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40Rethinking the Ethics of Pandemic Rationing: Egalitarianism and Avoiding WrongsCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 31 (2): 247-255. 2022.This paper argues that we ought to rethink the harm-reduction prioritization strategy that has shaped early responses to acute resource scarcity (particularly of intensive care unit beds) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some authors have claimed that “[t]here are no egalitarians in a pandemic,” it is noted here that many observers and commentators have been deeply concerned about how prioritization policies that proceed on the basis of survival probability may unjustly distribute the burd…Read more
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33Anhedonia and the Affectively Scaffolded MindErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6. 2019.
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30A predictive processing theory of motivationSynthese 198 (5): 4493-4521. 2019.In this paper I propose minimal criteria for a successful theory of the mechanisms of motivation, and argue that extant philosophical accounts fail to meet them. Further, I argue that a predictive processing framework gives us the theoretical power to meet these criteria, and thus ought to be preferred over existing theories. The argument proceeds as follows—motivational mental states are generally understood as mental states with the power to initiate, guide, and control action, though few exis…Read more
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22Unweighted lotteries and compounding injustice: reply to Schmidt et alJournal of Medical Ethics 48 (2): 131-132. 2022.I argue that Schmidtet al, while correctly diagnosing the serious racial inequity in current ventilator rationing procedures, misidentify a corresponding racial inequity issue in alternative ‘unweighted lottery’ procedures. Unweighted lottery procedures do not ‘compound’ (in the relevant sense) prior structural injustices. However, Schmidtet aldo gesture towards a real problem with unweighted lotteries that previous advocates of lottery-based allocation procedures, myself included, have previous…Read more
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14Presuming incapacity in anorexia nervosa is indefensible: A reply to IpBioethics 35 (6): 596-601. 2021.Eric C. Ip has recently argued that seriously anorexic service users ought to be assumed to be legally incapacitous to refuse life‐saving artificial nutrition unless they can demonstrate otherwise, reversing the ordinary legal presumption in place to protect patients’ liberty and values. In this response, I argue against this proposal on two grounds. Firstly, the proposal is wrongfully discriminatory; it would expose service users to serious harm, and wrong them in numerous ways, on the basis of…Read more
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46Contributory injustice in psychiatryJournal of Medical Ethics 45 (2): 97-100. 2019.I explain the notion of contributory injustice, a kind of epistemic injustice, and argue that it occurs within psychiatric services, affecting those who hear voices. I argue that individual effort on the part of clinicians to avoid perpetrating this injustice is an insufficient response to the problem; mitigating the injustice will require open and meaningful dialogue between clinicians and service user organisations, as well as individuals. I suggest that clinicians must become familiar with an…Read more
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32On Grounds, Anchors, and Diseases: A Reply to GlackinPhilosophical Quarterly 71 (2): 428-437. 2021.Shane Glackin's 2019 Philosophical Quarterly article aims to offer a framework for understanding the philosophical debate about the nature of disease and utilise this framework to reply to several standard objections to normativist theories of disease. Specifically, Glackin claims his model avoids three central challenges to normativism, which we term the ‘Flippancy Problem’, ‘Repugnancy Problem’, and the ‘Explanatory Problem’. Although we find Glackin's framework helpful in clarifying the terra…Read more