01 / LIFE & CONTEXT

Informed consent and social justice mark different, connected phases of Ruth Faden's scholarship. Trained in public health and philosophy at Berkeley, she joined Johns Hopkins and studied what makes authorization in medicine and research genuinely autonomous. In 1994 she chaired the federal Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, confronting the history of Cold War research through questions of secrecy, consent, and accountability. She founded the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and directed it from 1995 to 2016.

02 / KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

With Tom L. Beauchamp, Faden wrote A History and Theory of Informed Consent (1986), distinguishing an autonomous person's authorization from mere compliance with institutional consent rules. Her work on radiation experiments carried those concerns into public reckoning with past research. Later scholarship, including work with Madison Powers, turned toward social and structural justice, asking how power, disadvantage, and the conditions of health shape what autonomy can mean in practice.

03 / HISTORICAL ROLE

Consent is meaningful only within the circumstances in which it is sought. Faden's move from autonomy theory toward public accountability and structural justice made those circumstances harder for bioethics to ignore; her research, federal service, and institution building kept them in view.

04 / SELECTED WORKS & CONTRIBUTIONS

A History and Theory of Informed Consent (with Tom L. Beauchamp, 1986); Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy (with Madison Powers, 2006); Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights (with Madison Powers, 2019). Faden has also made major contributions to scholarship and policy concerning informed consent, research ethics, public health ethics, justice, and global health ethics.

• A History and Theory of Informed ConsentBook · 1986