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32982Public Goods and Government ActionPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 14 (2): 109-128. 2015.It is widely agreed that one of the core functions of government is to supply public goods that markets either fail to provide or cannot provide efficiently. I will suggest that arguments for government provision of public goods require fundamental moral judgments in addition to the usual economic considerations about the relative efficacy of markets and governments in supplying them. While philosophers and policymakers owe a debt of gratitude to economists for developing the theory of public go…Read more
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30194What's Wrong with Factory Farming?Public Health Ethics 8 (3): 246-254. 2015.Factory farming continues to grow around the world as a low-cost way of producing animal products for human consumption. However, many of the practices associated with intensive animal farming have been criticized by public health professionals and animal welfare advocates. The aim of this essay is to raise three independent moral concerns with factory farming, and to explain why the practices associated with factory farming flourish despite the cruelty inflicted on animals and the public health…Read more
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15077Defending Eugenics: From cryptic choice to conscious selectionMonash Bioethics Review 35 24-35. 2018.
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13373Public Goods and EducationIn Andrew I. Cohen (ed.), Philosophy and Public Policy, Rowman and Littlefield. 2018.
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9135What is an Epidemic?: Currents in Contemporary BioethicsJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 42 (3): 389-391. 2014.
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6412Race Research and the Ethics of BeliefJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 14 (2): 287-297. 2017.On most accounts, beliefs are supposed to fit the world rather than change it. But believing can have social consequences, since the beliefs we form underwrite our actions and impact our character. Because our beliefs affect how we live our lives and how we treat other people, it is surprising how little attention is usually given to the moral status of believing apart from its epistemic justification. In what follows, I develop a version of the harm principle that applies to beliefs as well as …Read more
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5391Ethics, Antibiotics, and Public PolicyGeorgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy 15 (2). 2017.
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5370Social Norms, The Invisible Hand, and the LawUniversity of Queensland Law Journal 33 (2). 2014.
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4595Can Liberalism Last? Demographic Demise and the Future of LiberalismSocial Philosophy and Policy 40 (2): 524-543. 2023.Liberal political institutions have been an enormous boon for humanity. The free market aspect of liberalism has led to an explosion of innovation, ranging from new kinds of technology and novel forms of entertainment to advances in science and medicine. The emphasis on individual rights at the core of liberalism has increased our ability to explore new ways of living and to construct an identity of our own choosing. But liberal political institutions around the world are facing two crises: low …Read more
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4303Antibiotics and Animal Agriculture: The need for global collective actionIn Michael Selgelid (ed.), Ethics and Antimicrobial Resistance, Oxford University Press. pp. 297-308. 2018.
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3599Combating Resistance: The Case for a Global Antibiotics TreatyPublic Health Ethics 3 (1): 13-22. 2010.
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3495Review of Scott Barrett, Why Cooperate? The Incentive to Supply Global Public Goods (review)Journal of Social Economics 36 (11). 2009.
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2999Personal Identity and Practical Reason: The Failure of Kantian Replies to ParfitDialogue 47 (2): 331-350. 2008.ABSTRACT: This essay examines and criticizes a set of Kantian objections to Parfit's attempt in Reasons and Persons to connect his theory of personal identity to practical rationality and moral philosophy. Several of Parfit's critics have tried to sever the link he forges between his metaphysical and practical conclusions by invoking the Kantian thought that even if we accept his metaphysical theory of personal identity, we still have good practical grounds for rejecting that theory when deliber…Read more
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2987Internal reasons and the ought-implies-can principlePhilosophical Forum 39 (4): 469-483. 2008.No Abstract
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2977Trust, Trade, and Moral ProgressSocial Philosophy and Policy 34 (2): 89-107. 2017.Abstract:Trust is important for a variety of social relationships. Trust facilitates trade, which increases prosperity and induces us to interact with people of different backgrounds on terms that benefit all parties. Trade promotes trustworthiness, which enables us to form meaningful as well as mutually beneficial relationships. In what follows, I argue that when we erect institutions that enhance trust and reward people who are worthy of trust, we create the conditions for a certain kind of mo…Read more
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2676Review of Allen Buchanan, Beyond Humanity? The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement (review)Bioethics 26 (7): 391-392. 2012.
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2522Race, Eugenics, and the HolocaustIn Ira Bedzow & Stacy Gallin (eds.), Bioethics and the Holocaust, Springer. pp. 153-170. 2022.
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2353The Ethics of Genetic Enhancement: Key Concepts and Future ProspectsIn Routledge Handbook on The Ethics of Human Enhancement, Routledge Press. pp. 143-151. 2023.
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2340Race, Genes, and the Ethics of Belief: A review of Nicholas Wade, A Troublesome Inheritance (review)Hastings Center Report 44 (5): 51-52. 2014.A Troublesome Inheritance, by Nicholas Wade, should be read by anyone interested in race and recent human evolution. Wade deserves credit for challenging the popular dogma that biological differences between groups either don't exist or cannot explain the relative success of different groups at different tasks. Wade's work should be read alongside another recent book, The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. Together, th…Read more
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2330Flesh Without Blood: The public health argument for synthetic meatJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 20 (3). 2023.
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2163Review of Brad Spellberg, Rising Plague: The Global Threat from Deadly Bacteria and Our Dwindling Arsenal to Fight Them (review)American Journal of Bioethics 10 (11): 39-41. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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1966Collective Action and Individual ChoiceJournal of Medical Ethics 39 (4): 752-756. 2013.Governments across the globe have squandered treasure and imprisoned millions of their own citizens by criminalising the use and sale of recreational drugs. But use of these drugs has remained relatively constant, and the primary victims are the users themselves. Meanwhile, antimicrobial drugs that once had the power to cure infections are losing their ability to do so, compromising the health of people around the world. The thesis of this essay is that policymakers should stop wasting resources…Read more
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1924Intensive Animal Agriculture and Human HealthIn Bob Fischer (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics, Routledge. 2019.
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1921Review of Derek Parfit, On What Matters (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (3): 358-360. 2013.
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1266Can ‘eugenics’ be defended?Monash Bioethics Review 39 (1): 60-67. 2021.In recent years, bioethical discourse around the topic of ‘genetic enhancement’ has become increasingly politicized. We fear there is too much focus on the semantic question of whether we should call particular practices and emerging bio-technologies such as CRISPR ‘eugenics’, rather than the more important question of how we should view them from the perspective of ethics and policy. Here, we address the question of whether ‘eugenics’ can be defended and how proponents and critics of enhancemen…Read more
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Duke UniversitySenior Lecturer
Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |