Moral and Political Philosophy

Why Is Procedural Fairness in Health Financing Valuable?

21 February 2025|

A previous post proposed a framework for fair—that is, open and inclusive—ways of making decisions on how to finance Universal Health Coverage (UHC). However, some critics question the value of procedural fairness. In this post, which draws on a co-authored response to such critics, Alex Voorhoeve examines its worth.

Four potential benefits

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    What Is Procedural Fairness in Financing Universal Health Coverage?

What Is Procedural Fairness in Financing Universal Health Coverage?

10 February 2025|

Ensuring Universal Health Coverage (UHC)—that everyone around the world has access to an adequate package of needed health services of sufficient quality at bearable cost—is one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and is an aim of health policy in many countries. But UHC is costly, and consequently, countries face difficult decisions on how to fund it. […]

Moral Progress: A Controversial Yet Important Idea

1 July 2024|

Moral Progress used to be one of the core ideas and commitments of the Enlightenment. Then it became a controversial idea, but a new theory of moral progress is now gaining traction, argues LSE Philosophy PhD student Rafael Ruiz de Lira.

Where Did Progress Go?

Moral progress was central to the Enlightenment project. Philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Comte […]

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    Can seeing like a spider change policy and the future of AI?

Can seeing like a spider change policy and the future of AI?

10 June 2024|

Research into the minds of other animals and particularly invertebrates raises questions about how we define and understand consciousness itself. LSE Philosophy PhD student Daria Zakharova discusses how creating an artistic interpretation of the mind of a spider can inspire new legislation and shed light on how we understand developments in new forms artificial of intelligence.

In the summer […]

Military recruitment is a moral minefield

6 March 2024|

The head of the British army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, recently raised concerns over poor recruitment in the military. But as Jonathan Parry from LSE Philosophy and Christina Easton from Warwick University argue, there are deeper, moral concerns with military recruitment. Campaigning at schools, glamourising the work of the army in advertising, and drawing largely from a pool […]

The Epistemology of Peace

17 November 2023|

We are happy to share a very special blog post by Ariana Razavi, winner of our LSE Philosophy Peace Prize 2023.

Introduction by Professor Jonathan Birch: It’s a pleasure to introduce winner of the LSE Philosophy Peace Prize, Ariana Razavi. The aim of the competition was to encourage students to reflect, in the form of a blog post, on […]

Should the House of Lords be more democratic?

10 November 2023|

One of the key arguments in favour of an elected second chamber is that it would make the UK’s political system more democratic overall. However, an examination of the principles of representative democracy suggests that this is neither a necessary nor desirable reform for the House of Lords to fulfil its purpose, argues LSE Philosophy Fellow Adam Lovett.

Invertebrate Sentience, Welfare, & Policy

24 July 2023|

If an animal is sentient, we have an ethical obligation to consider its welfare. But, when it comes to invertebrate animals, there is no consensus about whether they are sentient. What can the scientific evidence tell us? And what does it mean for animal welfare policy? Andrew Crump discusses the implications of animal sentience on policy making.

The Significance […]

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    Happy to be a woman. Just don’t need to attend to it so much.

Happy to be a woman. Just don’t need to attend to it so much.

3 July 2023|

A common complaint from those who are minoritised in certain domains of life, such as work, feel that their minoritised identity receives too much emphasis. Philosophers who are women might complain that they are seen as women before they are seen as philosophers. Artists who are Black might object to being called ‘Black artists’ in reviews of their […]

What’s the Point of Protest? A Reply to Parry

9 March 2023|

Last month, we published the blog article ‘What’s the Point of Protest’ by Jonathan Parry. His work didn’t go unnoticed.

In a recent post my friend Jonathan Parry considers the question of whether political protest can be valuable, even when it is ineffective at changing government policy. He offers the example of the 2003 London demonstration against the […]