A Taxonomy of Non-honesty in Public Health Communication

Autor: Rebecca C H Brown, Mícheál de Barra
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Public Health Ethics. 16:86-101
ISSN: 1754-9981
1754-9973
DOI: 10.1093/phe/phad003
Popis: Copyright © The Author(s) 2023. This paper discusses the ethics of public health communication. We argue that a number of commonplace tools of public health communication risk qualifying as non-honest and question whether or not using such tools is ethically justified. First, we introduce the concept of honesty and suggest some reasons for thinking it is morally desirable. We then describe a number of common ways in which public health communication presents information about health-promoting interventions. These include the omission of information about the magnitude of benefits people can expect from health-promoting interventions, and failure to report uncertainty associated with the outcomes of interventions. Next we outline some forms of behaviour which are generally recognised by philosophers as being non-honest, including deception, manipulation, and so on. Finally, we suggest that many of the public health communicative practices identified earlier share features with the non-honest behaviours described and suggest this warrants reflection upon whether such non-honesty is justified by the goals of public health communication. The Honesty Project, Wake Forest University; John Templeton Foundation [Grant Number 61842 PI: Brown]. Wellcome Trust [Grant Number WT203132/Z/16/Z] and UKRI (AHRC) [Grant Number AH/W005077/1].
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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