Reimagining Social Value to Consider the Environment: How Should We Judge the Magnitude of Benefits in Health Research?

Abstract

Growing recognition of intersections between our health and the environment, healthcare systems and the environment, and health research and the environment has led bioethics scholars to advocate that the field readopt a broader perspective that considers nature. As part of doing so, we urgently need to reimagine research ethics concepts and frameworks so that they account for the environment. This paper focuses on how we should reinterpret the ethical concept of social value in health research. The concept is understood in absolute and relative terms, and both must be revised. The absolute social value of health research is determined by judging its magnitude of benefits and likelihood of benefits. This paper aims to generate considerations for judging health research's magnitude of benefits that capture its environmental benefits. We start from the most comprehensive definition of absolute social value to-date and show how it falls short of adequately capturing the magnitude of potential benefits generated by health research that yields knowledge related to nature. Based on that analysis, we propose how to revise the definition of absolute social value to better account for the environment. To conclude, we highlight questions that our suggested revisions raise for making relative social value assessments that consider the environment.