Big-Picture Bioethics: policy-making and liberal democracy. We live an era of rapid growth in biotechnology generating new and difficult ethical questions that need to be tackled by bioethicists and politicians. This project goes beyond typical approaches in bioethics to explore the "big picture": how policies are generated in ethically-contentious domains. It is important to examine how the values of different stakeholders are reflected in such processes to ensure that they are in accordance wi ....Big-Picture Bioethics: policy-making and liberal democracy. We live an era of rapid growth in biotechnology generating new and difficult ethical questions that need to be tackled by bioethicists and politicians. This project goes beyond typical approaches in bioethics to explore the "big picture": how policies are generated in ethically-contentious domains. It is important to examine how the values of different stakeholders are reflected in such processes to ensure that they are in accordance with Australia's commitment to fostering a multicultural, pluralistic, democratic society. This project will produce practical recommendations for refining public consultation in healthcare policy-making through an examination of three relevant contentious case studies in Australia with comparison to Canada.Read moreRead less
Ethics, responsibility and the carbon budget. This project aims to provide a rigorous ethical framework for dividing the world’s remaining ‘carbon budget’ (CB). In order to avoid climate change the world must drastically limit its emissions of greenhouse gases. The project will develop a new analysis of how our assumptions concerning risk and harm shape conception of the CB. It will also provide a new understanding of how future emission rights should be allocated given that countries have emitt ....Ethics, responsibility and the carbon budget. This project aims to provide a rigorous ethical framework for dividing the world’s remaining ‘carbon budget’ (CB). In order to avoid climate change the world must drastically limit its emissions of greenhouse gases. The project will develop a new analysis of how our assumptions concerning risk and harm shape conception of the CB. It will also provide a new understanding of how future emission rights should be allocated given that countries have emitted vastly different quantities of greenhouse gases in the past. The project will analyse how the CB will impact the climate transition plans of countries such as Australia. The project will thus bring significant new research in philosophy to bear on a practical issue.Read moreRead less