51ÁÔÆæ

Announcing our fellows

Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme

The Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme (GHJ), funded by Höppsche Stiftung and directed by Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst and Prof. Dr. Darrel Moellendorf at 51ÁÔÆæ Frankfurt, each year appoints up to two post-doctoral fellows for a full academic year. The Fellows are part of the Frankfurt academic community, especially of the Normative Orders Research Centre.

Questions of health justice have been part of discussions about global justice for a long time, and there are numerous approaches, ranging from deontological to consequentialist ones, to address them. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, has added not just some urgency to these questions but also showed how structural asymmetries between (and within) different countries led to highly unequal chances to receive and develop vaccines and to care for basic health needs. It is time for a global debate on global health justice, and the new program set up at Normative Orders aims to help facilitate research conducive to this debate. Many issues need to be explored in this context, not just fair access to medicine but also the nature of transnational structural injustice, gender disparities in health provision, sustainable development goals, climate change and health, the human right to health, etc.

The fellows of the academic year 2024/25 are Francesca Cesarano and Yijie Wang.

Francesca Cesarano recently completed her PhD at San Raffaele University in Milan. Her research lies at the intersection of applied ethics, feminist philosophy, and political philosophy, with a particular focus on ethical challenges in public health, especially within gender-oppressive contexts. Her current project investigates how public health systems allocate resources in cases where the concept of "impairment" is shaped by both subjective experiences and social factors. Two central questions guide her work: What criteria should determine whether a condition is considered an impairment in gender-oppressive contexts, and how can public health decisions avoid legitimizing unjust gender norms? And what are the ethical implications of adopting a particular understanding of well-being for individuals who do not share that view? To address these questions, Cesarano critically assesses dominant theories of well-being, including hedonistic, objective list, and desire fulfillment theories, arguing that each has significant limitations in non-ideal contexts. While objective list theories risk paternalism by being overly prescriptive, hedonistic and desire fulfillment theories often fail to account for the social dimensions that shape desires. Cesarano proposes an alternative approach: non-ideal deliberative perfectionism, which seeks to balance subjective experiences with social influences. This approach aims to define human flourishing in a way that can guide public health decisions without legitimizing unjust social norms or disregarding individual autonomy.

Yijie Wang recently submitted her dissertation titled “Ethical framework for Global COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution” at 51ÁÔÆæ Frankfurt. Her current research project focuses on the topic of “Solidarity and Global Health in the Times of COVID-19”. In the age of COVID-19 characterized by extreme scarcity of medical resources, amplified social inequalities and injustices, and heightened protectionism of self-interest and partiality, it becomes imperative to reevaluate the very essence of solidarity. What is solidarity? Does it extend globally? What role does solidarity play in the realm of global health? What are the foundations of solidarity during a pandemic? Why does the call for solidarity often fall short? In light of COVID-19, how can we have new perspectives for reimagining global solidarity in the context of global health emergencies? Answering these questions delves into the multifaceted dimensions of solidarity during the age of COVID-19, exploring its global scope, significance in global health, underlying sources, challenges, and the transformative potential that the pandemic might bring to the concept of global solidarity. Through a critical examination of these questions, Wangs research aims to contribute valuable insights to the ongoing discourse on conceptualizing solidarity in the realm of global health.