The Centre de Recherche en Ethique (CRE) presents the first inter-axial workshop on decision-making:

“Tough choices – good decisions: Reflections on the ethical dimensions of decision-making”

Programme

9:30  Welcome and introductions
Vardit Ravitsky, Director, Ethics and Health Branch, Center for Research in Ethics

9:40   Keynote: When Values Collide: Tools for High Stakes Decision Making
Joan Gibson, Consulting Ethicist, Founder/Director: Health Sciences Ethics Program (retired)
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

10:10   Rationality, Risk Aversion, and the Social Determinants of Health
Daniel Weinstock, James McGill Professor; Director, McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy

10:35  Collective Decisions and Critical-Level Population Principles
Walter Bossert, Professor, Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche en Economie Quantitative (CIREQ), University of Montreal

11:00 –  10 min break

11:10  The Condorcet Jury Theorem:  More than Meets the Eye?
Gregory Mikkelson, Associate Professor, McGill School of Environment & Department of Philosophy

11:35  Reproductive Decision Making: Should Socio-ethical Implications Matter to Decision-Makers?
Vardit Ravitsky, Associate Professor, Bioethics Programs, School of Public Health, University of Montreal

12:00-13:00  Catered lunch with open discussion

« When Values Collide: Tools for High Stakes Decision Making »

Joan McIver Gibson, PhD, Author: Pause: How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions
Difficult decisions are difficult, not so much because they force a choice between good and bad, right and wrong, but because they force us to choose among a number of important values or competing goods. Nowhere is the conflict between competing goods more visible than in health policy decisions.  A choice for the good of the community may compromise individual rights. Honoring one community’s values may conflict with the scientific and legal requirements governing research scientists’ conduct.  Dr. Joan McIver Gibson, ethicist, author of Pause:  How to Turn Tough Choices into Strong Decisions (2013), and co-author of A Field Guide to Good Decisions:  Values in Action (2006), will discuss practical tools for making good health policy decisions when values collide: decisions that work, that enjoy the support of those who must implement them, and that are transparent and honest about their inevitable downsides.