Exploitation in Bioethics

Description: 

Exploitation occupies a significant place in certain bioethical debates, particularly within clinical research, commercial surrogacy, biobanking, and organ trade. In these domains, moral concerns regarding, for example, fairness in transaction, decision-making on the backdrop of disadvantaged circumstances, and the burdens of risk of some persons for the benefit of others, are commonly conveyed in terms of exploitation. In most deliberations about exploitation in bioethics, exploitation has a certain tie to a concept of vulnerability: exploitation is particularly emphasized, and has particular rhetorical force, when affecting people in vulnerable circumstances. Some theories of exploitation are directly vulnerability-based, while others are confronted with the stark intuitions that there is something morally unsavory about situations allowing entrance into exploitative relations, despite the presence of (at least formal) consent. 

While the concept has gained a certain level of scholarly attention in recent years, it remains muddy and underexplored. The aim of this workshop is to address this blurry picture, believing that the understanding of exploitation and its relevance for bioethics would benefit greatly from further conceptual analyses, examination of implications in terms of appropriate moral responses, inquiry into its components such as benefit or unfairness, and investigations of its connections to concepts such as vulnerability, voluntariness and consent. 

Programme:

Thursday November 8th

9.00 - 9.15: Coffee
9.15 - 9.30: Welcome 
9.30 - 10.30: Erik Malmqvist: Exploitation and Remedial Duties 
10.30 - 10.45: Break
10.45 - 11.30: Valeria di Gaetano: Clinical Research in the Developing World: Two Perspectives on Exploitation 
11.30 - 12.15: Katla Heðinsdóttir: Exploitation and the Social Value Requirement for clinical research
12.15 - 13.30: Lunch
13.30 - 14.15: Felicitas Holzer: Egalitarian justice, exploitation, and complicity 
14.15 - 15.00: Peter Falk: Exploitation concepts related to biobanking
15.00 - 15.30: Break 
15.30 - 16.30: Danielle Wenner: Exploitation, agency, and domination in transnational surrogacy
19.00: Conference dinner (location TBA)

Friday November 9th

09.00 - 9.30: Coffee
09.30 - 10.30:Ruth Sample: Structural exploitation and expressive content
10.30 - 10.45: Break
10.45 - 11.30: Stanislas Richard: Vulnerability as disenfranchisement  
11.30 - 12.15: Sara Belfrage: Exploitation, and not informed consent, is what we should worry about when using health data
12.15 - 13.15: Lunch
13.15 - 14.00: Egle Obcarskaite: Exploitation and machine learning
14.00 - 15.00: Nicholas Vrousalis: A theory of exploitation as domination
15.00 - : Farewell reception

Registration:

The conference is free of charge, but registration is required at [email protected] by no later than october 28th. 

If you are not a presenter and wish to participate in the workshop dinner on Nov 8th at your own expense, please note this in your registration, and include any dietary restrictions.

Workshop organizers:

Katla Heðinsdóttir, PhD fellow, and Nana Cecilie Halmsted Kongsholm, post.doc., University of Copenhagen. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] or [email protected]