Overview

I work on bioethics and normative ethics.

In bioethics, my work concerns the ethics of medical research with human subjects, and specifically the benefits and burdens of participating in medical research. It focuses especially on issues concerning risk, social value, compensation, and altruism. The questions I am working on include:

  • How much risk is it acceptable to impose on research participants?

  • What is the relation between risk limits for those who can and those who cannot provide consent?

  • When is it permissible to rely on participants’ altruism?

  • (How much) should human subjects be paid for participating in research?

  • Is there an obligation to participate in research?

  • What place do market norms have in the ethical conduct of research?

In normative ethics, I work on (1) the nature of imperfect duties and their role in interpersonal relationships, as well as (2) questions concerning risk impositions and consent. In previous work, I explored the relation between perfect and imperfect duties, defending a novel account of imperfect duties. In current and future research, I address questions including:

  • What explains the moral force of particular imperfect duties, such as beneficence and gratitude?

  • What role do imperfect duties play in developing personal relationships?

  • What role do conventional norms have in explaining the moral force of imperfect duties?

  • Do individuals have rights against being subjected to risks?

  • What is the relation between the capacity to consent and how much risk others can permissibly impose on individuals?

  • What kinds of risks can we permissibly impose on future generations?

Publications

Segal AE. Gratitude for What We are Owed, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2025.

Segal AE, Wendler D. The Normative Power of Consent and Limits on Research Risks, Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, 2024.

Under review

Segal AE. Gratitude and Demand

  • Explains why duties of gratitude don’t provide benefactors with the standing to demand gratitude from beneficiaries

Segal AE. The Indeterminacy of Imperfect Duties

  • Explains why imperfect duties’ indeterminacy is consistent with sometimes requiring particular actions

Segal AE, Wendler D. The Ethical Limits on Research Risks

  • Justifies limits on research risks for consenting adults by appealing to internal limits on the power of consent, written for a medical audience

Segal AE, Li X, Wendler D. Public Perspectives on Compensation for Biospecimen Donation

  • Investigates the public’s ethical views on profit sharing in research using biospecimens

Segal AE, Li X, Wendler D. The Impact of Compensation on Biospecimen Donors’ Attitudes, Motivations, and Willingness to Donate

  • Investigates the potential impacts on biospecimen donors of profit sharing in research using biospecimens

Segal AE, Hawkins J, Wendler D, Howard D. Supported Decision Making and the Inclusion of People who Lack Decisional Capacity in Greater than Minimal Risk Research

  • Explains why implementing supported decision making can improve clinical trials’ inclusion of people who lack decisional capacity

Hawkins J, Segal AE, Wendler D, Howard D. The Importance of Control: Replacing Surrogate Decision Making with Supported Decision Making for Minimal Risk Research

  • Argues that implementing supported decision making can diminish burdens of capacity assessment in minimal risk research

In progress

Segal AE. How to Exploit an Altruist

  • Explains how altruistic research participants can be exploited when there are inequalities of bargaining power between them and research institutions

Segal AE. Evidence, Alternatives, and the Prospect of Direct Benefit

  • Argues for an account of permissibly risky pediatric research in terms of risk-benefit ratios

Voorhoeve A, Segal AE, Wendler D. Altruism and Impaired Agency: The Case of Williams Syndrome

  • Argues that it is justifiable for researchers to appeal to research participants’ altruism, including when they lack decisional capacity

Segal AE, Earl J, Villa T, Rid A. Communicating Social Value

  • Argues that researchers should disclose the expected social value of their studies to prospective participants as part of the informed consent process

Segal AE. Making Trouble for the Right against Risk

  • Argues that “high risk” views of the right against risk are vulnerable to counterexamples, and thus that if there is a right against risk, it it not strictly a function of risks themselves