• The Place of Philosophy in Bioethics Today
    Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Sean Aas, Daniel Brudney, Jessica Flanigan, S. Matthew Liao, Alex John London, Wayne Sumner, and Julian Savulescu
    American Journal of Bioethics 22 (12): 10-21. 2021.
    In some views, philosophy’s glory days in bioethics are over. While philosophers were especially important in the early days of the field, so the argument goes, the majority of the work in bioethics today involves the “simple” application of existing philosophical principles or concepts, as well as empirical work in bioethics. Here, we address this view head on and ask: What is the role of philosophy in bioethics today? This paper has three specific aims: (1) to respond to skeptics and make the …Read more
  • You Didn't Build That: Equality and Productivity in a Complex Society
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (1): 69-88. 2019.
    This paper argues for Serious Distributive Egalitarianism – the view that some material inequalities are seriously objectionable as such; not merely, say, because such inequalities tend to generate inequalities in status. Social justice requires equality, I argue, because basic social institutions produce important goods and are produced in turn by the relevantly equal contributions of all those that comply with them. E.g., basic social institutions make it much easier to produce cooperatively t…Read more