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1602How (Not) to Argue for the Rule of Rescue. Claims of Individuals versus Group SolidarityIn Gohen Glen, Daniels Norman & Eyal Nir (eds.), Identified versus Statistical Victims. An Interdisciplinary Perspective., Oxford University Press. pp. 137-149. 2015.The rule of rescue holds that special weight should be given to protecting the lives of assignable individuals in need, implying that less weight is given to considerations of cost-effectiveness. This is sometimes invoked as an argument for funding or reimbursing life-saving treatment in public healthcare even if the costs of such treatment are extreme. At first sight one might assume that an individualist approach to ethics—such as Scanlon’s contractualism—would offer a promising route to justi…Read more
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957Curiosity and Responsibility. Philosophy in relation to healthy food and living conditionsWageningen University. 2014.The curious philosopher often answers questions by raising further, more fundamental questions. How can this be fruitful and practical in the context of Wageningen University? Philosophy offers critical reflection on conceptual and normative assumptions in science and society, and that is necessary for responsible practices. I illustrate this by analyzing the concept of quality of life – a key value in the mission of our university – and by questioning current debates about responsibility for he…Read more
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455Stakeholder Dialogue as Agonistic Deliberation: Exploring the Role of Conflict and Self-Interest in Business-NGO InteractionBusiness Ethics Quarterly 30 (1): 3-30. 2020.ABSTRACT:Many companies engage in dialogue with nongovernmental organizations about societal issues. The question is what a regulative ideal for such dialogues should be. In the literature on corporate social responsibility, the Habermasian notion of communicative action is often presented as a regulative ideal for stakeholder dialogue, implying that actors should aim at consensus and set strategic considerations aside. In this article, we argue that in many cases, communicative action is not a …Read more
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385Injustice in Food-Related Public Health Problems: A Matter of Corporate ResponsibilityBusiness Ethics Quarterly 30 (3): 388-413. 2020.ABSTRACTThe responsibility of the food and beverage industry for noncommunicable diseases is a controversial topic. Public health scholars identify the food and beverage industry as one of the main contributors to the rise of these diseases. We argue that aside from moral duties like not doing harm and respecting consumer autonomy, the food industry also has a responsibility for addressing the structural injustices involved in food-related health problems. Drawing on the work of Iris Marion Youn…Read more
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311Understanding political responsibility in corporate citizenship: towards a shared responsibility for the common goodJournal of Global Ethics 13 (1): 90-108. 2017.ABSTRACTIn this article, we explore the debate on corporate citizenship and the role of business in global governance. In the debate on political corporate social responsibility it is assumed that under globalization business is taking up a greater political role. Apart from economic responsibilities firms assume political responsibilities taking up traditional governmental tasks such as regulation of business and provision of public goods. We contrast this with a subsidiarity-based approach to …Read more
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257Ethical Promises and Pitfalls of OneHealthPublic Health Ethics 9 (1): 1-4. 2016.Emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, Hendra, SARS, West Nile, Hepatitis E and avian influenza have led to a renewed recognition of how diseases in human beings, wildlife and livestock are interlinked. The changing prevalence and spread of such infections are largely determined by human activities and changes in environment and climate—where the latter are often also caused by human activities. Since the beginning of the 21st century, these insights have been brought together under the hea…Read more
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242Food Vendor Beware! On Ordinary Morality and Unhealthy MarketingFood Ethics 5 (1): 1-21. 2019.Food and beverage firms are frequently criticised for their impact on the spread of non-communicable diseases like obesity and diabetes type 2. In this article we explore under what conditions the sales and marketing of unhealthy food and beverage products is irresponsible. Starting from the notion of ordinary morality we argue that firms have a duty to respect people’s autonomy and adhere to the principle of non-maleficence in both market and non-market environments. We show how these considera…Read more
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187Solidarity: a Moral Concept in Need of Clarification (editorial)Public Health Ethics 5 (1): 1--5. 2012.
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167Moral principles for allocating scarce medical resources in an influenza pandemicJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 6 (2): 159--169. 2009.One of the societal problems in a new influenza pandemic will be how to use the scarce medical resources that are available for prevention and treatment, and what medical, epidemiological and ethical justifications can be given for the choices that have to be made. Many things may become scarce: personal protective equipment, antiviral drugs, hospital beds, mechanical ventilation, vaccination, etc. In this paper I discuss two general ethical principles for priority setting (utility and equity) a…Read more
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79Public Health and Legitimacy: Or Why There is Still a Place for Substantive Work in EthicsPublic Health Ethics 7 (2): 95-97. 2014.
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75Nudges in Public Health: Paternalism Is ParamountAmerican Journal of Bioethics 12 (2): 16-17. 2012.The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 16-17, February 2012
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74Donor blood screening and moral responsibility: how safe should blood be?Journal of Medical Ethics 44 (3): 187-191. 2018.Some screening tests for donor blood that are used by blood services to prevent transfusion-transmission of infectious diseases offer relatively few health benefits for the resources spent on them. Can good ethical arguments be provided for employing these tests nonetheless? This paper discusses—and ultimately rejects—three such arguments. According to the ‘rule of rescue’ argument, general standards for cost-effectiveness in healthcare may be ignored when rescuing identifiable individuals. The …Read more
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71Moral assessment of growth hormone therapy for children with idiopathic short statureJournal of Medical Ethics 23 (5): 305-309. 1997.The prescription of growth hormone therapy for children who are not growth hormone deficient is one of the controversies in contemporary paediatric endocrinology. Is it morally appropriate to enhance the growth, by means of medical treatment, of a child wish idiopathic short stature? The medical, moral, and philosophical questions in this area are many. Data on the effects of human growth hormone (hGH) treatment will not on their own provide us with answers, as these effects have to be evaluated…Read more
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67Obligatory precautions against infectionBioethics 19 (4). 2005.ABSTRACT If we have a duty not to infect others, how far does it go? This question is often discussed with respect to HIV transmission, but reflection on other diseases like influenza raises a number of interesting theoretical issues. I argue that a duty to avoid infection not only yields requirements for persons who know they carry a disease, but also for persons who know they are at increased risk, and even for those who definitely know they are completely healthy. Given the numerous ways in w…Read more
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66Ethics, Prevention, and Public Health (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2009.In these twelve papers notable ethicists use the resources of ethical theory to illuminate important theoretical and practical topics, including the nature of public health, notions of community, population bioethics, the legitimate role of law, the use of cost-effectiveness as a methodology, vaccinations, and the nature of infectious disease.
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57The Precautionary Principle and the Tolerability of Blood Transfusion RisksAmerican Journal of Bioethics 17 (3): 32-43. 2017.Tolerance for blood transfusion risks is very low, as evidenced by the implementation of expensive blood tests and the rejection of gay men as blood donors. Is this low risk tolerance supported by the precautionary principle, as defenders of such policies claim? We discuss three constraints on applying the precautionary principle and show that respecting these implies tolerating certain risks. Consistency means that the precautionary principle cannot prescribe precautions that it must simultaneo…Read more
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52BACKGROUND: The availability of costly safety measures against transfusion-transmissible infections forces Western countries to confront difficult ethical questions. How to decide about implementing such measures? When are such decisions justified? As a preliminary to addressing these questions, we assessed which concerns shape actual donor blood safety policymaking in five Western countries. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Our qualitative study involved determining which issues had been discussed in …Read more
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47Health inequities in times of a pandemicPublic Health Ethics 2 (3): 207-209. 2009.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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45No Smoke Without Fire: Harm Reduction, E-Cigarettes and the Smoking EndgamePublic Health Ethics 10 (1): 1-4. 2017.
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44Medicalization as a moral problem for preventive medicineBioethics 13 (2). 1999.Preventive medicine is sometimes criticised as it contributes to medicalization of normal life. The concept ‘medicalization’ has been introduced by Zola to refer to processes in which the labels ‘healthy’ and ‘ill’ are made relevant for more and more aspects of human life. If preventive medicine contributes to medicalization, would that be morally problematic? My thesis is that such a contribution is indeed morally problematic. The concept is sometimes used to express moral intuitions regarding …Read more
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42Nudging is considered a promising approach for behavioural change. At the same time, nudging has raised ethical concerns, specifically in relation to the impact of nudges on autonomous choice. A complexity is that in this debate authors may appeal to different understandings or dimensions of autonomy. Clarifying the different conceptualisations of autonomy in ethical debates around nudging would help to advance our understanding of the ethics of nudging. A literature review of these consideratio…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |