In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of both the philosophical questions engendered by the idea of a human right to health and the potential of philosophical analysis to help in the formulation of better policy. In this article, I attempt to locate recent work on the moral right to health in a number of historically established conceptions, with the aim of providing a map of the conceptual landscape as to the claims expressed by such a right.

In recent years, there has been increasing recognition of both the philosophical questions engendered by the idea of a human right to health and the potential of philosophical analysis to help in the formulation of better policy. In this article, I attempt to locate recent work on the moral right to health in a number of historically established conceptions, with the aim of providing a map of the conceptual landscape as to the claims expressed by such a right.

Review of Essays on Spinoza's Ethical Theory edited by MJ Kisner and A Youpa.

As health policy-makers around the world seek to make progress towards universal health coverage, they must navigate between two important ethical imperatives: to set national spending priorities fairly and efficiently; and to safeguard the right to health. These imperatives can conflict, leading some to conclude that rights-based approaches present a disruptive influence on health policy, hindering states’ efforts to set priorities fairly and efficiently. Here, we challenge this perception. We argue first that these points of tension stem largely from inadequate (...) interpretations of the aims of priority setting as well as the right to health. We then discuss various ways in which the right to health complements traditional concerns of priority setting and vice versa. Finally, we set out a three-step process by which policy-makers may navigate the ethical and legal considerations at play. (shrink)

This article concerns the nature and limits of individuals’ rights to privacy over information that they have made public. For some, even suggesting that an individual can have a right to privacy over such information may seem paradoxical. First, one has no right to privacy over information that was never private to begin with. Second, insofar as one makes once-private information public – whether intentionally or unintentionally – one waives one’s right to privacy to that information. In this article, however, (...) we suggest the moral situation is more complicated than this. Rather, we argue that there is a class of public information – namely, once-private information that individuals have made public unintentionally – which remains within the scope of an individuals’ right to privacy, even when it has passed into the public domain. Significantly, this class includes any information rights-holders were unaware could be inferred from information they have made public and which they would not otherwise have wanted to be in the public domain. As we show, as well as clarifying several everyday dilemmas with regards to individuals’ privacy rights, this finding has elucidates a number of problems in the ethics of Big Data. (shrink)

Health systems that provide for universal patient access through a scheme of prepayments—whether through taxes, social insurance, or a combination of the two—need to make decisions on the scope of coverage that they secure. Such decisions are inherently controversial, implying, as they do, that some patients will receive less than comprehensive health care, or less than complete protection from the financial consequences of ill-heath, even when there is a clinically effective therapy to which they might have access.Controversial decisions of this (...) sort call for a public justification for covering or not covering a given treatment. Priority-setting agencies play a key role in providing such a justification. A recent... (shrink)

For all their various disagreements, one point upon which rights theorists often agree is that it is simply part of the nature of rights that they tend to override, outweigh or exclude competing considerations in moral reasoning, that they have ‘peremptory force’, making ‘powerful demands’ that can only be overridden in ‘exceptional circumstances’, Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016, p. 240). In this article I challenge this thought. My aim here is not to prove that the (...) traditional view of rights’ stringency is necessarily false, nor even that we have no good reason to believe it is true. Rather, my aim is only to show that we have good reason to think that the foundation of the traditional position is less stable than we might have otherwise supposed and that an alternative conception of rights—one which takes the stringency of any given right as particular to the kind of right it is—is both viable and attractive. In short, to begin to move us towards a more ‘particularist’ conception of rights’ standing in moral reasoning and judgement. (shrink)

Is health care “special”? That is, do we have moral reason to treat health care differently from how we treat other sorts of social goods? Intuitively, perhaps, we might think the proper response is “yes.” However, to date, philosophers have often struggled to justify this idea—known as the “specialness thesis about health care” or STHC. In this article, I offer a new justification of STHC, one I take to be immune from objections that have undercut other defenses. Notably, unlike previous (...) utility- and opportunity-based theories, I argue that we can find normative justification for STHC in what I term our special duty to assist those unable to help themselves. It is this duty, I argue, that ultimately gives us reason to treat health care differently from other sorts of goods and to distribute it independently of individuals’ ability to pay. (shrink)

To say health is 'special' is to say that it has a moral significance that differentiates it from other goods (cars, say or radios) and, as a matter of justice, warrants distributing it separately. In this essay, I critique a new justification for the specialness thesis about healthcare (STHC) recently put forth by Engster. I argue that, regrettably, Engster's justification of STHC ultimately fails and fails on much the same grounds as have previous justifications of STHC. However, I also argue (...) that Engster's argument still adds something valuable to the debate around STHC insofar as it reminds us that the moral significance of healthcare may be wider than simply its effect on the incidence of disability and disease: one further reason we may think healthcare is morally significant is because it concerns the treatment and care of those who are already unwell. (shrink)

Before presenting his own account of value in the Ethics, Spinoza spends much of EIAppendix and EIVPreface attempting to refute a series of axiological ‘prejudices’ that he takes to have taken root in the minds of his readership. In doing so, Spinoza adopts what might be termed a ‘genealogical’ argumentative strategy. That is, he tries to establish the falsity of imagined readership’s prejudices about good and bad, perfection and imperfection, by first showing that the ideas from which they have arisen (...) are themselves false. Many elements of this genealogy, however, remain unclear. First, both the nature of the metaethical prejudices Spinoza believes we have been labouring under, and the metaphysical prejudices that he takes to have given rise to them, continue to attract widespread disagreement. Although much less commented on, it is also not entirely obvious why Spinoza takes the one to have engendered the other. In this article, I attempt to clarify Spinoza’s reasoning in both of these respects, ultimately concluding that Spinoza offers us two accounts of how this process has occurred, the first beginning from an anthropocentric doctrine of divine providence, the second from more secular, perhaps more purely Aristotelian metaphysical tradition. (shrink)

In this article we aim to assess the ethical desirability of self-test diagnostic kits for influenza, focusing in particular on the potential benefits and challenges posed by a new, mobile phone-based tool currently being developed by i-sense, an interdisciplinary research collaboration based at University College London and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Our study adopts an empirical ethics approach, supplementing an initial review into the ethical considerations posed by such technologies with qualitative data from three focus (...) groups. Overall, we map a range of possible considerations both for and against the use of such technologies, synthesizing evidence from a range of secondary literature, as well as identifying several new considerations previously overlooked. We argue that no single consideration marks these technologies as either entirely permissible or impermissible but rather tools which have the potential to incur certain costs and benefits, and that context is important in determining these. In the latter stages of the article, we explain how developers of such technologies might seek to mitigate such costs and reflect on the possible limitations of the empirical ethics method brought out during the study. Not applicable. (shrink)

One rationale policy-makers sometimes give for declining to fund a service or intervention is on the grounds that it would be ‘unaffordable’, which is to say, that the total cost of providing the service or intervention for all eligible recipients would exceed the budget limit. But does the mere fact that a service or intervention is unaffordable present a reason not to fund it? Thus far, the philosophical literature has remained largely silent on this issue. However, in this article, we (...) consider this kind of thinking in depth. Albeit with certain important caveats, we argue that the use of affordability criteria in matters of public financing commits what Parfit might have called a ‘mistake in moral mathematics’. First, it fails to abide by what we term a principle of ‘non-perfectionism’ in moral action: the mere fact that it is practically impossible for you to do all the good that you have reason to do does not present a reason not to do whatever good you can do. And second, when used as a means of arbitrating between which services to fund, affordability criteria can lead to a kind of ‘numerical discrimination’. Various attendant issues around fairness and lotteries are also discussed. (shrink)

Among Spinoza’s principal projects in the Ethics is his effort to “remove” certain metaethical prejudices from the minds of his readers, to “expose” them, as he has similar misconceptions about other matters, by submitting them to the “scrutiny of reason”. In this article, I consider the argumentative strategy Spinoza uses here – and its intellectual history – in depth. I argue that Spinoza’s method is best characterised as a genealogical analysis. As I recount, by Spinoza’s time of writing, these kinds (...) of arguments already had a long and illustrious history. However, I also argue that, in his adoption of such strategies, we have good reason to think Spinoza’s primary influence was Gersonides. Elucidating this aspect of Spinoza’s critique of his contemporaries’ axiologies brings a number of explicatory and historical boons. However, regrettably, it also comes at a cost, revealing a significant flaw in Spinoza’s reasoning. Towards the end of this article, I consider the nature of this flaw, whether Spinoza can avoid it and its ramifications for Spinoza’s wider philosophical project. (shrink)

In this article I seek to establish what, if anything, might be morally troubling about morally enhancing oneself through biomedical means. Building on arguments by Harris, while simultaneously acknowledging several valid counter-arguments that have been put forth by his critics, I argue that taking BMEs necessarily incurs at least one moral cost in the restrictions they impose on our freedom. This does not necessarily entail that the use of BMEs cannot be overall justified, nor that, in certain cases, their costs (...) may not be forestalled. It does show, however, that their use is not morally neutral. There is a cost to such technologies and, as such, the onus will always be on their defenders to show that these costs can compensated for. (shrink)

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the philosophical and bioethical issues raised by the creation of the draft social values framework developed to facilitate data collection and country-specific presentations at the inaugural workshop on "Social values and health priority setting" held in February 2011. -/- DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Conceptual analysis is used to analyse the term "social values", as employed in the framework, and its relationship to related ideas such as moral values. The structure of the framework (...) (process and content values) is considered in light of current debate in philosophy and bioethics about the political and moral aims served by these kinds of values, and the extent to which they are either suited to, or sufficient for, the policy context. -/- FINDINGS: There is much to be gained by engaging with the arguments presented in the philosophical literature in order to further refine the framework. The framework should remain neutral in respect of the importance of procedural values in different contexts and should be as inclusive as possible in respect of the principles it includes. Further development would be best served by taking a multidisciplinary approach. The framework could provide a valuable space in which future debates about procedural/substantive values can be considered. -/- ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The paper brings philosophical and bioethics perspectives to bear on a new framework proposed for the analysis of social values in health priority setting. It identifies how such a practical, policy-focused framework might be informed by engagement with deeper, and often unresolved, questions or principle around resource allocation in health. (shrink)

Knowledge of what it’s like to have perceptual experiences, e.g. of what it’s like to see red or taste Turkish coffee, is phenomenal knowledge; and it is knowledge the substantial or significant nature of which is widely assumed to pose a challenge for physicalism. Call this the New Challenge to physicalism. The goal of this paper is to take a closer look at the New Challenge. I show, first, that it is surprisingly difficult to spell out clearly and neutrally what (...) the New Challenge is in fact urging the physicalist to explain. What initially look like plausible or promising ways of making sense of it turn out to be either question begging or insufficient to generate a challenge to physicalism at all. I go on to suggest that what the New Challenge may be asking the physicalist to explain may be the fact that we come to token certain higher-order judgments about the significance of phenomenal knowledge. I end with a discussion of the implications of this interpretation of the New Challenge—which turns out to be as much a challenge for the anti-physicalist as it is for the physicalist. (shrink)

The so-called ‘re-identification condition’ (Kelly 2011) has played an important role in the most prominent argument for nonconceptualism, the argument from fineness of grain. A number of authors have recently argued that the condition should be modified or discarded altogether, with devastating implications for the nonconceptualist (see, e.g., Brewer 2005, Chuard 2006). The aim of this paper is to show that the situation is even more dire for nonconceptualists, for even if the re-identification condition remains in its original form, the (...) argument from fineness of grain still fails to make the case for nonconceptualism. The paper's central case rests on two claims: according to the first, if the re-identification condition holds, then some beliefs will represent some properties nonconceptually; and according to the second, if some beliefs represent some properties nonconceptually, the argument from fineness of grain fails to make the case for nonconceptualism in any relevant sense. It follows that if the re-identification condition holds, the argument from fineness of grain fails to make the case for nonconceptualism. (shrink)

Living labs are interdisciplinary and participatory initiatives aimed at bringing research closer to practice by involving stakeholders in all stages of research. Living labs align with the principles of participatory research methods as well as recent insights about how participatory ways of generating knowledge help to change practices in concrete settings with respect to specific problems. The participatory, open, and discussion‐oriented nature of living labs could be ideally suited to accompany ethical reflection and changes ensuing from reflection. To our knowledge, (...) living labs have not been explicitly trialed and reported in ethics literature. In this discussion paper, we report and discuss four initial issues that marked the process of setting up a living lab in ethics: (1) determining the goals and expected outcomes of an ethics living lab; (2) establishing operational procedures; (3) selecting communities and defining pilot projects; and (4) adopting a lens to tackle emerging questions and challenges. We explain these four issues and present the paths taken based on the novel and specific orientation, that is, living ethics, at the basis of this project. In alignment with living ethics and É‐LABO, we approach challenges as learning opportunities to ask not only “how” questions but also “why” questions. We hope that this discussion paper informed by our experience helps to clarify the theoretical, methodological, and practical approaches necessary to successfully adopt and employ living labs in ethics. (shrink)

Dwellings of Enchantment probes literature and cues humans to experience awe, love, and respect for our wonderfully complex, multispecies home. Interweaving new materialist, postcolonial, ecopoetic, ecofeminist,and ecopsychological approaches, it delves into various ontologies, literary modes, and tropes framing our coevolution within the oikos.

The decades following the Second Vatican Council witnessed Catholic theology's break from classicism. Deductive, classical theology was replaced by an empirical, historically minded theology. The result was moral confusion and intellectual controversy whose effects are still felt by the Church. Benedict Ashely agreed that some revision in moral theology was necessary after Vatican II to formulate and integrate the mysteries of the Catholic faith. The question was how such teachings could be reformulated while preserving their substantive content. Ashley presents (...) a method of theological reflection that challenges the subjectivity, relationality, and language of historical mindedness with a tradition focusing on Scripture, the Magisterium, sound natural science, and a considered relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. This volume also contains commentary by four distinguished scholars: Matthew McWhorter provides an intellectual biography of Ashley, examining the development of this thought before and after Vatican II. Rev. Cajetan Cuddy, OP, reviews Ashley's philosophical theology in its principles, especially as grounded in natural law philosophy. Matthew Minerd assesses Ashley's approach to the authority of the Catholic Magisterium, the papacy, and the formation of conscience. Rev. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, OP, evaluates Ashley's application of his moral theology to beginning- and end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

This book supports the emerging field of vascularized composite allotransplantation for face and upper-limb transplants by providing a revised, ethically appropriate consent model which takes into account what is actually required of facial and upper extremity transplant recipients. In place of consent as permission-giving, waiver, or autonomous authorization, this book imagines consent as an ongoing mutual commitment, i.e. as covenant consent. The covenant consent model highlights the need for a durable personal relationship between the patient/subject and the care provider/researcher. Such (...) a relationship is crucial given the recovery period of 5 years or more for VCA recipients. The case for covenant consent is made by first examining the field of vascularized composite allotransplantation, the history and present understandings of consent in health care, and the history and use of the covenant concept from its origins through its applications to health care ethics today. This book explains how standard approaches to consent are inadequate in light of the particular features of facial and upper limb transplantation. In contrast, use of the covenant concept creates a consent model that is more appropriate ethically for these very complex surgeries and long-term recoveries. (shrink)

Review of John Stillwell, Reverse Mathematics: Proofs from the Inside Out. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 200. ISBN 978-0-69-117717-5 (hbk), 978-0-69-119641-1 (pbk), 978-1-40-088903-7 (e-book).

Like all typologies, the following study is a generalisation of forces inherent in the making of a situation — here the treatment of multilingualism by the colonial and post-colonial powers and their African successors, and the explanation given for the dichotomy. Whilst the expression ‘Afro-Saxons’ was used by Ali Mazrui of the followers of the Westminster pattern, the term is here employed in a wider sense to cover the colonial nations of Teutonic/Germanic descent — whereas the term ‘Afro-Romans’ has been (...) coined to counter-balance the Afro-Saxons, as the heirs to the Roman Empire, i.e. the Romance-speaking peoples on African soil. (shrink)

Is there such a sub-discipline as “sociology of valuation and evaluation”? Identifying the main focus, the topics, and the analytical designs, i.e., reflecting on a theoretical profile of such an investigation, is far from complete. The main question is indeed—where to start when addressing the sociology of valuation and evaluation? Is it a specific area of research, analysis, and inquiry, with specific objects? Should we confine it to the many important qualitative and quantitative studies dedicated to the measure of market (...) performance, the efficiency of public policy, profitability of private investment, or identification of best practices in various areas ? Beyond business and administration processes, a huge body of research in economic sociology has developed in recent years that has renewed the investigations on economic experience through a moral lens (Lamont 2000; Vatin 2008; Karpik 2010; Beckert and Aspe .. (shrink)

BackgroundGiven that advances in research continuously raise new ethical issues, a multidisciplinary working group of investigators involved in biomedical research has gathered to discuss and compare ethical viewpoints in their daily practice.MethodsThe working group has drafted a Charter for Ethics in Biomedical Research that encompasses all the steps in the research process, i.e. from the initial idea to analysis and publication of the results.ResultsBased on key principles for ethically responsible research, the Charter may serve as a tool for performing research, (...) discussing research issues and training researchers.ConclusionsThe Charter should stimulate researchers to think about their responsibility for research in a progressive, caring society. (shrink)

Why is the Catholic Church against the death penalty? This second edition of Brugger’s classic work _Capital Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition_ traces the doctrinal path the Church has taken over the centuries to its present position as the world’s largest and most outspoken opponent of capital punishment. The pontificate of John Paul II marked a watershed in Catholic thinking. The pope taught that the death penalty is and can only be rightly assessed as a form of self-defense. But (...) what does this mean? What are its implications for the Church’s traditional retribution-based model of lethal punishment? How does it square with what the Church has historically taught? Brugger argues that the implications of this historic turn have yet to be fully understood. In his new preface, Brugger examines the contribution of the great Polish pope’s closest collaborator and successor in the Chair of Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, to Catholic thinking on the death penalty. He argues that Pope Benedict maintained the doctrinal status quo of his predecessor’s teaching on capital punishment as self-defense, with detectable points of reluctance to draw attention to nontraditional implications of that teaching. (shrink)

Daniel, Michael E Review(s) of: Benedict XVI: A guide for the perplexed, by Tracey Rowland, London: T and T Clark International, 2010, pp.160, $29.95.

If we read the central message of Caritas in Veritate (CV) through the lens of contemporary business ethics—and the encyclical does seem to invite such a reading (CV 40–41, and 45–47)—there is first of all a diagnosis of a crisis. Then, we are offered a response to the diagnosis: charity in truth , “the principle around which the Church’s social doctrine turns, a principle that takes on practical form in the criteria that govern moral action .” (CV 6) In business (...) ethics, the norms of personal and (especially) corporate responsibility are the natural correlates to “the criteria that govern moral action.” Using this as a point of departure, I propose to relate some recent scholarship in business ethics to the message of CV — with the suggestion that there is significant convergence. I argue, further, that the encyclical breaks new ground with its suggestion that, at the center of our moral thinking in business ethics lies a logic of contribution or gift. I discuss Benedict’s understanding of the crisis, and his exhortation to reach beyond conventional interpretations of corporate responsibility, under the following four headings: Diagnosing a Crisis , Institutionalizing Conscience , A Tripartite View of Corporate Responsibility, and Comprehensive Moral Thinking. (shrink)

O marxismo aparece insistentemente na teologia e no magistério de Joseph Ratzinger-Bento XVI como um inimigo permanente ao qual o cristianismo deve se contrapor, sem possibilidades de conciliação entre ambos. Mas qual concepção subjaz essa rejeição tão peremptória, tão decidida? Para alcançarmos a resposta a tal questão, aprofundamos a visão de Joseph Ratzinger a partir de alguns de seus escritos teológicos (anteriores ao pontificado) e, em seguida, nas suas três encíclicas, o ponto alto de seu magistério papal ( Deus caritas (...) est, Spe salvi e Caritas in veritate ). Defendemos que a crítica de Bento XVI, antes de ser exclusivamente teológica (ou doutrinária), é filosófica, baseada na racionalidade e não na fé professada pela Igreja, que lhe permite tratar o marxismo não simplesmente como um programa político que vai contra alguns valores cristãos, mas como uma escatologia judaico-cristã secularizada, um messianismo político, portanto, como uma religião , como uma fé , que nega e esvazia o núcleo essencial da fé cristã. E aqui está a raiz da sua oposição. Palavras-chave: Marxismo. Bento XVI. Messianismo. Escatologia política.: Marxism appears repeatedly in Pope Benedict’s theology and teaching as a permanent enemy that Christianity must oppose without any possibilities of conciliation between them. However, what underlies this decisive rejection? To answer this question we look further into Joseph Ratzinger’s perspective starting with some of his theological writings (before the pontificate) followed by three of his encyclicals, the high point of his papal teaching ( Deus caritas est , Spe salvi e Caritas in veritate ). We argue that Benedict XVI's criticism, prior to being purely theological (or doctrinal), is philosophical, based on rationality and not in the faith professed by the Church, allowing him to treat marxism not simply as a political program that goes against some Christian values, but as a secularized Judeo-Christian eschatology, as a political messianism, therefore, as a religion, as a faith , that denies and empties the essential core of the Christian faith. And here is the root of his opposition. Keywords: Marxism. Benedict XVI. Messianism. Political eschatology. (shrink)

In this paper, I maintain—contrary to those commentators who regard him as a principled republican—that at the core of Spinoza’s political theory is an instrumental, rather than an intrinsic, defense of democratic procedures. Specifically, Spinoza embraces democratic decision procedures primarily because they tend to result in better decisions, defined relative to a procedure-independent standard of correctness or goodness. In contemporary terms, Spinoza embraces an epistemic defense of democracy. I examine Spinoza’s defense of collective governance, showing not only how it differs (...) from other accounts of his time but also how it might contribute to current debates about the epistemic standing of popular governing bodies. In the opening section I defend the thesis that has been contested in recent years that Spinoza was, in fact, a consistent democrat. The second section focuses on procedural (i.e., intrinsic) defenses of democracy, paying particular attention to the republican version of proceduralism that was prominent in Spinoza’s time. And in the final section I present my case for reading Spinoza as an epistemic democrat, comparing his epistemic defense with contemporary versions. What we find are not only striking anticipations of contemporary arguments, but also largely neglected lines of argumentation that reveal both the potential epistemic advantages and disadvantages of democracy. (shrink)