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Stephen John [36]Stephen David John [4]Stephen D. John [1]
  1. Epistemic trust and the ethics of science communication: against transparency, openness, sincerity and honesty.Stephen John - 2018 - Social Epistemology 32 (2):75-87.
  2. Costa, cancer and coronavirus: contractualism as a guide to the ethics of lockdown.Stephen David John & Emma J. Curran - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (9):643-650.
    Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis, a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal of addressing (...)
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  3. Inductive risk and the contexts of communication.Stephen John - 2015 - Synthese 192 (1):79-96.
    In recent years, the argument from inductive risk against value free science has enjoyed a revival. This paper investigates and clarifies this argument through means of a case-study: neonicitinoid research. Sect. 1 argues that the argument from inductive risk is best conceptualised as a claim about scientists’ communicative obligations. Sect. 2 then shows why this argument is inapplicable to “public communication”. Sect. 3 outlines non-epistemic reasons why non-epistemic values should not play a role in public communicative contexts. Sect. 4 analyses (...)
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  4.  75
    Science, truth and dictatorship: Wishful thinking or wishful speaking?Stephen John - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 78:64-72.
  5. Must We Vaccinate the Most Vulnerable? Efficiency, Priority, and Equality in the Distribution of Vaccines.Emma J. Curran & Stephen D. John - 2022 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 39 (4):682-697.
    In this article, we aim to map out the complexities which characterise debates about the ethics of vaccine distribution, particularly those surrounding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. In doing so, we distinguish three general principles which might be used to distribute goods and two ambiguities in how one might wish to spell them out. We then argue that we can understand actual debates around the COVID-19 vaccine – including those over prioritising vaccinating the most vulnerable – as reflecting disagreements (...)
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  6. The example of the IPCC does not vindicate the Value Free Ideal: a reply to Gregor Betz.Stephen John - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (1):1-13.
    In a recent paper, Gregor Betz has defended the value-free ideal: “the justification of scientific findings should not be based on non-epistemic values”against the methodological critique, by reference to the work of the International Panel on Climate Change . This paper argues that Betz’s defence is unsuccessful. First, Betz’s argument is sketched, and it is shown that the IPCC does not avoid the need to “translate” claims. In Section 2, it is argued that Betz mischaracterises the force of the methodological (...)
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  7.  36
    Science, politics and regulation: The trust-based approach to the demarcation problem.Stephen John - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 90 (C):1-9.
  8. The Ethics of Lockdown: Communication, Consequences, and the Separateness of Persons.Stephen John - 2020 - Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 30 (3):265-289.
    In many countries and regions across the world, the initial response to the massive health risks posed by COVID-19 has been the institution of lockdown measures. Although they vary from place to place, these measures all involve trade-offs between ethical goods and imperatives, imposing significant restrictions on central human capabilities—including citizens’ ability to work, socialize, exercise democratic rights, and access education—in the name of protecting population health. As such, it seems imperative for philosophers to ask whether lockdown measures are ethical.This (...)
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  9.  85
    Objectivity in Science.Stephen John - 2021 - Cambridge University Press.
    Objectivity is a key concept both in how we talk about science in everyday life and in the philosophy of science. This Element explores various ways in which recent philosophers of science have thought about the nature, value and achievability of objectivity. The first section explains the general trend in recent philosophy of science away from a notion of objectivity as a 'view from nowhere' to a focus on the relationship between objectivity and trust. Section 2 discusses the relationship between (...)
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  10. Expert testimony and epistemological free-riding: The mmr controversy.Stephen John - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244):496-517.
    Using the controversy over the MMR vaccine, I consider the reasons why non-experts should defer to experts, and I sketch a model for understanding cases where they fail to defer. I first suggest that an intuitively plausible model of the expert/non-expert relationship is complicated by shifting epistemic standards. One possible moderate response to this challenge, based on a more complex notion of non-experts' relationship with experts, seems unappealing as an account of the MMR controversy. A more radical suggestion is that (...)
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  11.  34
    Messy autonomy: Commentary on Patient preference predictors and the problem of naked statistical evidence.Stephen David John - 2018 - Journal of Medical Ethics 44 (12):864-864.
    Like many, I find the idea of relying on patient preference predictors in life-or-death cases ethically troubling. As part of his stimulating discussion, Sharadin1 diagnoses such unease as a worry that using PPPs disrespects patients’ autonomy, by treating their most intimate and significant desires as if they were caused by their demographic traits. I agree entirely with Sharadin’s ‘debunking’ response to this concern: we can use statistical correlations to predict others’ preferences without thereby assuming any causal claim. However, I suspect (...)
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  12. From Social Values to P-Values: The Social Epistemology of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.Stephen John - 2016 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2):157-171.
    In this article I ask two questions prompted by the phenomenon of ‘politically patterned’ climate change denial. First, can an individual's political commitments provide her with good reasons not to defer to cognitive experts’ testimony? Building on work in philosophy of science on inductive risk, I argue they can. Second, can an individual's political commitments provide her with good reasons not to defer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's testimony? I argue that they cannot, because of the high epistemic (...)
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  13.  86
    The Politics of Certainty: The Precautionary Principle, Inductive Risk and Procedural Fairness.Stephen John - 2019 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 22 (1):21-33.
    This paper re-interprets the precautionary principle as a ‘social epistemic rule’. First, it argues that sometimes policy-makers should act on claims which have not been scientifically established....
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  14.  20
    Scientific deceit.Stephen John - 2018 - Synthese 198 (1):373-394.
    This paper argues for a novel account of deceitful scientific communication, as “wishful speaking”. This concept is of relevance both to philosophy of science and to discussions of the ethics of lying and misleading. Section 1 outlines a case-study of “ghost-managed” research. Section 2 introduces the concept of “wishful speaking” and shows how it relates to other forms of misleading communication. Sections 3–5 consider some complications raised by the example of pharmaceutical research; concerning the ethics of silence; how research strategies—as (...)
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  15.  53
    In Defence of Bad Science and Irrational Policies: an Alternative Account of the Precautionary Principle.Stephen John - 2010 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (1):3-18.
    In the first part of the paper, three objections to the precautionary principle are outlined: the principle requires some account of how to balance risks of significant harms; the principle focuses on action and ignores the costs of inaction; and the principle threatens epistemic anarchy. I argue that these objections may overlook two distinctive features of precautionary thought: a suspicion of the value of “full scientific certainty”; and a desire to distinguish environmental doings from allowings. In Section 2, I argue (...)
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  16.  39
    Death Sentences.Stephen John - 2022 - Philosophy of Medicine 3 (1).
    There are many analogies between medical and judicial practice. This article explores one such analogy, between “medicalization” and “criminalization.” Specifically, drawing on an analogy between a judge’s speech act of delivering a verdict and a physician’s speech act of giving a diagnosis, it suggests a novel account of the phenomenon of “overdiagnosis.” Using this approach, we can make some headway in understanding debates over the early detection of cancer. The final section outlines the relationship between this approach and familiar debates (...)
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  17. Security, Knowledge and Well-being.Stephen John - 2011 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (1):68-91.
    This paper investigates whether being “physically insecure” (being at risk of not continuing to meet one's physical needs in the future) should be thought of as a constituent of current wellbeing. In §1, it is argued that we cannot understand the value of security in terms of “freedom from fear”. In §2, it is argued that the reliablist approach to epistemology can help us to construct an account of why physical security is valuable, by relating security to the conditions of (...)
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  18.  16
    Book Forum.Stephen John - 2022 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 96 (C):186-187.
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  19.  24
    How low can you go? Justified hesitancy and the ethics of childhood vaccination against COVID-19.Stephen David John - 2022 - Journal of Medical Ethics 48 (12):1006-1009.
    This paper explores some of the ethical issues around offering COVID-19 vaccines to children. My main conclusion is rather paradoxical: the younger we go, the stronger the grounds for justified parental hesitancy and, as such, the stronger the arguments for enforcing vaccination. I suggest that this is not thereductio ad absurdumit appears, but does point to difficult questions about the nature of parental authority in vaccination cases. The first section sketches the disagreement over vaccinating teenagers, arguing that the UK policy (...)
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  20.  39
    Supreme Emergencies, Epistemic Murkiness and Epistemic Transparency.Stephen David John - 2009 - Philosophy of Management 8 (2):3-12.
    Sometimes, states face emergencies: situations where many individuals face an imminent threat of serious harm. Some believe that in such cases certain sorts of actions which are normally morally prohibited might be permissible. In this paper, I discuss this view as it applies in both the contexts of war and of public health policy. I suggest that the deontologist can best understand emergencies by analogy with the distinction between act- and rule consequentialism. In real world cases, we must often make (...)
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  21. Risk and Precaution.Stephen John - forthcoming - Public Health Ethics: Key Concepts and Issues in Policy and Practice:67--84.
  22.  94
    Efficiency, responsibility and disability: Philosophical lessons from the savings argument for pre-natal diagnosis.Stephen John - 2015 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 14 (1):1470594-13505412.
    Pre-natal-diagnosis technologies allow parents to discover whether their child is likely to suffer from serious disability. One argument for state funding of access to such technologies is that doing so would be “cost-effective”, in the sense that the expected financial costs of such a programme would be outweighed by expected “benefits”, stemming from the births of fewer children with serious disabilities. This argument is extremely controversial. This paper argues that the argument may not be as unacceptable as is often assumed. (...)
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  23.  44
    Should Science Lead?Stephen John - 2020 - The Philosophers' Magazine 90:58-63.
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  24.  24
    Erratum to: The example of the IPCC does not vindicate the Value Free Ideal: a reply to Gregor Betz.Stephen John - 2015 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 5 (2):259-259.
  25.  50
    Three Worries About Three Arguments for Research Exceptionalism.Stephen John - 2010 - American Journal of Bioethics 10 (8):67-69.
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  26.  82
    Mind the gap.Stephen John - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1):218-220.
  27.  46
    Should We Punish Responsible Drinkers? Prevention, Paternalism and Categorization in Public Health.Stephen John - 2018 - Public Health Ethics 11 (1):35-44.
    Many public debates over policies aimed at curbing alcohol consumption start from an assumption that policies should not affect ‘responsible’ drinkers. In this article, I examine this normative claim, which I call prudentialism. In the first part of the article, I argue that prudentialism is both a demanding and distinctive doctrine, which philosophers should consider seriously. In the middle sections, I examine the relationship between prudentialism and two familiar topics in public health ethics: the prevention paradox and the relationship between (...)
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  28. Why 'health' is not a central category for public health policy.Stephen John - 2009 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (2):129-143.
    We normally think that public health policy is an important political activity. In turn, we normally understand the value of public health policy in terms of the promotion of health or some health-related good (such as opportunity for health), on the basis of the assumption that health is an important constituent or determinant of wellbeing. In this paper, I argue that the assumption that the value of public health policy should be understood in terms of health leads us to overlook (...)
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  29. “First, Do No Harm”?Stephen John & Joseph Wu - 2022 - Social Theory and Practice 48 (3):525-551.
    Screening for asymptomatic disease is a routine aspect of contemporary public health practice. However, it is also controversial, because it leads to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, with many arguing that programmes are “ineffective,” i.e., the “costs” outweigh the “benefits.” This paper explores a more fundamental objection to screening programmes: that, even if they are effective, they are ethically impermissible because they breach the principle of non-maleficence. In so doing, it suggests a new approach to the ethics of risk, justifying a concern (...)
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  30.  50
    The limits of moral imagination.Stephen John - 2022 - Metascience 31 (3):369-372.
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  31.  46
    The Two Virtues of Science.Stephen John - 2022 - Spontaneous Generations 10 (1):47-53.
    During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was disagreement over whether the science supported facemask mandates. This paper interrogates debates over this question, paying particular attention to an ambiguity between two scientific virtues: epistemic caution and epistemic responsiveness. I suggest that there is an argument from each virtue to reasons to trust scientists’ claims in policy debate. However, as the case of facemask debates illustrates, it is not clear that scientists can possess both virtues simultaneously: the two virtues are in tension. After (...)
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  32.  56
    Alex Broadbent philosophy of epidemiology.Stephen John - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (3):707-711.
  33.  38
    Anti-anti-vaxx: the fairness-based obligation to defer to the expert consensus.Stephen John - unknown
    This paper uses the case-study of controversy over the MMT vaccine to suggest that non-expert audiences might have a fairness-based "political" obligation to defer to expert scientific consensus. The first part of the paper notes various reasons why it is implausible to argue that non-experts are epistemically obliged to defer to the consensus. The second draws on the literature on vaccination ethics more generally to argue for the alternative political obligation to defer. The third section considers some objections, and the (...)
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  34. Is there an obligation to participate in medical research?Stephen John - 2009 - In Oonagh Corrigan (ed.), The limits of consent: a socio-ethical approach to human subject research in medicine. New York: Oxford University Press.
     
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  35.  27
    (3 other versions)Titanic ethics, pirate ethics, bioethics.Stephen John - 2004 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 35 (1):177-184.
  36.  28
    The Moral Physiology of Inequality: Response to ‘Fighting Status Inequalities: Non-domination vs Non-interference’.Stephen John - 2016 - Public Health Ethics 9 (2):164-165.
    In this article, I respond to ‘Fighting Status Inequalities’. I first note a niggle about the paper’s assumption that lowering socio-economic inequalities will lower the social gradient in health. I then suggest two further ways in which neorepublicanism may relate to social epidemiology: in terms of ‘moral physiology’ and through analysing which inequalities are unjust.
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  37. Vaccination Ethics.Stephen John - 2022 - In Ezio Di Nucci, Ji-Young Lee & Isaac A. Wagner (eds.), The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Bioethics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
     
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  38.  31
    Philosophy and the Precautionary Principle: Science, Evidence, and Environmental Policy Daniel Steel, 2014 Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 266 pp., £60/$95. [REVIEW]Stephen John - 2016 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 33 (2):217-218.