Description
Book SynopsisPublic health has never been more important, or more controversial. What states do, and fail to do, makes a significant difference to the lives we are able to lead. Putting public health first would allow improvements to the health of everyone, especially the worst off. Yet many citizens actively oppose state interference to improve population health, complaining that it encroaches on personal liberty. How should policymakers reconcile these conflicting priorities?This groundbreaking book argues that philosophy is not just useful, but vital, for thinking coherently about priorities in health policy and public policy. Novel, theoretically rigorous, yet practical, Philosophy for Public Health and Public Policy examines why it is so common for public policies to fail in practice to improve the problems they aim to solve, and what to do about this. It argues that a shift to complex systems approaches to policymaking is overdue. Philosophers need to become much more attuned to the contingen
Trade ReviewJames Wilson's clear and tightly argued new book, Philosophy for Public Health and Public Policy: Beyond the Neglectful State, endeavors to carve out a space for a pragmatic, practice oriented philosophy in the world of public health policy making...I would recommend the book to those who are curious about methodology in normative ethics and about how to make scholarly endeavors more readily applicable to tough political and policy problems. * Kathryn MacKay, University of Sydney, Ethics *
Table of Contents1: Introduction Part I: Philosophy for Public Policy 2: Evidence, Mechanisms and Complexity 3: Internal and External Validity in Ethical Reasoning 4: Ethics for Complex Systems Part II: Beyond the Neglectful State: an Ethical Framework for Public Health 5: Paternalism, Autonomy and the Common Good: Infringing liberty for the Sake of Health 6: The Right to Public Health 7: Which Risks to Health Matter Most? Part III: Structural Justice 8: Responsibility 9: Measuring and Combatting Health Related Inequalities 10: Communicable Disease 11: Conclusion
