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
Gratitude for What We are Owed (forthcoming), Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy
Under review
Gratitude and Demand
Explains why duties of gratitude don’t provide benefactors with the standing to demand gratitude from beneficiaries
The Indeterminacy of Imperfect Duties
Explains why imperfect duties’ indeterminacy is consistent with sometimes requiring particular actions
The Ethical Limits on Research Risks (with Dave Wendler)
Justifies limits on research risks for consenting adults by appealing to internal limits on the power of consent, written for a medical audience
In progress
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
Evidence, Alternatives, and the Prospect of Direct Benefit
Argues for an account of permissibly risky pediatric research in terms of risk-benefit ratios
Beneficence by Convention
Argues for a conventionalist account of duties of beneficence, contra consequentialist and orthodox Kantian accounts
Is It Ethical to Appeal to Research Participants’ Altruism? (with Alex Voorhoeve, Beth Kozel, and Dave Wendler)
Explores the conditions under which it is permissible to rely on research participants’ altruism by focusing on patients with Williams syndrome, who display higher levels of altruism than the general population
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
Public Perspectives on Compensation for Biospecimen Donation (with Xiaobai Li and Dave Wendler)
Investigates ethical views about compensation for biospecimen donation through the first empirical survey of the general public on the topic