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25Philosophy 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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114Standing 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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11Non-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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421The 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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15The 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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5Unconscionability and ContractsBusiness Ethics Quarterly 2 (4): 479-496. 1992.This article considers the principles that underlie the claim that some contracts are unconscionable and that such contracts should not be enforceable. It argues that it is much more difficult to explain unconscionability than is often supposed, particularly in cases where the contract is mutually advantageous or Pareto superior. Among other things, the article considers whether unconscionability is a defect in process or result, whether the gains in an unconscionable contract are disproportiona…Read more
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20The Ethics of Consent: Theory and Practice (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2010.This book assembles the contributions of a distinguished group of scholars concerning the ethics of consent in theory and practice.
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12The Exploitation of Student AthletesIn William John Morgan (ed.), Ethics in Sport, Human Kinetics. pp. 2--365. 2007.
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14Consent to Sexual RelationsLaw and Philosophy 25 (2): 267-287. 2003.When does a woman give valid consent to sexual relations? When does her consent render it morally or legally permissible for a man to have sexual relations with her? Why is sexual consent generally regarded as an issue about female consent? And what is the moral significance of consent? These are some of the questions discussed in this important book, which will appeal to a wide readership in philosophy, law, and the social sciences. Alan Wertheimer develops a theory of consent to sexual relatio…Read more
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13Punishing the innocent — unintentionallyInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 20 (1-4). 1977.The intentional punishment of the innocent is ordinarily claimed to be a special problem for utilitarian theories of punishment. The unintentional punishment of the innocent is a problem for any theory of punishment which holds that the guilty should be punished. This paper examines the criteria that are relevant to a determination of the appropriate probability of punishment mistakes for a society, and argues that this is the kind of moral problem for which utilitarian judgments, as opposed to …Read more
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6Money, coercion, and undue inducement: attitudes about payments to research participantsIRB: Ethics & Human Research 34 (1): 1-8. 2012.Using payment to recruit research subjects is a common practice, but it raises ethical concerns that coercion or undue inducement could potentially compromise participants’ informed consent. This is the first national study to explore the attitudes of IRB members and other human subjects protection professionals concerning whether payment of research participants constitutes coercion or undue influence, and if so, why. The majority of respondents expressed concern that payment of any amount migh…Read more
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7Fourteen. Morality, intentionality, and freedomIn Coercion, Princeton University Press. pp. 242-266. 1990.
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34The Social Value Requirement ReconsideredBioethics 29 (5): 301-308. 2014.It is widely assumed that it is ethical to conduct research with human subjects only if the research has social value. There are two standard arguments for this view. The allocation argument claims that public funds should not be devoted to research that lacks social value. The exploitation avoidance argument claims that subjects are exploited if research has no social value. The primary purpose of this article is to argue that these arguments do not succeed. The allocation argument has little r…Read more
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22ExploitationPrinceton University Press. 1996.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 ...
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