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57Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1980.This book's thirty essays explore philosophically the nature and morality of sexual perversion, cybersex, masturbation, homosexuality, contraception, same-sex marriage, promiscuity, pedophilia, date rape, sexual objectification, teacher-student relationships, pornography, and prostitution. Authors include Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Alan Goldman, John Finnis, Sallie Tisdale, Robin West, Alan Wertheimer, John Corvino, Cheshire Calhoun, Jerome Neu, and Alan Soble, among others. A valuable resou…Read more
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25ExploitationPrinceton University Press. 1996.What is the basis for arguing that a volunteer army exploits citizens who lack civilian career opportunities? How do we determine that a doctor who has sex with his patients is exploiting them? In this book, Alan Wertheimer seeks to identify when a transaction or relationship can be properly regarded as exploitative--and not oppressive, manipulative, or morally deficient in some other way--and explores the moral weight of taking unfair advantage. Among the first political philosophers to examine…Read more
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709Standing by our principles: Meaningful guidance, moral foundations, and multi-principle methodology in medical scarcityAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (4). 2010.In this short response to Kerstein and Bognar, we clarify three aspects of the complete lives system, which we propose as a system of allocating scarce medical interventions. We argue that the complete lives system provides meaningful guidance even though it does not provide an algorithm. We also defend the investment modification to the complete lives system, which prioritizes adolescents and older children over younger children; argue that sickest-first allocation remains flawed when scarcity …Read more
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29Non-completion and informed consentJournal of Medical Ethics 40 (2): 127-130. 2014.There is a good deal of biomedical research that does not produce scientifically useful data because it fails to recruit a sufficient number of subjects. This fact is typically not disclosed to prospective subjects. In general, the guidance about consent concerns the information required to make intelligent self-interested decisions and ignores some of the information required for intelligent altruistic decisions. Bioethics has worried about the ‘therapeutic misconception’, but has ignored the ‘…Read more
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415The Obligation to Participate in Biomedical ResearchJournal of the American Medical Association 302 (1): 67-72. 2009.The current prevailing view is that participation in biomedical research is above and beyond the call of duty. While some commentators have offered reasons against this, we propose a novel public goods argument for an obligation to participate in biomedical research. Biomedical knowledge is a public good, available to any individual even if that individual does not contribute to it. Participation in research is a critical way to support an important public good. Consequently, all have a duty to …Read more
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4On Being Freeby BergmannFrithjof. South Bend, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977. Pp. 238. $10.00Political Theory 6 (4): 561-564. 1978.
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158The fair transaction model of informed consent: An alternative to autonomous authorizationKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 21 (3): 201-218. 2011.Prevailing ethical thinking about informed consent to clinical research is characterized by theoretical confidence and practical disquiet. On the one hand, bioethicists are confident that informed consent is a fundamental norm. And, for the most part, they are confident that what makes consent to research valid is that it constitutes an autonomous authorization by the research participant. On the other hand, bioethicists are uneasy about the quality of consent in practice. One major source of th…Read more
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49Freedom, morality, plea bargaining, and the supreme courtPhilosophy and Public Affairs 8 (3): 203-234. 1979.
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31Three. Torts: Assumed risk and informed consentIn Coercion, Princeton University Press. pp. 54-70. 1990.
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72No Exceptionalism Needed to Treat TerroristsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 9 (10): 53-54. 2009.Gesundheit and colleagues offer dramatic examples of the medical treatment of terrorists but then pose the suggestion that those who engage in terrorism forfeit their right to medical care, and, consequently, that physicians have no obligation to treat them. Their argument presupposes that a physician’s obligation to provide medical care depends on the patients’ right to health care. Therefore, someone who commits heinous and abhorrent acts thereby waives the right to health care and the phy…Read more
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10Eight. Duress and necessity as defenses in the criminal lawIn Coercion, Princeton University Press. pp. 144-169. 1990.
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45Reevaluating the Right to Withdraw From Research Without PenaltyAmerican Journal of Bioethics 11 (4): 14-16. 2011.In “Assessing the Remedy: The Case for Contracts in Clinical Trials,” Sarah Edwards (2011) proposes that research participants acquire contractual obligations to investigators, thus opening the doo...
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1Internal disagreements: Deliberation and abortionIn Stephen Macedo (ed.), Deliberative politics: essays on democracy and disagreement, Oxford University Press. pp. 175. 1999.
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71Voluntary Consent: Why a Value-Neutral Concept Won't WorkJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (3): 226-254. 2012.Some maintain that voluntariness is a value-neutral concept. On that view, someone acts involuntarily if subject to a controlling influence or has no acceptable alternatives. I argue that a value-neutral conception of voluntariness cannot explain when and why consent is invalid and that we need a moralized account of voluntariness. On that view, most concerns about the voluntariness of consent to participate in research are not well founded
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11Fifteen. From coercive proposals to coercionIn Coercion, Princeton University Press. pp. 267-286. 1990.
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72When and Why Is Research without Consent Permissible?Hastings Center Report 46 (2): 35-43. 2016.The view that research with competent adults requires valid consent to be ethical perhaps finds its clearest expression in the Nuremberg Code, whose famous first principle asserts that “the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.” In a similar vein, the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.” Yet although some formulations of the consent p…Read more
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84There are (STILL) no coercive offersJournal of Medical Ethics 40 (9): 592-593. 2014.John McMillan's article raises numerous important points about the ethics of surgical castration of sex offenders.1 In this commentary, we focus solely on and argue against the claim that the offer of release from detention conditional upon surgical castration is a coercive offer that compromises the validity of the offender's consent. We take no view on the question as to whether castration for sex offenders is ethically permissible. But, we reject the claim that it is ethically permissible onl…Read more
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54Rethinking the ethics of clinical research: widening the lensOxford University Press. 2011.Introduction -- Facing up to paternalism in research ethics -- Preface to a theory of consent transactions in research : beyond valid consent -- Should we worry about money? -- Exploitation in clinical research -- The interaction principle.