Public Health Virtue Ethics

Institutions, Structures, and Political Virtue for the Good Society
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-11164-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 168 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory

This book argues that virtue ethics should be incorporated into public health ethics. It provides the theoretical foundations for a virtue ethics that is applicable to public health, as well as political institutions more broadly.

Ethical analyses of public health policies and practices have been mostly conducted in terms of examining best consequences or weighing outcomes against liberty, autonomy, justice, and harm. While these debates are important, analyses conducted only in these terms leave a huge range of moral issues under-examined. This book contends that a virtue ethics developed for political institutions such as public health provides the tools for a more robust moral analysis of institutional structures, actions, and responsibilities. First, it presents theoretical arguments for political virtues, explaining how institutions like public health have moral agency, and how these institutional agents can in turn have (or lack) virtues. It then presents three political virtues that are particularly relevant to public health: justice, civic friendship, and epistemic humility. Each of these virtues are important to what it means for public health to do its work excellently, and each sheds light upon the moral justifiability of past or current public health practice.

Public Health Virtue Ethics will appeal to researchers and graduate students working in virtue ethics, bioethics, and public health ethics.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

MacKay, Kathryn L.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizinische Ethik
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Public Health, Gesundheitsmanagement, Gesundheitsökonomie, Gesundheitspolitik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction 1. Public Health, Institutions, and Agency 2. Political Virtue & Vice 3. Justice in Public Health Virtue Ethics 4. The Political Virtue of Civic Friendship 5. Institutional Epistemic Humility Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Kathryn MacKay is a Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at Sydney Health Ethics, University of Sydney. Her work focuses on applied philosophy, feminist philosophy, and virtue ethics.