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100Pain: Ethics, Culture, and Informed Consent to ReliefJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 24 (4): 348-359. 1996.As medical technology becomes more sophisticate the ability to manipulate nature and manage disease forces the dilemma of when can becomes ought. Indeed, most bioethical discourse is framed in terms of balancing the values and interests and the benefits and burdens that inform principled decisions about how, when, and whether interventions should occur. Yet, despite advances in science and technology, one caregiver mandate remains as constant and compelling as it was for the earliest shaman—the …Read more
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77Doing the best for one’s child: satisficing versus optimizing parentalism (review)Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 33 (3): 199-205. 2012.The maxim “parents should do what is in the best interests of their child” seems like an unassailable truth, and yet, as I argue here, there are serious problems with it when it is taken seriously. One problem concerns the sort of demands such a principle places on parents; the other concerns its larger social implications when conceived as part of a national policy for the rearing of children. The theory of parenting that creates these problems I call “optimizing parentalism.” To avoid them, I …Read more
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9Character-Principlism and the Particularity ObjectionMetaphilosophy 28 (1-2): 135-155. 1997.This paper is a response to particularist critics of the normative force of moral principles. The particularist critique, as I understand it, is a rejection not only of principle‐based accounts of moral deliberation and justification, but also of accounts of character in which principles play a central role. I focus on the latter challenge and counter it with a view I call character‐principlism. I begin by discussing in a general way what motivates the particularity objection to principles and t…Read more
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75What bioethics needs to learn about familiesTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 19 (2): 101-115. 1998.
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26Placebos in the clinical setting: Unjustified deception or good medicine?Ethics and Behavior 8 (1). 1998.This Article does not have an abstract
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44Reply to Ross's “Arguments against Respecting a Minor's Refusal of Efficacious Life-Saving Treatment Redux”Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 18 (4): 440. 2009.
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53Choosing for Others as Continuing a Life Story: The Problem of Personal Identity RevisitedJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 27 (1): 20-31. 1999.Philosophically, the most interesting objection to the reliance on advance directives to guide treatment decisions for formerly competent patients is the argument from the loss of personal identity. Starting with a psychological continuity theory of personal identity, the argument concludes that the very conditions that bring an advance directive into play may destroy the conditions necessary for personal identity, and so undercut the authority of the directive. In this article, I concede that i…Read more
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15Urban BioethicsKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10 (1): 1-20. 2000.Urban bioethics seeks to broaden the traditional focus of bioethics to encompass questions about the interplay of individuals with family, group, community, and society. Urban bioethics will need to deal with cultural diversity, issues of equity, and the conflict between individual rights and the public good. Encouraging a multicultural ethical discernment, fostering an appreciation of the political, economic, sociological, and psychological issues that inform the question of urban moral choice,…Read more
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21The Family in Medical DecisionmakingHastings Center Report 23 (3): 6-13. 1993.Should the authority to make treatment decisions be extended to the competent patient's family? Neither arguments from fairness nor communitarian concerns justify such an infringement on patient autonomy.
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145Forgiveness, commemoration, and restorative justice: The role of moral emotionsMetaphilosophy 41 (4): 582-617. 2010.Abstract: Forgiveness of wrongdoing in response to public apology and amends making seems, on the face of it, to leave little room for the continued commemoration of wrongdoing. This rests on a misunderstanding of forgiveness, however, and we can explain why there need be no incompatibility between them. To do this, I emphasize the role of what I call nonangry negative moral emotions in constituting memories of wrongdoing. Memories so constituted can persist after forgiveness and have important …Read more
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26On the doctrine of parens patriae: Fiduciary obligations and state powerCriminal Justice Ethics 2 (2): 39-47. 1983.
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30When Doctors Break the RulesCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 21 (2): 249-259. 2012.Suppose a primary care physician practicing in an underserved community orders a treatment for one of her indigent patients under the state’s Medicaid program.
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63Principles, virtues, and the morality of personal relationsJournal of Value Inquiry 33 (4): 475-491. 1999.
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36Morality and parenting: An ethical framework for decisions about the treatment of imperiled newbornsTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 9 (1). 1988.This essay is written in the belief that questions relating to the treatment of impaired and imperiled newborns cannot be adequately resolved in the absence of a general moral theory of parent-child relations. The rationale for treatment decisions in these cases should be consistent with principles that ought to govern the normal work of parenting. The first section of this paper briefly examines the social contract theory elaborated by John Rawls in his renowned book A Theory of Justice and ext…Read more
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19Choosing for others as Continuing a Life Story: The Problem of Personal Identity RevisitedJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 27 (1): 20-31. 1999.Philosophically, the most interesting objection to the reliance on advance directives to guide treatment decisions for formerly competent patients is the argument from the loss of personal identity. Starting with a psychological continuity theory of personal identity, the argument concludes that the very conditions that bring an advance directive into play may destroy the conditions necessary for personal identity, and so undercut the authority of the directive. In this article, I concede that i…Read more
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49Credentialing ethics consultants: An invitation to collaborationAmerican Journal of Bioethics 7 (2). 2007.This Article does not have an abstract
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91Criticizing and reforming segregated facilities for persons with disabilitiesJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 5 (2-3): 157-168. 2008.In this paper, we critically appraise institutions for people with disabilities, from residential facilities to outpatient clinics to social organizations. While recognizing that a just and inclusive society would reject virtually all segregated institutional arrangements, we argue that in contemporary American society, some people with disabilities may have needs that at this time can best be met by institutional arrangements. We propose ways of reforming institutions to make them less isolatin…Read more
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City College of New York (CUNY)Department of PhilosophyArthur Zitrin Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics
New York City, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |