News
Book Talk: For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics

29 April 2022

Event Date(s)/Period(s)
29 April 2022

Organised by
Centre for Medical Ethics and Law

In this talk, Professor Alex John London, Clara L. West Professor of Ethics and Philosophy and Director of the Center for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and the commentators had a lively discussion of the ideas canvassed in Prof London’s book, For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics (Oxford 2021). Professor London defends in the book a conception of the common good which grounds a moral imperative with two requirements. The first requirement is to promote research that generates the information needed to allow key social institutions to safeguard the basic interests of individuals. The second requirement is to ensure that research is organised as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation which respects the moral claims of its various contributors to be treated as free and equal.