•  6
    Decisional Capacity: Two Philosophical Issues
    Journal of Clinical Ethics 33 (4): 333-346. 2022.
    In this article I note two ways in which current assessments of patients’ decisional capacity rest on disputable philosophical assumptions. The first disputable assumption concerns the nature of practical reason; the second concerns patients’ articulation of their preferences. I do not argue that clinical practice should be changed. Still, relying on disputable philosophical assumptions can distort the description of such practice. It would be good for philosophers and philosophically oriented c…Read more
  •  5
    Zur Rechtfertigung einer Konzeption des guten Lebens beim frühen Marx
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 50 (3). 2002.
  •  5
    A Less Perfect Union
    Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 63 (4): 616-622. 2020.
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  •  4
    A Justifiable Asymmetry
    with Mark Siegler
    Journal of Clinical Ethics 26 (2): 100-103. 2015.
    It is a clinician’s cliché that a physician only challenges a patient’s capacity to make a treatment decision if that decision is not what the physician wants. Agreement is proof of decisional capacity; disagreement is proof or at least evidence of capacity’s absence. It is assumed that this asymmetry cannot be justified, that the asymmetry must be a form of physicians’ paternalism. Instead what is at issue when patient and physician disagree are usually two laudable impulses. The first is physi…Read more
  •  4
    Nostromo and Negative Longing
    Philosophy and Literature 46 (2): 369-397. 2023.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nostromo and Negative LongingDaniel BrudneyWhat, as the upshot of this exhibition of human motive and attitude, do we feel Conrad himself to endorse? What are his positives? It is easier to say what he rejects or criticizes.—F. R. Leavis, The Great Tradition1IWriters, playwrights, filmmakers have often seen their work as political. In this essay I discuss one way in which a narrative might be political. My proof text will be Joseph C…Read more
  •  2
    Styles of Self‐Absorption
    In Garry L. Hagberg & Walter Jost (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Literature and the Moral Life David Lurie Moses Herzog The Category of Orientation.
  •  1
    Community and completion
    In Andrews Reath, Barbara Herman, Christine M. Korsgaard & John Rawls (eds.), Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls, Cambridge University Press. 1997.
  •  1
    Styles of selfishness
    In Garry L. Hagberg & Walter Jost (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature, Wiley-blackwell. 2010.
  •  1
    Utopia and Critique
    Dissertation, Harvard University. 1985.
    Recently political philosophers have shown an interest in describing our society's understanding of its social ideals. In this context it is appropriate to examine Marx's attack on utopia, for that attack brings out the issues facing any attempt to found a political philosophy--particularly one with a socially critical intent--on the description of an ideal. ;The dissertation is concerned with the status of such a description. How can it be shown that the description does not proceed from a stan…Read more
  • Just deserts? Reply
    Hastings Center Report 37 (3): 6-6. 2007.
  • Marx’s Attempt to Leave Philosophy
    Science and Society 66 (2): 282-287. 1998.