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160Descartes' causal argument for the existence of GodInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (3). 1976.
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19Do intellectuals have a special public responsibility?In Haldane WAiken & J. (ed.), Philosophy and its Public Role, Imprint Academic. pp. 25-38. 2004.
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448Communitarianism: the practice of postmodern liberalismIn Van der Pijl K.-G. Giesen & K. (ed.), Global Norms for the 21st Century, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 212-225. 2006.The chapter argues that communitarianism is the ‘postmodern bourgeois liberalism’ that Rorty, probably the leading avowedly epistemological, rather than political, or merely political, communitarian, describes himself as espousing. Proceeding by way of a detailed discussion of Philip Selznick’s definitive ‘Social Justice: a Communitarian Perspective’-- in which he seeks ‘to reaffirm, and to clarify if I can, the communitarian commitment to social justice’ -- I show that rooted in the particular …Read more
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32Buying human kidneys: autonomy, commodity and powerJournal of Medical Ethics 17 (2): 99-99. 1991.Buttle's reply to my objections to buying kidneys is helpful but unconvincing in two respects. Doing something freely leaves quite open the possibility that one is thereby making a commodity of a person; and the effects of institutionalising such a practice is itself a matter for concern. And while his emphasis on 'power' is important, the concept is hardly less problematic than 'commodification'.
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16BioethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 30 (4): 405-405. 2004.This is a collection of 15 papers from “philosophers, social scientists, and academic lawyers” concerned with “the field of bioethics itself”, “bioethics’s role in contemporary society”, and “specific issues”, including some—such as the role of the pharmaceuticals—not often addressed in such collections. They have all been commissioned for the volume either by or through the Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation, located in the USA, on whose behalf Cambridge University Press has published it i…Read more
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43Complicity and modularization: how universities were made safe for the marketCritical Quarterly 476 (1-2): 77-82. 2005.Education has always occupied a contradictory position in society, expected to ensure compliance and continuity and yet to encourage critique and renewal. Since the early 1980s, however, successive UK governments have directly mobilised education, and higher education in particular, as an ideological tool in the task of embedding neo-liberalism as ‘common sense’. Modularisation has been in the vanguard, first in the universities, more latterly at secondary level. The effect has been disastrous: …Read more
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31Against Professional EthicsPhilosophy of Management 4 (2): 3-8. 2004.I argue that the current popularity of ‘ethics’ in general, and the extension of ‘professional ethics’ in particular, masks an increasingly unethical culture. Furthermore, attempts to codify ethics encourage a rule-governed approach, thus misunderstanding the nature of ethical practice and — whether or not inadvertently — serving to protect the professions from ethical considerations rather than the opposite.
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17Against charity: Some preliminary considerationsEthics and Bioethics (in Central Europe) 7 (1-2). 2017.
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376Rational rationing?Clinical Ethics 3 (2): 53-54. 2008.Triage-like procedures for solving the problems of rationing cannot work. And anyway, why should health- and medical workers carry the can for the economic and political decisions of their managers and our politicians? To foist rationing decisions onto them is a political con-trick, a deliberate attempt to deflect managerial and political responsibility elsewhere. Those on the front line should simply toss a coin; expalin to patients’ friends and relatives that that’s what they’re doing and why;…Read more
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263Why the Kantian ideal survives medical learning curves, and why it mattersJournal of Medical Ethics 32 (9): 511-512. 2006.The ‘Kantian ideal’ is often misunderstood as invoking individual autonomy rather than rational self-legislation. Le Morvan and Stock’s otherwise insightful discussion of ‘Medical learning curves and the Kantian ideal’, for example, draws the mistaken inference that that ideal is inconsistent with the realities of medical practice. But it is not. Rationally to be a patient entails accepting its necessary conditions, one of which is the ineliminable existence of medical learning curves. Their rat…Read more
Bob Brecher
University of Brighton
University Of Brighton
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University Of BrightonProfessor
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy, Misc |
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy, Misc |
Value Theory |