Nir Eyal is Instructor in Social Medicine (Division of Medical Ethics) at the Harvard Medical School, with a primary appointment at the university-wide Program in Ethics and Health. He received his D.Phil. in Politics at Oxford University, his M.A. in Philosophy from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his B.A. in Philosophy and History from Tel-Aviv University.

Prior to joining the Harvard faculty, Dr. Eyal was the Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioethics at the Center for Human Values of Princeton University. Previously he was Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Clinical Bioethics of the National Institutes of Health. His earlier background is in ethics and political philosophy.

Ongoing Research

Dr. Eyal is completing a book that defends a consequentialist approach to respect for persons and applies that approach to normative questions in political theory and bioethics. Two such questions are whether payment for organs violates human dignity, and whether respect for autonomous nature justifies the principle of informed consent. Eyal writes articles on related topics; on egalitarianism; on non-domination theory; on consequentialism; and on physician migration from resource-poor countries.

Publications

• “If You’re An Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Inegalitarian about Your body?,” Iyyun 55, July 2006: 299-309.
• “‘Perhaps the Most Important Primary Good’: Self-Respect and Rawls’s Principles of Justice,” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 4(2), June 2005: 195-219.
• “Review of Susan L. Hurley, Justice, Luck, and Knowledge,” Economics and Philosophy 21, April 2005: 164-171.