Perhaps the greatest determinant of individual and societal welfare is who raises children and with what degree of discretion. Philosophers have endeavored in myriad ways to provide normative justification for ascribing a right to be a legal parent and to possess particular legal powers as a parent. This Article shows why they fail and offers an alternative theoretical framework for delimiting parental rights. The prevailing tendency in philosophical writing on the topic is to begin with observations and intuitions specific to (...) parent-child relationships. Against that tendency, this Article demonstrates the need to begin with principles at a high level of generality, covering a broad range of human relationships. This yields a much more limited moral right in connection with parenthood than do accounts that fail to generalize. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore one way to bring bioethics and environmental ethics closer together. I focus on a question at the interface of health, sustainability, and justice: How well does a society promote health with the use of no more than a just share of environmental capacity? To address this question, I propose and discuss a mode of assessment that combines a measurement of population health, an estimate of environmental sustainability, and an assumption about what constitutes a fair or (...) just share. This mode of assessment provides an estimate of the just and sustainable life expectancy of a population. It could be used to monitor how well a particular society promotes health within just environmental limits. It could also serve as a source of information that stakeholders use when they deliberate about programs, policies, and technologies. The purpose of this work is to focus attention on an ethical task: the need to fashion institutions and forms of life that promote health in ways that recognize the claims of sustainability and justice. (shrink)

SARS, like HIV, placed healthcare workers at risk and raised issues about the duty to treat. But philosophical accounts of the duty to treat that were developed in the context of HIV did not adequately address some of the ethical issues raised by SARS. Since the next epidemic may be more like SARS than HIV, it is important to illuminate these issues. In this paper, we sketch a general account of the duty to treat that arose in response to HIV. (...) Our purpose is not to defend or criticise this account, but to show that it needs to be developed in order to address three important issues. The first issue concerns how risks should be distributed among healthcare professionals. The second issue concerns the conflicts that arise between professional duties and family duties. The third issue concerns the forms of support that societies owe healthcare workers during epidemics. Our descriptions of these issues are drawn from our experience of the SARS epidemic in Taiwan. (shrink)

: When health care workers migrate from poor countries to rich countries, they are exercising an important human right and helping rich countries fulfill obligations of social justice. They are also, however, creating problems of social justice in the countries they leave. Solving these problems requires balancing social needs against individual rights and studying the relationship of social justice to international justice.

The United Kingdom’s approach to encouraging environmentally positive behaviour has been three-pronged, through voluntarism, incentives and regulation, and the balance between the approaches has fluctuated over time. Whilst financial incentives and regulatory approaches have been effective in achieving some environmental management behavioural change amongst farmers, ultimately these can be viewed as transient drivers without long-term sustainability. Increasingly, there is interest in ‘nudging’ managers towards voluntary environmentally friendly actions. This approach requires a good understanding of farmers’ willingness and ability to take (...) up environmental activities and the influences on farmer behavioural change. The paper aims to provide insights from 60 qualitative farmer interviews undertaken for a research project into farmers’ willingness and ability to undertake environmental management, particularly focusing on social psychological insights. Furthermore, it explores farmers’ level of engagement with advice and support networks that foster a genuine interest, responsibility and a sense of personal and social norm to sustain high quality environmental outcomes. Two conceptual frameworks are presented for usefully exploring the complex set of inter-relationships that can influence farmers’ willingness to undertake environmental management practices. The research findings show how an in-depth understanding of farmer’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices and their existing level of engagement with advice and support are necessary to develop appropriate engagement approaches to achieve sustained and durable environmental management. (shrink)

Last year, I flew to two bioethics conferences, one in Europe and one in North America. These were good things to do, or so I thought. But I worry that flying and other activities are contributing to climate changes that will affect the health of vulnerable people, the life prospects of future generations, and the balance of the natural world. Thus, in this paper, I consider how I should respond. To begin, I describe briefly how climate change will impact human (...) health. Then I note how climate change raises issues about justice. But I focus on issues about moral responsibility and responsiveness. (shrink)

Many medical students are fearful of voicing their concerns about ethically troubling medical practice. Yet they must speak up if they are to meet their responsibilities to patients, colleagues, and the profession of medicine.

A Scientific Integrity Consortium developed a set of recommended principles and best practices that can be used broadly across scientific disciplines as a mechanism for consensus on scientific integrity standards and to better equip scientists to operate in a rapidly changing research environment. The two principles that represent the umbrella under which scientific processes should operate are as follows: Foster a culture of integrity in the scientific process. Evidence-based policy interests may have legitimate roles to play in influencing aspects of (...) the research process, but those roles should not interfere with scientific integrity. The nine best practices for instilling scientific integrity in the implementation of these two overarching principles are Require universal training in robust scientific methods, in the use of appropriate experimental design and statistics, and in responsible research practices for scientists at all levels, with the training content regularly updated and presented by qualified scientists. Strengthen scientific integrity oversight and processes throughout the research continuum with a focus on training in ethics and conduct. Encourage reproducibility of research through transparency. Strive to establish open science as the standard operating procedure throughout the scientific enterprise. Develop and implement educational tools to teach communication skills that uphold scientific integrity. Strive to identify ways to further strengthen the peer review process. Encourage scientific journals to publish unanticipated findings that meet standards of quality and scientific integrity. Seek harmonization and implementation among journals of rapid, consistent, and transparent processes for correction and/or retraction of published papers. Design rigorous and comprehensive evaluation criteria that recognize and reward the highest standards of integrity in scientific research. (shrink)

Last year I flew to two bioethics conferences, one in Europe and one in North America. I also flew to Taiwan to teach abroad for a year. These were good things to do, or so I thought. I contributed to educational events, learned more about bioethics, and visited with friends and colleagues. But I worry that flying and other activities in my life are contributing to climate changes that will affect the health of vulnerable people, the life prospects of future (...) generations, and the balance of the natural world.I sometimes imagine a dialogue with a young person, twenty years from now, when the climate crisis is much worse.What were you people in bioethics thinking? You flew to conferences all over the world, emitting .. (shrink)

Climate change and environmental problems will force or induce millions of people to migrate. In this article, I describe environmental migration and articulate some of the ethical issues. To begin, I give an account of these migrants that overcomes misleading dichotomies. Then, I focus attention on two important ethical issues: justice and responsibility. Although we are all at risk of becoming environmental migrants, we are not equally at risk. Our risk depends on our temporal position, geographical location, social position, and (...) the kind of society in which we live. We all contribute to environmental problems, but we do not contribute equally. About 11% of the world population is responsible for 50% of carbon emissions. These inequalities raise issues of justice because many of the people who are at high risk have contributed little to the problems. Since the issues of justice are relatively clear and compelling, I focus more attention on issues of responsibility. I use Iris Marion Young’s account of responsibility for structural injustice to address four key questions about moral responsibility and environmental migration. (shrink)

This book develops a novel approach to distributive justice by building a theory based on a concept of desert. As a work of applied political theory, it presents a simple but powerful theoretical argument and a detailed proposal to eliminate unmerited inequality, poverty, and economic immobility, speaking to the underlying moral principles of both progressives who already support egalitarian measures and also conservatives who have previously rejected egalitarianism on the grounds of individual freedom, personal responsibility, hard work, or economic efficiency. (...) By using an agnostic, flexible, data-driven approach to isolate luck and ultimately measure desert, this proposal makes equal opportunity initiatives both more accurate and effective as it adapts to a changing economy. It grants to each individual the freedom to genuinely choose their place in the distribution. It provides two policy variations that are perfectly economically efficient, and two others that are conditionally so. It straightforwardly aligns outcomes with widely shared, fundamental moral intuitions. Lastly, it demonstrates much of the above by modeling four policy variations using 40 years of survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. (shrink)

“Nationalists” argue that illegal immigrants have no claim to health benefits. “Humanists” say access to care is a human right and should be provided to everyone. Neither view is adequate.

The potential health risks of vegan diets specifically for women and children are discussed. Women and children are at higher risk of malnutrition from consumption of unsupplemented vegan diets than are adult males. Those who are very young, pregnant, lactating, elderly, or who suffer from poverty, disease or other environmentally induced disadvantages are at special risk. The size of these risks is difficult to quantify from existing studies. Fortunately the risk of dietary deficiency disease can be avoided and the potential (...) health benefits of vegan diets can be realized when diets for these groups are planned in line with theRecommended Dietary Allowances so that nutrient intakes reach or exceed recommended levels, and access to preventive and curative health services is assured. (shrink)

Climate change continues to have profound impacts on people’s health, lives and life prospects. For the most part, people who are at highest risk from the impacts of climate change have contributed very little to the problem. This is the crux of the injustice. After I discuss the risks and contributions associated with the injustice of climate change, I turn to the issue of responsiveness: of why and how people should respond to this injustice. I avoid discussions of legal liability (...) and focus more attention on the need to take political action to change social structures and habits. However, I realize how political engagement can prove to be ineffective, burdensome and dangerous. So in the last section, I say more about the reasons and changes that limit the effectiveness of political engagement. I suggest how we might change both the perception and practice of politics. At the end, I note two issues that I have not addressed in this limited article. (shrink)

In Australia, Japan, Sweden, and Switzerland, the average life expectancy is now greater than 80 years. But in Angola, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, the average life expectancy is less than 40 years. The situation is even worse than these statistics suggest because average figures tend to mask inequalities within countries. What are we to make of a world with such unequal health prospects? What does justice demand in terms of global health? To address these questions, I characterize justice at (...) the local level, at the domestic or social level, and at the international or global level. Because social conditions, structures, and institutions have such a profound influence on the health of populations, I begin by focusing attention on the relationship between social justice and health prospects. Then I go on to discuss health prospects and the problem of global justice. Here I distinguish two views: a cosmopolitan view and a political view of global justice. In my account of global justice, I modify and use the political view that John Rawls developed in The Law of Peoples. I try to show why an adequate political account must include three duties: a duty not to harm, a duty to reconstruct international arrangements, and a duty to assist. (shrink)

Are children of equal, lesser, or perhaps even greater moral importance than adults? This work of applied moral philosophy develops a comprehensive account of how adults as moral agents ascribe moral status to beings - ourselves and others - and on the basis of that account identifies multiple criteria for having moral status. It argues that proper application of those criteria should lead us to treat children as of greater moral importance than adults. This conclusion presents a basis for critiquing (...) existing social practices, many of which implicitly presuppose that children occupy an inferior status, and for suggesting how government policy, law, and social life might be different if it reflected an assumption that children are actually of superior status. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We live in a world with enormous disparities in health. The life expectancy in Japan is 80 years; in Malawi, 40 years. The under‐five mortality in Norway is 4/1000; in Sierra Leone, 316/1000. The situation is actually worse than these figures suggest because average rates tend to mask inequalities within a country. Several presidents of the IAB have urged bioethicists to attend to global disparities and to broaden the scope of bioethics. For the last six years I have tried (...) to do just that. In this paper, I report and reflect on my attempts to teach bioethics in ways that address global health and justice. To begin, I discuss how I structure bioethics courses so as to move naturally from clinical ethics to health policy to global health. I then discuss ways to address key ethical issues in global health: the problem of inequalities; the nature of the duty to assist; the importance of the duty not to harm; the difference between a cosmopolitan and a political view of justice. I also discuss how teaching about global health may help to shift the emphasis in bioethics – from sensational cases to everyday matters, from autonomy to justice, and from access to healthcare to the social determinants of health. At the end of my paper, I reflect on questions that I have not resolved: how to delineate the scope of bioethics, whether my approach over‐politicises bioethics, and how to understand the responsibilities of bioethicists. (shrink)

The discourse of best interests misdirects attention from the real problem of grasping the implications of particular relationships in particular cases.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed social shortcomings and ethical failures, but it also revealed strengths and successes. In this perspective article, we examine and discuss one strength: the duty to care. We understand this duty in a broad sense, as more than a duty to treat individual patients who could infect health care workers. We understand it as a prima facie duty to work to provide care and promote health in the face of risks, obstacles, and inconveniences. Although at least one (...) survey suggested that health care workers would not respond to a SARS-like outbreak according to a duty to care, we give reasons to show that the response was better than expected. The reasons we discuss lead us to consider normative accounts of the duty to care based on the adoption of social roles. Then, we consider one view of the relationship between empirical claims and normative claims about the duty to care in the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we draw insight from Mengzi, with an emendation from Dewey. Our perspective leaves many question to research, but one point seems clear: there will be future pandemics and the need for health care workers who respond. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Basic Principles Concerning Rights Against Parents' Rights Against State or Citizen Rights Formal Characteristics of Children's Rights Conclusion.

Frankfurt’s “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” made an important intervention into the literature on moral responsibility via a classical Frankfurt-type example, arguing that “the principle of alternate possibilities” is false. This paper argues that classical Frankfurt-type examples fail due to the use of agentic counterfactual interventions who lack agency. Using finite state machines to illustrate, I show the models that classical Frankfurt-type examples must use and why they are incongruent with leeway incompatibilist beliefs—the motivating interlocutor for classical Frankfurt-type examples. I (...) then argue that returning agency to the agentic counterfactual intervention also returns alternate possibilities to the actual sequence of events, undermining a core premise of Frankfurt’s. Lastly, I show why a number of potential counterarguments should fail to persuade the leeway incompatibilist. (shrink)

When Van Rensselaer Potter coined the English word “bioethics”, he envisioned a field that would bring together biological understanding and ethical values to address global environmental problems. Following Potter’s broad vision of bioethics, I explore ethical ideas that we need to address climate change. However, I develop and emphasize ideas about justice and responsibility in ways that Potter did not. At key points, I contrast the ideas that I develop with those in Potter’s work, but I try to avoid scholarly (...) debates and stay focused on the practical task: developing ideas to help us address climate change. To begin, I describe the problem of climate change. Then I show how it raises deep and serious issues of justice. Since the issues of justice are relatively clear and compelling, I proceed to focus attention on issues of responsibility – on why and how to respond to the structural injustices of climate change. I also note how my emphasis on justice and responsibility raises two new issues. To conclude, I mention the role of ecological citizens in bringing about social change. (shrink)

This article presents evidence regarding aspects of the gendered nature of care women with gynaecological cancer receive from their (usually) male surgeons and oncologists in Australia. We argue that despite women’s general preference for female gynaecologists, those with a gynaecological cancer develop a strong therapeutic relationship with their male medical specialist, not extended to their (usually) female nurses and other allied health professionals. Given the highly sensitive and sexualized nature of gynaecological cancer, this requires explanation. These findings can be partly (...) explained by examining the division of labour between nurses and doctors, specifically issues of control over this process and the development of specializations. The findings also bring into stark relief the way in which power and status differences can be used by medicine to create a positive therapeutic relationship with patients while simultaneously de-eroticizing the intimate procedures necessary in assisting women throughout their cancer treatment. Importantly, this relationship also has relevance for policy makers, particularly those concerned with the highly gendered division of labour of the medical specialty workforce in Australia. (shrink)

This Article critiques the debate over the nature of rights on the grounds that theorists have failed to specify and defend an ultimate aim, predominantly deployed a standard of success–ext...