but, ultimately, inadequately) draws upon Weber’s (transcendental) ethics of responsibility to challenge EBM (Evidence Based medicine) principled conviction (rules-based) to determine good medical practice in terms of a supreme good that ‘maintains life’ on the basis of primarily empirical data and mortality outcomes. The ethics of responsibility places responsibility on individual clinicians to … Continue reading The Pandemic and an Ethics of Responsibility

January 7, 2021January 7, 2021

The Moral argument in favour of Lockdowns

I draw on Walter Wink’s arguments against the idea of a ‘just’ war claiming what is required isn’t proof of the justification of action (war), so much as proof as to why inaction (not going to war) is worse. On this basis, I would argue that, morally, it can be argued, perhaps against Wink, that … Continue reading The Moral argument in favour of Lockdowns

January 6, 2021January 6, 2021

The anti-lockdown brigade and totalitarian threats

In the UK the anti-lockdown brigade (eg Hitchens of the Daily Mail) rightly see in authoritarian Lockdown measures the potential for totalitarianism and its xenophobic consequences. They point to China as an example, and as a regime to be reviled. What, I think, they fail to see, or admit, is the even more severe totalitarian … Continue reading The anti-lockdown brigade and totalitarian threats

January 4, 2021

Zero Covid Strategy and National Lockdowns

Zero Covid The pandemic is highlighting a question: What should a public health response be in the absence of evidence of effectiveness? In particular what should a public health response be to the question of more or less restrictive lockdowns. Lockdowns are there to reduce transmission, illness, hospitalisations and deaths. And, the Covid crisis is … Continue reading Zero Covid Strategy and National Lockdowns

December 22, 2020December 23, 2020

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"My Own Private Medicine" by Owen Dempsey

Owen Dempsey’s Blog:

Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden …a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one (Ursula Le Guin)

The Pandemic and an Ethics of Responsibility

The Moral argument in favour of Lockdowns

The anti-lockdown brigade and totalitarian threats

Zero Covid Strategy and National Lockdowns