142 research outputs found
Flesh Without Blood: The Public Health Benefits of Lab‐Grown Meat
No full textSynthetic meat made from animal cells will transform how we eat. It will reduce suffering by eliminating the need to raise and slaughter animals. But it will also have big public health benefits if it becomes widely consumed. In this paper, we discuss how "clean meat" can reduce the risks associated with intensive animal farming, including antibiotic resistance, environmental pollution, and zoonotic viral diseases like influenza and coronavirus. Since the most common objection to clean meat is that some people find it "disgusting" or "unnatural," we explore the psychology of disgust to find possible counter-measures. We argue that the public health benefits of clean meat give us strong moral reasons to promote its development and consumption in a way that the public is likely to support. We end by depicting the change from farmed animals to clean meat as a collective action problem and suggest that social norms rather than coercive laws should be employed to solve the problem.</p
Is obesity a public health problem?
No full textIt is often claimed that there is an obesity epidemic in affluent countries, and that obesity is one of the most serious public health problems in the developed world. I will argue that obesity is not an 'epidemic' in any useful sense of the word, and that classifying it as a public health problem requires us to make fairly controversial moral and empirical assumptions. While epidemiological evidence suggests that the prevalence of obesity is on the rise and can lead to serious health problems ranging from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, this does not by itself show that obesity is a public health problem. © 2012 The Author 2012
ARTICLES Harm to Others: The Social Cost of Antibiotics in Agriculture
No full textAbstract It has become increasingly clear that the use of antibiotics in conventionally raised livestock contributes to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In this paper, I argue that the harm principle of classical liberalism should guide agricultural policy in general, and the regulation of antibiotics in livestock in particular. After developing an interpretation of the harm principle, and framing the choice to produce and consume animals treated with antibiotics as a classic prisoner’s dilemma, I consider some policy responses to the problem, including a ban on the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics
What's wrong with factory farming?
No full text© The Author 2014.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
Public health and public goods
No full textIt has become increasingly difficult to distinguish public health (and public health ethics) from tangentially related fields like social work. I argue that we should reclaim the more traditional conception of public health as the provision of health-related public goods. The public goods account has the advantage of establishing a relatively clear and distinctive mission for public health. It also allows a consensus of people with different comprehensive moral and political commitments to endorse public health measures, even if they disagree about precisely why they are desirable. © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press
Personal identity and practical reason: The failure of Kantian replies to Parfit
No full textThis essay examines and criticizes a set of Kantian objections to Parfit's attempt in Reasons and Persons to connect his theory of personal identity to practical rationality and moral philosophy. Several of Parfit's critics have tried to sever the link he forges between his metaphysical and practical conclusions by invoking the Kantian thought that even if we accept his metaphysical theory of personal identity, we still have good practical grounds for rejecting that theory when deliberating about what to do. The argument between Parfit and his opponents illuminates broader questions about the relationship between our metaphysical beliefs and our practical reasons. © 2008 Canadian Philosophical Association
Collective action and individual choice: rethinking how we regulate narcotics and antibiotics.
No full textGovernments across the globe have squandered treasure and imprisoned millions of their own citizens by criminalising the use and sale of recreational drugs. But use of these drugs has remained relatively constant, and the primary victims are the users themselves. Meanwhile, antimicrobial drugs that once had the power to cure infections are losing their ability to do so, compromising the health of people around the world. The thesis of this essay is that policymakers should stop wasting resources trying to fight an unwinnable and morally dubious war against recreational drug users, and start shifting their attention to the serious threat posed by our collective misuse of antibiotics
Ethics, Antibiotics, and Public Policy
No full textThe widespread use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture is encouraging the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant infections around the world. Our use of antibiotics is a global, inter-generational collective action problem. Public policies intended to solve the problem involve difficult moral tradeoffs
Collective Action and Individual Choice
No full textGovernments across the globe have squandered treasure and imprisoned millions of their own citizens by criminalising the use and sale of recreational drugs. But use of these drugs has remained relatively constant, and the primary victims are the users themselves. Meanwhile, antimicrobial drugs that once had the power to cure infections are losing their ability to do so, compromising the health of people around the world. The thesis of this essay is that policymakers should stop wasting resources trying to fight an unwinnable and morally dubious war against recreational drug users, and start shifting their attention to the serious threat posed by our collective misuse of antibiotics
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