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340Universal Health Coverage, Priority Setting and the Human Right to Health.The Lancet 390 (10095): 712-14. 2017.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 …Read more
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1534Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health CoverageWorld Health Organisation. 2014.This report by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage addresses how countries can make fair progress towards the goal of universal coverage. It explains the relevant tradeoffs between different desirable ends and offers guidance on how to make these tradeoffs.
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565Why Health-Related Inequalities Matter and Which Ones DoIn Ole F. Norheim, Ezekiel J. Emanuel & Joseph Millum (eds.), Global Health Priority-Setting: Beyond Cost-Effectiveness, Oxford University Press. pp. 145-62. 2019.I outline and defend two egalitarian theories, which yield distinctive and, I argue, complementary answers to why health-related inequalities matter: a brute luck egalitarian view, according to which inequalities due to unchosen, differential luck are bad because unfair, and a social egalitarian view, according to which inequalities are bad when and because they undermine people’s status as equal citizens. These views identify different objects of egalitarian concern: the brute luck egalitarian …Read more
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55Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage: Applying Principles to Difficult CasesHealth Systems and Reform 3 (4): 1-12. 2017.Progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) requires making difficult trade-offs. In this journal, Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, has endorsed the principles for making such decisions put forward by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and UHC. These principles include maximizing population health, priority for the worse off, and shielding people from health-related financial risks. But how should one apply these principles in particular cases and how should one adjudicate bet…Read more
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116Heuristics and biases in a purported counter-example to the acyclicity of 'better than'Politics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (3): 285-299. 2008.Stuart Rachels and Larry Temkin have offered a purported counter-example to the acyclicity of the relationship 'all things considered better than'. This example invokes our intuitive preferences over pairs of alternatives involving a single person's painful experiences of varying intensity and duration. These preferences, Rachels and Temkin claim, are confidently held, entirely reasonable, and cyclical. They conclude that we should drop acyclicity as a requirement of rationality. I argue that, t…Read more
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186Equality of opportunity and opportunity dominanceEconomics and Philosophy 20 (1): 117-145. 2004.All conceptions of equal opportunity draw on some distinction between morally justified and unjustified inequalities. We discuss how this distinction varies across a range of philosophical positions. We find that these positions often advance equality of opportunity in tandem with distributive principles based on merit, desert, consequentialist criteria or individuals' responsibility for outcomes. The result of this amalgam of principles is a festering controversy that unnecessarily diminishes t…Read more
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445Three Case Studies in Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health CoverageHealth and Human Rights 18 (2): 11-22. 2016.The goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) can generally be realized only in stages. Moreover, resource, capacity and political constraints mean governments often face difficult trade-offs on the path to UHC. In a 2014 report, Making fair choices on the path to UHC, the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage articulated principles for making such trade-offs in an equitable manner. We present three case studies which illustrate how these principles can guide pr…Read more
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11The limits of autonomyThe Philosophers' Magazine 46 78-82. 2009.Brian Barry believed liberals should not follow Mill in appealing to the value of autonomy in order to justify liberal rights. Barry believed the basic liberal aim was to find social and political institutions that could be justified to citizens who held differing views about the good life as a fair way of adjudicating between these citizens’ conflicting interests and conceptions of the good.
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1079How Should We Aggregate Competing ClaimsEthics 125 (1): 64-87. 2014.Many believe that we ought to save a large number from being permanently bedridden rather than save one from death. Many also believe that we ought to save one from death rather than a multitude from a very minor harm, no matter how large this multitude. I argue that a principle I call “Aggregate Relevant Claims” satisfactorily explains these judgments. I offer a rationale for this principle and defend it against objections.
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750Review of Matthew D. Adler: Well-Being and Fair Distribution. Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis (review)Social Choice and Welfare 42 (1): 245-54. 2014.In this extended book review, I summarize Adler's views and critically analyze his key arguments on the measurement of well-being and the foundations of prioritarianism.
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1333Faire Des Choix Justes Pour Une Couverture Sanitaire UniverselleWorld Health Organization. 2015.This report from the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage offers advice on how to make progress fairly towards universal health coverage.
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574In search of the deep structure of morality: an interview with Frances KammImprints 9 (2): 93-117. 2006.An extended discussion with Frances Kamm about deontology and the methodology of ethical theorizing. (An extended and revised version appears in Alex Voorhoeve, Conversations on Ethics, OUP 2009).)
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160A mistrustful animal: Bernard Williams interviewedHarvard Review of Philosophy 12 (1): 81-92. 2004.A discussion with Bernard Williams about main themes in his work. (Note: a version of this interview appears in 'Conversations on Ethics' (OUP, 2009).)
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188Defending transitivity against zeno’s paradoxPhilosophy and Public Affairs 31 (3). 2003.This article criticises one of Stuart Rachels' and Larry Temkin's arguments against the transitivity of 'better than'. This argument invokes our intuitions about our preferences of different bundles of pleasurable or painful experiences of varying intensity and duration, which, it is argued, will typically be intransitive. This article defends the transitivity of 'better than' by showing that Rachels and Temkin are mistaken to suppose that preferences satisfying their assumptions must be intrans…Read more
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439May a Government Mandate More Comprehensive Health Insurance than Citizens Want for Themselves?In David Sobel, Peter Vallentyne & Steven Wall (eds.), Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Vol 4, Oxford University Press. pp. 167-191. 2018.I critically examine a common liberal egalitarian view about the justification for, and proper content of, mandatory health insurance. This view holds that a mandate is justified because it is the best way to ensure that those in poor health gain health insurance on equitable terms. It also holds that a government should mandate what a representative prudent individual would purchase for themselves if they were placed in fair conditions of choice. I argue that this common justification for a man…Read more
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173The grammar of goodness: an interview with Philippa FootHarvard Review of Philosophy 11 32-44. 2003.An interview with Philippa Foot about her book 'Natural Goodness' and the development of her thought. (Note: A slightly revised version appears in Conversations on Ethics, OUP 2009).
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429Balancing small against large burdensBehavioural Public Policy 2 (1): 125-142. 2018.Common principles for resource allocation in health care can prioritize the alleviation of small health burdens over lifesaving treatment. I argue that there is some evidence that these principles are at odds with a sizable share of public opinion, which holds that saving a life should take priority over any number of cures for minor ailments. I propose two possible explanations for this opinion, one debunking and one vindicatory. I also outline how well-designed surveys and moral inquiry could …Read more
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510Preference Change and Interpersonal Comparisons of WelfareIn Serena Olsaretti (ed.), Preferences and Well-Being, Cambridge University Press. pp. 265-79. 2006.Can a preference-based conception of welfare accommodate changes in people's preferences? I argue that the fact that people care about which preferences they have, and the fact that people can change their preferences about which preferences it is good for them to have, together undermine the case for accepting a preference-satisfaction conception of welfare.
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471Similarity and the trustworthiness of distributive judgementsEconomics and Philosophy 35 (3): 537-561. 2019.When people must either save a greater number of people from a smaller harm or a smaller number from a greater harm, do their choices reflect a reasonable moral outlook? We pursue this question with the help of an experiment. In our experiment, two-fifths of subjects employ a similarity heuristic. When alternatives appear dissimilar in terms of the number saved but similar in terms of the magnitude of harm prevented, this heuristic mandates saving the greater number. In our experiment, this lead…Read more
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135Harry Frankfurt on the necessity of lovePhilosophical Writings 23 55-70. 2003.An conversation with Harry Frankfurt about his views on love, free will, and responsibility, as well as his general approach to philosophy. (Note: a revised version appears in Alex Voorhoeve, Conversations on Ethics, OUP 2009).
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240Reply to CrispUtilitas 23 (1): 109-114. 2011.In 'Why It Matters that Some Are Worse off than Others,' we offer a new critique of the Priority View. In a recent article, Roger Crisp has argued that our critique is flawed. In this reply, we show that Crisp fails to grapple with, much less defeat, the central claim of our critique. We also show that an example that Crisp offers in support of the Priority View in fact lends support to our critique of that view.
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785Vaulting Intuition: Temkin's Critique of TransitivityEconomics and Philosophy 29 (3): 409-425. 2013.In 'Rethinking the Good', Larry Temkin makes two core claims. First, the goodness of a distribution is sometimes ‘essentially comparative’ – it sometimes depends on which alternative distribution(s) it is compared to. Second, such cases threaten the transitivity of ‘all things considered better than’. I argue that the goodness of a distribution may indeed depend on what other distributions are feasible. But contrary to Temkin, I also argue that transitivity holds even when the goodness of a dis…Read more
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1160Who Am I? Beyond 'I Think, Therefore I Am'Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1234 (1): 134-148. 2011.Can we ever truly answer the question, “Who am I?” Moderated by Alex Voorhoeve (London School of Economics), neuro-philosopher Elie During (University of Paris, Ouest Nanterre), cognitive scientist David Jopling (York University, Canada), social psychologist Timothy Wilson (University of Virginia),and ethicist Frances Kamm (Harvard University) examine the difficulty of achieving genuine self-knowledge and how the pursuit of self-knowledge plays a role in shaping the self.
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528Introduction to the Symposium on Equality versus PriorityEconomics and Philosophy 31 (2): 201-202. 2015.This paper introduces a symposium on Equality versus Priority. It explains how cases involving risk are key to distinguishing these views and discusses a 'social egalitarian' critique of both 'telic egalitarians' and 'telic prioritarians'.
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313Response to Our CriticsHealth Economics, Policy and Law 11 (1): 103-111. 2016.We reply to critics of the World Health Organisation's Report "Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage". We clarify and defend the report's key moral commitments. We also explain its role in guiding policy in the face of both financial and political constraints on making fair choices.
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768Equality versus PriorityIn Serena Olsaretti (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Distributive Justice, Oxford University Press. pp. 65-85. 2018.We discuss two leading theories of distributive justice: egalitarianism and prioritarianism. We argue that while each has particular merits and shortcomings, egalitarian views more fully satisfy a key requirement of distributive justice: respect for both the unity of the individual and the separateness of persons.
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64John RawlsIn Julian Baggini & Jeremy Stangroom (eds.), The Great Thinkers A-Z, Continuum. pp. 199-201. 2004.The political and philosophical problems John Rawls set out to solve arise out of the identity and conflicts of interests between citizens. There is identity of interests because social cooperation makes possible for everyone a life that is much better than one outside of society. There is a conflict of interests because people all prefer a larger to a smaller share of the benefits of social cooperation, and people have ideological differences. The problem a theory of justice has to solve is how…Read more
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182Conversations on ethicsOxford University Press. 2009.Can we trust our intuitive judgments of right and wrong? Are moral judgements objective? What reason do we have to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong? In Conversations on Ethics, Alex Voorhoeve elicits answers to these questions from eleven outstanding philosophers and social scientists: -/- Ken Binmore; Philippa Foot; Harry Frankfurt; Allan Gibbard; Daniel Kahneman; Frances Kamm; Alasdair MacIntyre; T. M. Scanlon; Peter Singer; David Velleman; Bernard Williams. -/- The exchanges ar…Read more
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50Inequalities in HIV Care: Chances Versus OutcomesAmerican Journal of Bioethics 11 (12): 42-44. 2011.We analyse three moral dilemmas involving resource allocation in care for HIV-positive patients. Ole Norheim and Kjell Arne Johansson have argued that these cases reveal a tension between egalitarian concerns and concerns for better population health. We argue, by contrast, that these cases reveal a tension between, on the one hand, a concern for equal *chances*, and, on the other hand, both a concern for better health and an egalitarian concern for equal *outcomes*. We conclude that, in these c…Read more
London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Epicurus |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
Economics |