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MH Conversations and Connections Series (Contemporary Issues in Bioethics) – Lunchtime Seminar
Title: The Ethics of Using Coercion to Achieve Public Health Aims
Date: 4 September (Thur)
Time: 12:30-1:45 pm HKT
Venue: 3SR-SR4, Room 403, 4/F, HKUMed Academic Building, 3 Sassoon Road
Registration Link: Click Here
Abstract:
Measures used in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and isolation and quarantine, were commonly characterized as ‘coercive’. For some, this was akin to calling such measures ethically wrong. For others, it meant such measures warranted greater ethical scrutiny and stronger ethical justification. Finally, some simply disagreed that such measures were coercive. So, what does it mean for a public health measure to be coercive, and when, if ever, is coercion ethically justified to achieve public health aims? This presentation will engage with prominent philosophical accounts of coercion to help answer these questions, examine case examples in public health to evaluate their coerciveness on those accounts, and end by identifying ways in which public health activities complicate conventional thinking about coercion, suggesting profitable areas for future research.
Speaker:
Dr Maxwell Smith
Associate Professor and CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies
Faculty of Health Sciences
Western University in London, Ontario, Canada
Biosketch:
Dr Maxwell Smith is an Associate Professor and CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Professor Smith also serves as an Associate Director of Western’s Rotman Institute of Philosophy and is cross-appointed to the Department of Philosophy, Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health, and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. His research is primarily in the area of public health ethics, with a focus on infectious disease ethics and the ethical demands that health equity and social justice place on governments and institutions to protect and promote the public’s health. He serves in numerous ethics advisory roles to governments and health authorities, including as Co-Chair of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Public Health Ethics Consultative Group and member of the World Health Organization’s Ethics and Governance of Infectious Disease Outbreaks International Expert Working Group.
Discussants:
Prof David Bishai
Director and Clinical Professor
School of Public Health, HKUMed
Dr Diana Wu
Family Physician and Lecturer
Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care (FMPC) & Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit (MEHU)
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
Moderator:
Dr Olivia Ngan
Research Assistant Professor
Medical Ethics & Humanities Unit
School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
Welcome to join us!
Enquiry: Please contact Mr Edison Cheng (mehu@hku.hk).