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"Anomaly, Jonathan"
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What is public health? public goods, publicized goods, and the conversion problem
Public health programs began as an attempt to fight infectious diseases that are difficult to address without collective action. But the concept and practice of public health has ballooned to encompass an expanding list of controversial public policy goals ranging from reducing obesity to raising self-esteem. As the list of controversial goals expands, support for “public health” measures contracts. I’ll briefly defend the view that we should define public health as the provision of health-related public goods. I’ll then show that being a health-related public good is not a sufficient condition for counting as a public health goal, since virtually any private good can be converted into a public good by government fiat. This is the conversion problem, which challenges the way we ordinarily think about public goods and public health.
Journal Article
The Future of Phage: Ethical Challenges of Using Phage Therapy to Treat Bacterial Infections
For over a century, scientists have run experiments using phage viruses to treat bacterial infections. Until recently, the results were inconclusive because the mechanisms viruses use to attack bacteria were poorly understood. With the development of molecular biology, scientists now have a better sense of how phage work, and how they can be used to target infections. As resistance to traditional antibiotics continues to spread around the world, there is a moral imperative to facilitate research into phage therapy as an alternative treatment. This essay reviews ethical questions raised by phage therapy, and discusses regulatory challenges associated with phage research, and phage treatments.
Journal Article
What's Wrong With Factory Farming?
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 risks imposed on people. I conclude that the costs of factory farming as it is currently practiced far outweigh the benefits, and offer a few suggestions for how to improve the situation for animals and people.
Journal Article
TRUST, TRADE, AND MORAL PROGRESS: HOW MARKET EXCHANGE PROMOTES TRUSTWORTHINESS
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 moral progress.
Journal Article
CAN LIBERALISM LAST? DEMOGRAPHIC DEMISE AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM
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 fertility and declining social trust. In particular, liberalism’s focus on individual liberty rather than group cohesion can increase economic productivity by encouraging the free movement of people and capital, but this movement is associated with declines in social cohesion and fertility. In this essay, we highlight some challenges to the long-term evolutionary stability of liberalism. In other words, we raise the question: Can liberalism last?
Journal Article
GENE EDITING: MEDICINE OR ENHANCEMENT?
In this paper we will discuss the status of gene editing technologies like CRISPR. We will examine whether this technology should be considered a form of enhancement, or if CRISPR is merely a medical technology analogous to many of the common medical interventions of today. The importance of this discussion arises from the enormous potential of CRISPR to increase human health and welfare. If we interrupt or delay its investigation and implementation based on misconceptions about its nature and consequences, we may fail to achieve great benefits. Clarifying what CRISPR is and how it compares to other medical procedures should create the right environment to discuss its development and introduction in society. We argue that gene editing is both a conventional medical technology and a potential human enhancer. It is important to separate these different applications. Just as in the cloning debate, it is possible to sort out therapeutic gene editing from enhancement gene editing in considering regulation or policy.
Journal Article
An internalist theory of practical reasons
\"An Internalist Theory of Practical Reasons\" is a qualified defense of Bernard Williams' claim that some motivational element, or \"desire\" in the broadest sense, is a necessary condition of reasons for action. The dissertation has two main parts. In the first part I narrow down Williams' internalist theory by giving it a specific interpretation, and by explaining how and why so many of his critics have misinterpreted it (this involves developing a twelve part classification of contemporary theories which fall under the rubric of \"internalism,\" but which are logically independent of one another). I then identify and explicate Williams' two main arguments against externalism: that external reasons claims lack explanatory power, and that they violate the ought-implies-can principle. Before defending internalism against challenges by neo-Aristotelian and value-based accounts of practical reasons, I develop a more robust version of Williams' theory. In the second part of the dissertation I begin by distinguishing internalist from instrumental theories of reasons. I then provisionally defend an instrumental theory by showing how, despite common objections, instrumentalists can provide a non-instrumental justification for adherence to principles that are constitutive of rationality, and are thus presupposed by the existence of reasons. Examples of such principles include the requirements that preference orderings be transitive and complete. Finally, I argue that internalists but not instrumentalists have the conceptual resources to acknowledge an important class of norm-based, non-teleological reasons which explain why many people contribute to the production of collective goods, even when the costs of contribution exceed the expected benefits. I conclude that internalism shares many of the theoretical virtues of instrumentalism, but that it lacks its principal vices.
Dissertation
Response to \Heroin usage on rise in Durham\
[...]while the author of the article is simply reporting on changing patterns of use, economics can help us explain why more people are turning to heroin than prescription opioids.
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