A hybrid event for Uehiro Oxford Institute Members and Associates (booking not required).
Abstract
There is a lively ongoing academic debate about whether and when healthcare professionals should be entitled to conscientiously object to providing particular healthcare services. Much of the debate involves arguments for and against competing accounts of the scope of the rights of patients and the duties of healthcare professionals. Consequentialists eschew talk about rights and duties unless it is grounded in an underlying account of the overall consequences of respecting such rights and duties. So, where should consequentialists locate themselves within the context of this debate? The most prominent consequentialists participating in it, Julian Savulescu and Udo Schüklenk, both argue for the ‘incompatibility thesis’ – the view that healthcare professionals should never be entitled to exercise a conscientious objection to absolve themselves of the responsibility to perform any professional duties. I will argue, contra Savulescu and Schüklenk, that consequentialists should advocate for a compromise position in which healthcare professionals are entitled to conscientiously object to providing a range of services in many circumstances.
Speaker
Professor Stephen Clarke, School of Social Work and Arts at Charles Sturt University; Uehiro Oxford Institute Research Associate.
Venue
Uehiro Oxford Institute, Suite 1 Seminar Area, Littlegate House, 16-17 St Ebbe’s Street, Oxford OX1 1PT (buzzer 1)
Zoom
Please attend in-person if you can. If you need to join online, the Zoom link is available from the Institute's Internal Google Calendar, or on request from vara.raturi@tss.ox.ac.uk
