Capabilities theory and global population-level bioethics. (360G-Wellcome-094245_Z_10_Z)

This philosophical and normative research proposes to extend the Capabilities Approach (CA) to population-level bioethics. A range of ethical questions and reasonable disagreements have arisen at the level of population health in areas such as priority-setting in health care resource allocation, equity considerations of cost-effective analysis, health measurements, social group health inequalities, global health inequalities, and so forth. As an alternative to the utilitarian philosophy which pervades both health care policy and health economics, the proposed research aims to extend the CA to population-level health ethics. The hypothesis or moral intuition is that the CA can help produce and guide health care policy that does more justice than current health maximization approaches. The CA is also likely to be more coherent in identifying social action to address population-level bioethical issues outside of health care. The research seeks to compare and contrast the CA with cost -effective analysis and health maximization; see how the CA would pursue aggregation and efficiency in health policy; see how it would measure health; and see how it would delineate societal versus individual responsibility for health. The research would be supervised by a international health economist, a social epidemiologist, and a moral and political philosopher.