SPEAKER SERIES: Decisions by Design? Supporting Meaningful Patient Choice

Medical Decision Making, Ethics, and Behavioural Economics

Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, PhD

Dr. Blumenthal-Barby is the Cullen Professor of Medical Ethics and Associate Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research sits at the intersection of philosophy, behavioral economics, and medicine, and focuses on the ethical dimensions of human judgment and decision-making. She study how cognitive biases, weakness of will, and ambivalence challenge traditional accounts of autonomy and rationality, and she examine the ethical implications of using behavioral insights to influence decisions. This includes foundational questions about manipulation—what it is, when it occurs, and whether it can ever be ethically justified or even desirable. She develops and tests these ideas in applied clinical contexts, particularly in high-stakes medical decision-making. Her book, Good Ethics and Bad Choices: The Relevance of Behavioral Economics for Medical Ethics (MIT Press), develops this framework.

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