Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere Recent documents in Jurgen De Wispelaere en-us Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:19:41 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/31 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/31 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:24:59 PDT The purpose of this paper is to offer a republican perspective on disability and disability policy. A republican perspective on disability will focus less on the material distribution of goods or resources but instead try to reconstitute the core concern of disability as one of agency, freedom and political participation or citizenship of disabled people in our modern society. This paper offers two main insights. In the first instance, we argue that a republican political theory of disability must offer a clear diagnostic of the many ways in which society fails to respect disabled individuals as agents and citizens, and subsequently prevents them from participating in full, with further detrimental effects on their general well-being and opportunities. More specifically we argue in this paper that a central distinction within republican political theory between dominium and imperium can be used to great effect to conceptualise the many complex ways in which our current social and political arrangements dominate disabled individuals. In addition, republican theory also offers a distinctive perspective on the remedies to counter the various forms of domination present in either dominium or imperium. In particular, a republican perspective on disability proposes disabled citizens ought to have three broad types of political rights - the right to challenge, the right to participate, and the right to contribute - each of which closely tied with republican intuitions on citizenship. Jurgen De Wispelaere Disability Rights and Politics http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/30 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/30 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:17:52 PDT This paper questions the facile manner in which advocates of an unconditional basic income assert the superiority of their scheme because of its capacity to significantly economize on administration. While this claim is not entirely without merit, we argue that basic income scholars need to be more forthcoming in acknowledging that such an assessment requires a more direct and systematic administrative analysis than has hitherto been undertaken. In this paper we first provide an administrative framework that allows us to assess a variety of implementation challenges facing welfare schemes, and then apply the framework to the specific case of an universal, unconditional and individualized basic income scheme. A public administration focus allows us to better appreciate the many hard choices that basic income advocates face when implementing their preferred policy. Jurgen De Wispelaere Basic Income, Employment and Welfare Reform http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/29 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/29 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:12:30 PDT The conventional wisdom amongst the organ transplant community is roughly constituted by three important beliefs. First, there is a significant deficit in the overall supply of organs for transplant purposes. Second, this deficit would be substantially affected by an increase in the supply of cadaveric organs. Third, the dramatic impact of an increase in cadaveric organs for those waiting on the transplant lists, both in terms of their survival rates as well as their quality of life, makes finding policy mechanisms that effectively boost supply a key moral imperative. The transplant community is in much less agreement, however, about how to proceed achieving this goal. This article offers a radical alternative to the schemes currently in place or under consideration. We suggest policy-makers adopt a scheme with two key components. To begin with, we propose to disconnect the decision of a donor's next-of-kin to agree or veto the harvesting of organs for transplant purposes from the event of the donor's death through an advance commitment device. We have outlined this device and its main advantages in detail in another article, and will only refer to it here in a cursory fashion. In this paper we instead focus on the second component of our scheme, to wit, a financial incentive mechanism for next-of-kin to agree to the harvesting of donor organs. Jurgen De Wispelaere Public Health Ethics http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/28 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/28 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:08:41 PDT In this article we propose to tackle the current deficit in the supply of cadaveric organs by addressing the family veto in organ donation. We believe that the family veto matters - ethically as well as practically - and that policies aimed at removing a genuine say of the family in this decision are likely to be counter-productive. Instead we propose to directly engage with the reasons why most families seem to object to the harvesting of a loved-one's organs who has signed up to the donor registry, notably a failure to fully understand and deliberate on the information and a reluctance to deal with this sort of decision at an emotionally distressing time. To accommodate these concerns we propose to radically separate the process of information, deliberation and agreement about the harvesting of a potential donor's organs from the event of death and bereavement through a scheme of advance commitment. This paper briefly sets out our proposal and discusses in some detail its design as well as what we believe to be the main advantages compared to the leading alternatives. Jurgen De Wispelaere Public Health Ethics http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/26 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/26 Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:59:55 PDT This is the introduction to a special issue of Irish Political Studies on "Recognition, Equality, Democracy", to appear in December 2007 as a journal and sometime in 2008 as an edited collection published by Taylor & Francis. Cillian McBride Democratic Theory http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/25 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/25 Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:15:24 PDT This volume brings together a range of theoretical responses to issues in Irish politics. Its organising ideas: recognition, equality, and democracy set the terms of political debate within both jurisdictions. For some, there are significant tensions between the grammar of recognition, concerned with esteem, respect and the symbolic aspects of social life, and the logic of equality, which is primarily concerned with the distribution of material resources and formal opportunities, while for others, tensions are produced rather by certain interpretations of these ideas while alternative readings may, by contrast, serve as the basis for a systematic account of social and political inequality. The essays in this collection will explore these interconnections with reference to the politics of Northern Ireland and the Republic. The Republic has gone through a period in which its constitution was the focus for a liberal politics aimed at securing personal autonomy, while Northern Ireland's political landscape has been shaped by the problem of securing political autonomy and democratic legitimacy. While the papers address key questions facing each particular polity, the issues themselves have resonances for politics on each side of the border. Contributors include Dominic Bryan, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Graham Finlay, Ronit Lentin, Cillian McBride, Peter Morriss, Aoife Nolan, Ian O'Flynn, Ciaran O'Kelly, Shane O'Neill and Judy Walsh. Jurgen De Wispelaere Democratic Theory http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/24 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/24 Sun, 19 Nov 2006 13:51:55 PST Suicide is a major cause of medical, social and political concern in most countries. According to the WHO, "suicide is a huge but largely preventable public health problem, causing almost half of all violent deaths and resulting in almost one million fatalities every year, as well as economic costs in the billions of dollars". There is widespread agreement that suicide prevention ought to take centre stage in public health policy, yet debates about suicide are still largely informed by medical or religious doctrines that are only partially suitable for informing a robust policy. Against this background the purpose of this paper is threefold. First I want to make a general case for a broader public policy perspective on the regulation of suicide and attempted suicide. The reference to "regulation" explicitly denies that prevention is the optimal strategy in all cases, and that policy should cater for such complexity. Second, I want to engage with the main ethical arguments for and against suicide and assess how they might inform a policy perspective. Where traditional debates focus on the stalemate between "sanctity of life" vs. "right to die" arguments, I propose that a genuine policy perspective has to appreciate the salience of various types of negative externalities when considering its preferred strategy. Third, the paper briefly assesses existing strategies - such as the WHO worldwide initiative for the prevention of suicide (SUPRE) - from this revised policy perspective. In particular I focus on the drawbacks of a recommendation almost universally accepted - to wit, that action against suicide requires restricting access to the means for committing suicide - and suggest an alternative approach. Jurgen De Wispelaere Public Health Ethics http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/23 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/23 Sun, 19 Nov 2006 12:05:20 PST This paper discusses the debate leading up to the workplace smoking ban, instituted in Ireland on 29 March 2004. The first comprehensive ban of its nature, the Irish case is considered an important test for radical tobacco control policy. Building on the pioneering work of Jon Elster on "the strategic use of argument", we claim that the single-mindedly focus on equally securing public health in the workplace for all workers contributed to the successful legislation and implementation of the controversial measure in Ireland. By expanding the concept of the workplace to include restaurants, pubs and other establishments in the hospitality sector, the proposed legislation produces public health benefits well beyond the strict remit of the workplace. We argue that the strategic use of the equal health argument serves a number of important purposes, and merits closer scrutiny. This paper outlines the main findings of a computer-based analysis of the debates as reported in two main Irish newspapers, and discusses the results of our empirical analysis in the light of our main hypothesis. Jurgen De Wispelaere Public Health Ethics http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/22 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/22 Sun, 19 Nov 2006 12:02:20 PST Recent debates on tobacco control illustrate how contemporary political argument abuses rights discourse, substituting claims of rights to reasoned argument in the policy process. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which this strategy is successful. I suggest first that although smokers may be said to have certain entitlements that could fit the paradigm conception of a moral right, this paradoxically does not include a right to smoke as argued by the pro-smoking lobby. Next I want to argue that a similar problem affects the rights discourse of the anti-smoking lobby: the right to breathe clean air too faces considerable conceptual and normative challenges. Consequently I believe that the tobacco control debate cannot properly be conducted in terms of rights. In fact, perhaps both advocates and critics of tobacco control would do well to leave political rhetoric where it works best - in the political domain - without allowing such claims to corrupt the systematic ethical assessment of competing values and policies. Jurgen De Wispelaere Public Health Ethics http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/21 http://works.bepress.com/dewispelaere/21 Sun, 19 Nov 2006 11:57:39 PST Following recent legislation in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere, radical smoking restrictions have become a controversial topic in political and public health circles. Despite wide support for anti-smoking legislation it remains a matter of considerable contention whether a conclusive argument in favour of prohibiting smoking in public places has been offered, or indeed can be offered. This paper investigates an intriguing paradox that arises in the debate between public health advocates of radical smoking bans and their civil liberty/libertarian adversaries. The paradox is the following. If smoking is considered a voluntary act, as maintained by libertarians, smokers are effectively responsible for the harm they cause, and comprehensive smoking restrictions appear justified. If smoking is not a rational act but an addiction-induced habit, a view held by the public health lobby, smokers cannot be held fully responsible and radical restrictions are unjustified because unfairly burdensome to smokers. The "paradox" then suggests that both public health advocates and libertarian anti-ban lobbyists are caught in defending arguments by insisting on behavioural assumptions (free choice vs. addiction) that cannot possibly lead to their preferred policy outcome. This paper investigates the background considerations leading up to this paradox, and briefly discusses several strategies that might offer a way out for tobacco control advocates. Jurgen De Wispelaere Public Health Ethics