The social determination of health and the transformation of rights and ethics: a meta-critical methodology for responsible and reparative science

The hyper-neoliberal era has seen the collapse of the ethos of life and the formation of a civilisation of extreme greed. In this global context, the preeminence of a technologically endowed but epistemologically and ethically misguided form of science has contributed to forms of ‘scientific illiteracy’ and strategies of planned ignorance that nourish a neo-conservative form of governance. The challenge of transforming the paradigm of bioethics and the right to health beyond the biomedical horizon is an urgent priority. Building on the strengths of a social determination approach and a meta-critical methodology and rooted in critical epidemiology, this essay proposes powerful tools for a radical shift in thought and action linked to rights and ethics. Together, medicine, public health, and collective health provide a path forward to reform ethics and advance the rights of humans and nature

Health Reform during the 21st Century: Dispute of Knowledge and Planned Ignorance in the Era of Digital Acceleration and Collapse of Bioethics

The greatest paradox of human society during the 21st century is the vertiginous acceleration of a runaway neo-extractivism and the collapse of principles and values that enable healthy good living. This is aggravated in current times, paradoxically, when humanity reaches the highest thresholds of knowledge and technology. The exponential and parallel growth of the private accumulation of wealth, together with the reproduction of a profound inequality, now take place even in unprecedented settings and dimensions of hyper-neoliberal accumulation, within a civilization guided by greed. Consequences on the planetary health field are devastating. In this era, human knowledge and accelerated digital thinking—misnamed “artificial intelligence”—, rather than strongly promoting the emancipatory uses of technologies, these are generating increasingly dangerous production systems, distorting the potential of science and distancing universities from a fight for so-called “epistemic justice”, in the complex task of overcoming biased scientific knowledge that feeds strategic ignorance and blocks academic reform. ----------Keywords: university health training, hyperneoliberalism, strategic ignorance, epistemic justice, neoextractivism, digital thinking (“artificial intelligence”), health reform