The October 30, 2013 Lab Seminar, “Integrity, Trust, Political Economy, and Public-Private Partnerships,” was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellows Jonathan Marks and William English. Marks is Associate Professor of Bioethics, Humanities and Law and Director of the Bioethics Program at Pennsylvania State University. His work focuses on the relationship between professional ethics and human rights, neuroethics and neurolaw, and, as a Lab Fellow at the Center, he has been developing normative approaches and practical tools to address conflicts of interest in scientific research and professional practice with a focus on food and nutrition research. English is a political theorist with wide-ranging interests in Political Economy, Public Policy, and the Philosophy of Social Science. He is particularly interested in the degree to which people view problems of corruption as a product of bad institutions, bad people, or irreconcilable values, and is working on a series of empirical studies aimed at better characterizing diverse rationales for distrust in political, financial, and medical institutions.
English led the first half of the seminar, and began by discussing motivations for distrust: incompetence, conflicts of interest, and the exploitation of power for personal gain. He explained two empirical studies that examined public distrust in institutions. The first, an online survey, rated levels of distrust in different professions and the rationales behind them. The findings suggest that these levels are lower when driven by conflicts of interest, increase with perceptions of incompetence, and peak when exploitation is believed to be at play. Also, the more distrusted institutions appear to be those that are the most systematically problematic. The second study, a survey of vignettes, explored how different types of campaign funding affect an individual’s distrust in a particular politician. Across the political spectrum it was found that the least trusted politician is one that accepts money from all legal sources; trust increases with a self-funded campaign, and is highest when only small donations are accepted. English mentioned that he and his collaborators would like to explore how funding perceptions interact with ideological preconceptions.
English introduced the topic of Public-Private Partnerships, an area where, he remarked, there are enormous anxieties about the relationship between economics and politics. In closing, he stated that there should be a larger anxiety about the way in which politics can corrupt the private sphere and vice versa.
Marks began the second half of the seminar, “The Ethics of Public-Private Partnerships with a Focus on Food and Health,” by offering the subtitle: “Integrity, Trust, and Confidence.” He stated that advocates often represent PPPs as a win-win-win situation, and that this portrayal downplays the divergent interests between public and private partners, and its impact on citizens.
Marks described some taxonomies of type of partnership, for example 1) direct funding, 2) contributions of good and/or services, 3) dialogue or information exchange, and 4) joint delivery. He gave the example of how the American Beverage Association and its core members donated ten million dollars to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to fund childhood obesity research during a time in which there was debate about implementing a soda tax; the soda tax resolution was defeated, and this situation raised questions about public trust.
On the topic of trust, Marks stated that trustworthiness and integrity are attributes of an institution, whereas trust and confidence are attitudes toward an institution. Integrity, he said, may be assessed by comparing the mission or purpose of an institution and its practices. Marks focused on the integrity of the public partner, and, was concerned with institutions that have, as their mission, the advancement of the public good. He also raised for discussion institutions that have inherently conflicting missions.
In closing, Marks stated that when the public partner’s mission is to advance public health and the private partner’s mission is to increase profit, their interests are likely to diverge. Regarding an ethical analysis, he argued that there are problems with risk-benefit analysis and the quest for a model PPP , which ignores the systemic effects of PPPs. He suggested possible alternatives: shifting presumptions, focusing on cumulative systemic effects, counterbalancing, and collective action.
-Summary composed by Tara Skurtu