The State, Society, Human Rights & Health. Ethical Challenges in the Development of New Interventions

Abstract

The theme of this presentation is that major impediments to the development of new interventions to improve global health comprise the combination of (1) an inadequate value system that is heavily dominated by selfish individualism, (2) an excessively downstream focus on health and (3) overriding emphasis on market forces. Moral imagination is required to move beyond the current impasse in which the lives of some seem to be of infinite value while the lives of others are apparently dispensable. A broader discourse on ethics and human rights coupled to demonstration of high moral standards by influential nations could facilitate the introduction of new interventions with the prospect of greatly improving population health.