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Katharine Browne

Image of Katharine Browne
Visiting address Blindernveien 31 Georg Morgenstiernes Hus Blindern 0315 Oslo
Postal address Postboks 1020 Blindern 0135 Oslo

Academic interests

Most of my work is in ethics (especially biomedical ethics), social philosophy, and philosophy of economics. 

My research is practically-oriented and interdisciplinary, and addresses contemporary ethical and public policy issues with tools from philosophy, economics, game theory, and biology. I have published on topics including rationing of healthcare resources, ethical issues in the use of reproductive technologies, the ethics of vaccination development and clinical trials, and public health and vaccination policy, as well as more theoretically-oriented work on foundational issues in economics and rational choice. Currently, I work on the Norwegian Research Council-funded project “Salient Solutions: Responding Ethically to the Attention Crisis,” where I am the principal researcher. The project deals with threats to normatively appropriate forms attention. The project tries to understand these threats and develop ethically acceptable ways of dealing with them. In my own part of the project, I will connect issues of attention and salience with questions regarding tensions between individual autonomy and the public good, issues of social cooperation and coordination, and issues of democratic rights. Applications concern the ethics of nudging, vaccination compliance, and the regulation of social media, reporting, and advertisement.

Teaching

I have a particular interest in teaching. Aside from my position at IFIKK, I hold a faculty position in the Department of Philosophy at Langara College in Vancouver, BC, where I teach during the summer terms. Recent courses include: ethics, social & political philosophy, biomedical ethics, and metaphysics and epistemology.

Background

Before my present positions at Langara and IFIKK, I was a Postdoc Novel Tech Ethics in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University and at the Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN) here in Oslo. I completed my PhD in philosophy in 2012 at the University of Toronto.

 

Publications

Browne, K. (2020). The Power of “We” in the Time of COVID-19. Humanist Perspectives, Issue 213.

Cattapan A, Browne K, Halperin D.M., Di Castri A., Fullsack P., Graham, J., Langley J.M., Taylor B.A., McNeil SA, S.A. Halperin (2019). Motivation for Participating in Phase 1 Vaccine Trials: Comparison of an Influenza and Ebola Randomized Control Trial. Vaccine, 37(2), 289-295.

Browne, K (2018). Why Should We Team Reason? Economics & Philosophy, 34(2), 185-198.

Browne, K. (2017). Voluntary Sterilisation and Access to IVF in Québec. Journal of Medical Ethics, 44(4), 262-265.

Browne, K. (2017). Reason and Pareto‐Optimization. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 55(2), 196-213.

Browne, K. (2016). The Measles and Free Riders: California’s Mandatory Vaccination Law. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 25(3), 472-478.

  • Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield & Watzl, Sebastian (2026). The attention market—and what is wrong with it. Philosophical Studies. ISSN 0031-8116. 183, p. 227–257. doi: 10.1007/s11098-025-02436-3. Full text in Research Archive
  • Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield (2024). Teknologi i Klasserommet: Hva skjer med oppmerksomheten vår? Religion og livssyn : Tidsskrift for religionslærerforeningen i Norge. ISSN 0802-8214. Full text in Research Archive
  • Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield (2018). Why Should We Team Reason? Economics and Philosophy. ISSN 0266-2671. doi: 10.1017/s0266267117000347. Full text in Research Archive
  • Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield (2018). Voluntary Sterilization and Access to IVF in Quebec. Journal of Medical Ethics. ISSN 0306-6800. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2016-103726. Full text in Research Archive
  • Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield (2017). Reason and Pareto-Optimization. The Southern Journal of Philosophy. ISSN 0038-4283. doi: 10.1111/sjp.12216. Full text in Research Archive
  • Browne, Katharine Naomi Whitfield (2015). Why Governance? A Challenge to Good Governance of Biobanks. Monash Bioethics Review. ISSN 1321-2753. doi: 10.1007/s40592-016-0055-1. Full text in Research Archive
  • Browne, Katharine Naomi (2013). Two Problems of Cooperation. In Musschenga, Bert & Harskamp, Anton van (Ed.), What Makes Us Moral? On the capacities and conditions for being moral. Springer. ISSN 9789400763425. p. 31–50. Full text in Research Archive

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Published June 24, 2021 1:07 PM - Last modified June 7, 2026 3:22 AM