In recent years, a number of philosophers have conducted empirical studies that survey people's intuitions about various subject matters in philosophy. Some have found that intuitions vary accordingly to seemingly irrelevant facts: facts about who is considering the hypothetical case, the presence or absence of certain kinds of content, or the context in which the hypothetical case is being considered. Our research applies this experimental philosophical methodology to Judith Jarvis Thomson's famous Loop Case, which she used to call into question (...) the validity of the intuitively plausible Doctrine of Double Effect. We found that intuitions about the Loop Case vary according to the context in which the case is considered. We contend that this undermines the supposed evidential status of intuitions about the Loop Case. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for philosophers who rely on the Loop Case to make philosophical arguments and for philosophers who use intuitions in general. (shrink)

After providing a novel taxonomy of lottery procedures for fairly distributing scarce goods, I defend a new weighted lottery theory. This taxonomy is necessary because the debate between unweighted and weighted lottery theorists overlooks a range of cases, overlap cases, in which conducting an unweighted lottery is impossible or implausible. Therefore, to account for all such cases, lottery theorists must adopt a weighted lottery. However, while no extant weighted lottery is adequate in overlap cases, my new weighted lottery theory is. (...) I conclude by discussing my theory’s practical implications. (shrink)

This article offers a new theory about how using lotteries to distribute scarce benefits satisfies beneficiaries' claims. In the first section of the article I criticize John Broome's view and on the basis of these criticisms set out four desiderata for a philosophically adequate account of claim satisfaction by lottery. In section II I propose and defend a new view called the dual structure view, so called because it posits that claimants have two types of claims in the relevant scarce (...) benefit distribution cases under discussion. This view meets all the desiderata set out in section I. Section III draws out the practical implications of my view for a variety of temporally extended cases, including the distribution of corneas to patients who have suffered corneal degeneration. (shrink)

Munthe et al 1 argue for an asymmetry between positive and negative dynamics that justifies a new sustainability principle among the operational principles for ethical healthcare resource allocation. The purported asymmetry is that while positive dynamics are ‘taken into account in present applications of the operational principles…, negative dynamics are not’.1 Positive dynamics occur when allocations in the present lead to there being more healthcare resources per health need in the future, whereas negative dynamics occur when present allocations lead to (...) there being less future healthcare resources per health need.i Munthe et al 1 are correct that we have ethical reason to reduce negative dynamics—all other things being equal, having less future healthcare resources per health need is worse than having more. Furthermore, this ethical reason ought to be accounted for by operational principles. However, using current examples from the COVID-19 response, I argue that allocation policies guided by existing operational principles already take into account negative dynamics and thus obviate the need for a new sustainability principle. Nevertheless, Munthe et al 1 make a valuable contribution to the literature by opening up new lines of important research regarding the mitigation of allocation policies’ negative dynamics. As Munthe et al 1 cogently argue, existing healthcare allocation policies take positive dynamics into account. However, when they do so, they also often implicitly or …. (shrink)

We identify three distinct ethical problems that can arise with risk displacement. Risk displacement is the shifting of extant risk from one or more individuals to other individual(s) such that the reduction of risk to the first group is causally implicated in increasing risk to the second group. These problems are: concentration of risk in inequitable ways; transfer of risk to already vulnerable or disadvantaged populations; and exercise of undue influence over potential research participants. The first two arise in both (...) public policy and research initiatives, whereas the third is a special concern that only applies to research initiatives. We argue that when one or more of these is of high magnitude, then the study or policy intervention may be ethically wrong. Finally, we conclude that although some risk displacement is ethically permissible, researchers and policymakers still have ethical reasons to reduce the magnitude of these problems. (shrink)