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184Egalitarianism under Severe UncertaintyPhilosophy and Public Affairs 46 (3): 239-268. 2018.Decision-makers face severe uncertainty when they are not in a position to assign precise probabilities to all of the relevant possible outcomes of their actions. Such situations are common—novel medical treatments and policies addressing climate change are two examples. Many decision-makers respond to such uncertainty in a cautious manner and are willing to incur a cost to avoid it. There are good reasons for taking such an uncertainty-averse attitude to be permissible. However, little work has…Read more
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9Book review: Shlomi Segall, why inequality matters: luck egalitarianism, its meaning and value, Cambridge University Press, 2016, 256 + x pp., $99.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781107129818 (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2017.Shlomi Segall’s Why Inequality Matters contains many novel ideas. It should engage researchers with an interest in debates between luck egalitarians and two of their principal opponents, prioritarians and sufficientarians. While, as I shall argue below, not all of its arguments succeed, it also makes contributions which deserve to profoundly influence debates on distributive justice. I proceed as follows. In Section 1, I summarize the book’s central points; in Section 2, I evaluate some of its a…Read more
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346Universal 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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1552Making 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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578Why 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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56Making 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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1219Egalitarianism and the Separateness of PersonsUtilitas 24 (3): 381-398. 2012.The difference between the unity of the individual and the separateness of persons requires that there be a shift in the moral weight that we accord to changes in utility when we move from making intrapersonal tradeoffs to making interpersonal tradeoffs. We examine which forms of egalitarianism can, and which cannot, account for this shift. We argue that a form of egalitarianism which is concerned only with the extent of outcome inequality cannot account for this shift. We also argue that a view…Read more
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389Response to RabinIn Adam Oliver (ed.), Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press. 2013.This chapter analyses the behavioural economist Matthew Rabin's work on biases in decision-making. Rabin argues that these biases cause self-harm and that we should tax individuals to ensure that they do not give in to these biases. The chapter's core question is whether there is a soft-paternalistic justification for these taxes. The answer is nuanced. It argues that Rabin’s description of these biases as “irrational” is not always appropriate—sometimes, for example, they are merely a form of …Read more
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457The house that Jack builtThe Philosophers' Magazine 22 (22): 28-31. 2003.A critical overview of John ('Jack') Rawls' key ideas.
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1003How Much Ambiguity Aversion? Finding Indifferences between Ellsberg's Risky and Ambiguous BetsJournal of Risk and Uncertainty 45 (3): 215-38. 2012.Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the prin…Read more
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49Philippa FootThe Philosophers' Magazine 52 (1): 9-9. 2011.A short obituary of the philosopher Philippa Foot.
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1094Cómo tomar decisiones justas en el camino hacia la cobertura universal de saludPan-American Health Organization (PAHO). 2015.La cobertura universal de salud está en el centro de la acción actual para fortalecer los sistemas de salud y mejorar el nivel y la distribución de la salud y los servicios de salud. Este documento es el informe fi nal del Grupo Consultivo de la OMS sobre la Equidad y Cobertura Universal de Salud. Aquí se abordan los temas clave de la justicia (fairness) y la equidad que surgen en el camino hacia la cobertura universal de salud. Por lo tanto, el informe es pertinente para cada agente que infl uy…Read more
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255Is Poverty Our Problem? Introduction to the forum on world poverty and the duty of assistance.The Philosophers' Magazine 36 (4th qu): 46-49. 2006.This paper provides an introductory discussion of questions about three moral duties in the context of global poverty: the duty to aid; the duty not to harm; and the duty to promote just global institutions.
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643Erasmus: a snapshotThe Philosophers' Magazine 48 98-100. 2004.In the summer of 1514, Desiderius Erasmus (c.1467-1536) was beginning to establish his name as the leading humanist scholar of his age, when he was recalled to his monastery in his native Holland.
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407Security and the 'war on terror': a roundtableIn Julian Baggini & Jeremy Strangroom (eds.), What More Philosophers Think, Continuum. pp. 19-32. 2007.What is the appropriate legal response to terrorist threats? This question is discussed by politician Tony McWalter, The Philosophers' Magazine editor Julian Baggini, and philosophers Catherine Audard, Saladin Meckled-Garcia, and Alex Voorhoeve.
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312Prioriteit voor patienten met een lagere levenskwaliteitFilosofie En Praktijk 31 40-51. 2010.This paper critically analyses the priority-setting rules used by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in the UK and proposed by the Netherlands' Council on Public Health and Health Care (RVZ). It argues that neither gives proper weight to improving the lot of those who are worse off than others.
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117Scanlon on Substantive ResponsibilityJournal of Political Philosophy 16 (2): 184-200. 2007.I argue that Scanlon's Value of Choice View does not offer a plausible account of substantive responsibility. I offer a new account, which I call the Potential Value of Opportunities View. On this view, when a person is in a position to freely and capably make an informed choice, we assess her situation not by the outcome she achieves but by the potential value of her opportunities. This value depends on the value of the various things that she can achieve through her choices, as well as on how …Read more
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377Bernard MandevilleThe Philosophers' Magazine 20 53. 2002.A short account of the philosopher Bernard Mandeville's key ideas.
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360Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage: A PrecisHealth Economics, Policy and Law 11 (1): 71-77. 2016.We offer a summary of the WHO Report "Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage".
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117Heuristics 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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190Equality 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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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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485Three 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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1092How 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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769Review 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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1349Faire 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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601In 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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191Defending 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
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 |