Georgetown University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2012
Enschede, Netherlands
  •  15
    The ethics of self-tracking. A comprehensive review of the literature
    with Michał Wieczorek, Fiachra O'Brolchain, and Bert Gordijn
    Ethics and Behavior 33 (4): 239-271. 2022.
    This paper presents a literature review on the ethics of self-tracking technologies which are utilized by users to monitor parameters related to their activity and bodily parameters. By examining a total of 65 works extracted through a systematic database search and backwards snowballing, the authors of this review discuss three categories of opportunities and ten categories of concerns currently associated with self-tracking. The former include empowerment and well-being, contribution to health…Read more
  •  1034
    The historical foundations of the research-practice distinction in bioethics
    Heoretical Medicine and Bioethics 33 (1): 45-56. 2012.
    The distinction between clinical research and clinical practice directs how we partition medicine and biomedical science. Reasons for a sharp distinction date historically to the work of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, especially to its analysis of the “boundaries” between research and practice in the Belmont Report (1978). Belmont presents a segregation model of the research-practice distinction, according to which research and…Read more
  •  51
    The Ethics of Public Health Nudges
    Dissertation, Georgetown University. 2012.
    There is growing interest in using non-coercive interventions to promote and protect public health, in particular "health nudges." Behavioral economist Richard Thaler and law scholar Cass Sunstein coined the term nudge to designate influences that steer individuals in a predetermined direction by activating their automatic cognitive processes, while preserving their freedom of choice. Proponents of nudges argue that public and private institutions are entitled to use health-promoting nudges beca…Read more
  •  38
    Nudging in interpersonal contexts
    American Journal of Bioethics 13 (6): 33-34. 2013.
    In “Nudging and Informed Consent,” ShlomoCohen (2013) attempts to address the common objection against nudges that they are autonomy-thwarting because they foster irrationality. He explicitly focuses on informed consent, which he contrasts with the policy context in which health nudges are usually discussed. I think Cohen’s rich article is a significant contribution to the nudge literature. However, I have some concerns with the way he frames and motivates his inquiry...
  •  41
    Internalized Public Moral Norms and Shared Sovereignty
    American Journal of Bioethics 11 (7). 2011.
    In her target article “Shared health governance” (AJOB 11(7): 32-45, 2011) and in her book Health and Social Justice (2009), Jennifer Prah Ruger defends an original model of governance dubbed “Shared Health Governance” (SHG). This model borrows elements from many other models of governance, and one may wonder what is the secret sauce that holds together these diverse ingredients. In response, Ruger would perhaps ultimately turn to public moral norms. My comment raises some concerns about the fun…Read more
  •  287
    Salvaging the concept of nudge: Table 1
    Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (8): 487-493. 2013.
    In recent years, ‘nudge’ theory has gained increasing attention for the design of population-wide health interventions. The concept of nudge puts a label on efficacious influences that preserve freedom of choice without engaging the influencees’ deliberative capacities. Given disagreements over what it takes genuinely to preserve freedom of choice, the question is whether health influences relying on automatic cognitive processes may preserve freedom of choice in a sufficiently robust sense to b…Read more
  •  100
    I warmly thank Richard Ashcroft, Luc Bovens, Gerald Dworkin, Brynn Welch, and Alan Wertheimer for their insightful comments on my article. As I do not have the space to discuss all the questions they raise, I will focus on four concerns that run through my commentators’ responses...