Exploiting Hope : How the Promise of New Medical Interventions Sustains Us--and Makes Us Vulnerable

In a range of contexts, including human smuggling, employment, and medicine, we often hear claims that a person has exploited someone else''s hopes. Despite this, it remains unclear what it means to exploit hope, what is wrong with doing so, and what to do about it. In this book, Jeremy Snyder offers an account of the ethical nature of exploiting hope, understood as taking advantage of a vulnerability in which one is partially entrusted. He then discusses how hope is exploited when individuals seek out unproven medical interventions through clinical trials, stem cell interventions, right to try legislation, and crowdfunding.

We often hear stories of people in terrible and seemingly intractable situations who are preyed upon by someone offering promises of help. Frequently these cases are condemned in terms of "exploiting hope." These accusations are made in a range of contexts: human smuggling, employment relationships, unproven medical ''cures.'' We hear this concept so often and in so many contexts that, with all its heavy lifting in public discourse, its actual meaning tends to lose focus. Despite its common use, it can be hard to understand precisely what is wrong about exploiting hope what can accurately be captured under this concept, and what should be done.In this book, philosopher Jeremy Snyder offers an in-depth study of hope''s exploitation. First, he examines the concept in the abstract, including a close look at how this term is used in the popular press and analysis of the concepts of exploitation and hope. This theory-based section culminates in a definitive account of what it is to exploit hope, and when and why doing so is morally problematic. The second section of the book examines the particularly dangerous cases in which unproven medical interventions target the most vulnerable: for example, participants in clinical trials, purchasing unproven stem cell interventions, "right to try" legislation, and crowdfunding for unproven medical interventions. This book is essential reading for ethical theorists, policymakers, and health researchers, on a topic of growing visibility and importance.