Dan Wikler

Daniel I. Wikler, PhD

Prof. Daniel I. Wikler, PhD
Full name	Daniel I. Wikler, PhD
Born	1946 Lexington, Kentucky, USA

Daniel I. Wikler (born 1946) is currently Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics and Professor of Ethics and Population Health in the Department of Global Health and Population of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. He is a core faculty member in the Harvard Program in Ethics and Health (PEH). His current research interests are ethical issues in population and international health, including the allocation of health resources, health research involving human subjects, organ transplant ethics, and ethical dilemmas arising in public health practice, and he teaches several courses each year. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.^[1]

Overview

Professor Wikler’s published work addresses many issues in bioethics, including issues in reproduction, transplantation, and end-of-life decision-making. His current interests address bioethical issues arising in a population level and global perspective. His book series, Studies in Philosophy and Health Policy, was published by Cambridge University Press, as was From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice, co-authored by Prof. Wikler and three other philosophers: Allen D. Buchanan, Norman Daniels, and Daniel W. Brock. His most current research and writing topics include Compensation and Redress, Ethics Committees, Research Experimentation upon Human Subjects, Informed Consent, Patient Selection, Poverty, and War-Time Human Rights Abuses and Atrocities.

Professional Career before Harvard

Dan Wikler is the son and third child of the late Abraham and Ada Wikler. He was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, where he graduated from Henry Clay High School.

Dan Wikler earned Highest Honors in Philosophy at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he received the baccalaureate degree in 1967. He served for two years (1968–1970) as Social Science Analyst in NIMH, the National Institute of Mental Health, in Washington, DC. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1976, where from 1972-1975 he was also awarded a Teaching Fellowship in the Department of Philosophy.

University of Wisconsin-Madison
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he was Professor of Philosophy in the UW-M Department of Philosophy, Professor in the Department of the History of Medicine's Program in Medical Ethics, and Professor in the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, serving from 1975-2002.

US Presidential Commission
From 1980 to 1981, he served on the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine in Washington, D.C., as Staff Philosopher for Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

World Health Organization
He served as the first Staff Ethicist for the World Health Organization, and remains a consultant to several WHO programs. Prof. Wikler was co-founder and second president of the International Association of Bioethics and has served on the advisory boards of the Asian Bioethics Association and the Pan American Health Organization (AHO) Regional Program in Bioethics.

While at the World Health Organization, he instituted an international collaboration among philosophers and economists on ethical, methodological, and philosophical issues raised by WHO’s work in measurement of the global burden of disease and in developing methods for improving health resource allocation.

Professional Career at Harvard

Currently, Professor Wikler is Co-Director (with Dr. Richard A. Cash, also of HSPH) of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Program on Ethical Issues in Global Health Research (formerly Program on Ethical Issues in International Health Research, through June 2008), a program of both empirical and theoretical research on ethical issues in health research, particularly in developing countries. Versions of the course have been taught in over a dozen developing countries, including Mexico, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and UAE. The Program offers fellowships for scholars in developing countries and sponsors an intensive each year for an international clientele.

He serves on numerous Harvard University and other professional committees and advises several student groups, including the Harvard Undergraduate Bioethics Society (HUBS), sponsor in March 2008 of the National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference.

Dr. Wikler writes, lectures, and advises in bioethics and professional ethics, both internationally and in Greater Boston, including at Harvard.

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

Ethics Topics

• Bioethics
• Liberal eugenics
• Medical Ethics
• Transplant Ethics

Collaborating Authors

• Allen Buchanan of Duke
• Daniel Brock of Harvard Medical Schools's DME
• Norman Daniels of HSPH
• Richard A. Cash of HSPH

Institutions

• Harvard Medical Schools's DME
• Harvard University's PEH
• National Institutes of Health
• Harvard School of Public Health's Department of Global Health and Social Medicine
• HSPH Research Ethics Map

Also

• Ezekiel J. Emanuel of NIH

References

1. ^ The Hastings Center Hastings Center Fellows. Accessed November 6, 2010

• Studies in Philosophy and Health Policy (book series published by Cambridge University Press)
• Buchanan, Allen; Brock, Dan W.; Daniels, Norman; Wikler, Daniel (2000). From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66977-4.
• the Electric Monk: a many-brained bioethics blog

External links

• Dan Wikler's HSPH Faculty Site
• Harvard Catalyst Profile for Professor Daniel Wikler - Searchable, with historical timelines of publications and concepts presented.
• The Ethics of the Organ Bazaar, March 28, 2008, HSPH
• Journal of the Norwegian Psychological Association, Vol 46, No. 11, 2009, p. 1077-1081 In the margin ...
• News at HSPH: Health Care Rationed in U.S., HSPH Ethicist Says

Online Photo and Video Collection of Dan Wikler

• Hosted by The iScan my Food iPhone App for Better Health

Audiofiles of Dan Wikler Lecturing or Teaching

• PRI's The World: Rationing Health - Who Lives? Who Decides? Special World Science Forum discussion
• Podcast: Daniel Wikler discusses the market for kidneys. Duration: 10:59

Videos of Dan Wikler Lecturing or Teaching

• Dilemmas in Health Care Rationing, April 8, 2010 in Bioethics 2010 Symposium at UWM School of Medicine
• American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division Meeting - March 29, 2001 Author Meets Critics: Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler, Co-Authors of From Choice to Chance: Genetics and Justice
• Cloning Conundrum: A promising technology, or a slippery slope?

Persondata
Name	Wikler, Dan
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1946
Place of birth	Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Date of death
Place of death