Torbjörn Tännsjö

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Torbjörn Tännsjö is a Swedish professor of philosophy who was born in 1946. He holds a chair in Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University since 2002 and he is Affiliated Professor of Medical Ethics at Karolinska Institute. Tännsjö was Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stockholm University from 1976 to 1993 and Research Fellow in Political Philosophy at the Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences between 1993 and 1995. Thereafter, he was a professor of Practical Philosophy at Göteborg University 1995-2001.

Tännsjö is a member of the medical ethics board of the faculty of medicine at Göteborg University. He is also a member of the medical ethics committee of The National Board of Health and Welfare (the Swedish Government agency responsible for the supervision, evaluation and monitoring of social services, health care and medical services, dental care, environmental health, and control of communicable diseases). Furthermore, he is a member of the editorial board of Monash Bioethics Review, Tidskrift för politisk filosofi, (Journal of Political Philosophy), and Philosophical Papers, the ethics section of the web psychiatric journal Psychomedia, and Bioethics.

Tännsjö is one of the few Swedish philosophers who is frequently heard in the public debate. His distinctly utilitarian views have made him a controversial figure among some people, notably the medical establishment and the Swedish Christian Democrats.[1]

Tännsjö's most recent work is "Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government" (Edinburgh UP) written in connection with the research project Democracy Unbound supported by the Swedish Research Council. The royalties from the sales of the book are being donated to Oxfam.

[edit] Publications

Moral Realism (Savage, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990)
Conservatism for Our Time (London och New York: Routledge, 1990)
Populist Democracy. A Defence (London och New York: Routledge, 1993)
Hedonistic Utilitarianism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998)
Coercive Care: The Ethics of Choice in Health and Medicine (London and New York: Routledge, 1999)
Values in Sport: Elitism, Nationalism, Gender Equality and the Scientific Manufacture of Winners (London och New York: E&FN Spon/Routledge, 2000)
Understanding Ethics: An Introduction to Moral Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002)
Terminal Sedation: Euthanasia in Disguise (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004).
The Repugnant Conclusion. Essays on Population Ethics (Dordrecht. Kluwer, 2004).
Genetic Technology and Sport (London and New York: Routledge, 2005)
Global Democracy: The Case for a World Government (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008)