• Descartes: an intellectual biography by Stephen Gaukroger
    European Journal of Philosophy 4 107-110. 1996.
  •  14
    Credit, Debt and Consumer Protection
    Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 2 (2): 77-81. 1993.
    Should credit consumers always be deferred to? Dr Tom Sorell contributed to the British Open University Business School MBA programme, and is Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Essex.
  •  19
    Hobbes and the Morality Beyond Justice
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 82 (3-4): 227-242. 2001.
    After reviewing some of the texts which emphasise the importance to Hobbes of the theory of justice in his political philosophy,I am going to suggest that this theory is actually weak and more limitedin scope and application than Hobbes sometimes seems to claim it is. In order to function properly, his political philosophy requires the support of a whole range of moral requirements beyond the requirements of justice.
  •  2
    Art, society and morality
    In Oswald Hanfling (ed.), Philosophical aesthetics: an introduction, Open University. pp. 297--347. 1992.
    This chapter was primarily intended to accompany an Open University course in aesthetics, and reviews a number of well-known views about social dimensions of art, from Plato to the 20th century.
  •  9
    FOCUS: Ethics and the NHS Reforms in the UK
    Business Ethics: A European Review 5 (4): 196-201. 1996.
    “In the UK a so‐called internal market has been operating within the government‐run National Health Service since 1991.” Analysing the ethical tensions to which this gives rise is Tom Sorell, Editor of this FOCUS, author with John Hendry of Business Ethics, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex and Fellow in the Ethics and the Professions Program at Harvard for 1996/97.
  •  11
    Descartes, the Divine Will and the Ideal of Psychological Stability
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 17 (4). 2000.
    What God creates is perfectly stable and never needs to be corrected or improved upon. Although God might have created any order, the one he actually creates is willed immutably. Human beings are supposed to try and suit their theoretical understanding and their practical choices to this order: when they succeed, they confine their theoretical judgments to what is intellectually evident rather than to what the senses make plausible, and they confine their practical choices to what reason permits…Read more
  •  16
    Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction (review)
    Philosophical Books 36 (1): 44-45. 1995.
  •  19
    Citizen Patient/Citizen Doctor
    Health Care Analysis 9 (1): 25-39. 2001.
    In a welfare states, no typical user of health care services is only a patient; and no typical provider of these services is simply a doctor, nurse or paramedic. Occupiers of these roles also have distinctive relations and responsibilities as citizens to medical services, responsibilities that are widely acknowledged by those who live in welfare states. Outside welfare states, this fusion of civic consciousness with involvement in health care is less pronounced or missing altogether. But the glo…Read more
  • Garber, D. Descartes Embodied (review)
    Philosophical Books 44 (2): 164-165. 2003.
    This is a review of a book by Dan Garber
  •  7
    Emergencies and Politics: A Sober Hobbesian Approach
    Cambridge University Press. 2013.
    In this book Tom Sorell argues that emergencies can justify types of action that would normally be regarded as wrong. Beginning with the ethics of emergencies facing individuals, he explores the range of effective and legitimate private emergency response and its relation to public institutions, such as national governments. He develops a theory of the response of governments to public emergencies which indicates the possibility of a democratic politics that is liberal but that takes seriously t…Read more
  •  15
    Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science
    with Tom Sorell Ltd
    Routledge. 1991.
    First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
  • First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company
  •  9
    Human Nature and the Limits of Science (review)
    Mind 111 (444): 855-860. 2002.
    Review of John Dupre's book of the same name
  •  31
    Bodies and the subjects of ethics and metaphysics
    Rivista di Storia Della Filosofia 55 (3): 373-383. 2000.
    Discusses the differences between the metaphysical subject of the Meditations and the subject of Descartes' morale par provision, which is the embodied human being.
  •  9
    FOCUS: Health care as business introduction
    Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 5 (4). 1996.
    One of the commonest complaints in Britain against the current National Health Service is that business and commercial values are being allowed, and even encouraged, to dominate the more humane values involved in caring for people in their weakness. What is the situation and where are the problems, and what can Britain learn from Germany and Holland? We are grateful to the distinguished author on business ethics and member of our Editorial Board, Professor Tom Sorell, for undertaking the product…Read more
  •  63
    Descartes, Hobbes and The Body of Natural Science
    The Monist 71 (4): 515-525. 1988.
    Descartes was disappointed with most of the Objections collected to accompany the Meditations in 1641, but he took a particularly dim view of the Third Set. ‘I am surprised that I have found not one valid argument in these objections,’ he wrote, close to the end of a series of curt and dismissive replies. The author of the objections was Thomas Hobbes. There was one other unfriendly exchange between Descartes and Hobbes in 1641. Descartes received through Mersenne some letters criticizing theses…Read more
  •  23
    Descartes and the passionate mind - by Deborah J. brown
    Philosophical Books 49 (1): 47-48. 2008.
  •  2
    Seventeenth-century philosophy scholars come together in this volume to address the Insiders--Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and Hobbes--and Outsiders--Pierre Gassendi, Kenelm Digby, Theophilus Gale, Ralph Cudworth and Nicholas Malebranche--of the philosocial canon, and the ways in which reputations are created and confirmed. In their own day, these ten figures were all considered to be thinkers of substantial repute, and it took some time for the Insiders to come to be regarded as major an…Read more
  •  111
    Patients' responsibilities in medical ethics
    with Heather Draper
    Bioethics 16 (4). 2002.
    Patients have not been entirely ignored in medical ethics. There has been a shift from the general presumption that ‘doctor knows best’ to a heightened respect for patient autonomy. Medical ethics remains one–sided, however. It tends (incorrectly) to interpret patient autonomy as mere participation in decisions, rather than a willingness to take the consequences. In this respect, medical ethics remains largely paternalistic, requiring doctors to protect patients from the consequences of their de…Read more
  •  3
    Health Care, Ethics and Insurance (edited book)
    Routledge. 1998.
    This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two…Read more
  •  49
    Descartes' Meditations: Background Source Materials (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 1998.
    No single text could be considered more important in the history of philosophy than Descartes' Meditations. This unique collection of background material to this magisterial philosophical text has been translated from the original French and Latin. The texts gathered here illustrate the kinds of principles, assumptions, and philosophical methods that were commonplace when Descartes was growing up. The selections are from: Francisco Sanches, Christopher Clavius, Pierre de la Ramee, Francisco Suár…Read more
  •  11
    Armchair applied philosophy and business ethics
    In Ruth F. Chadwick & Doris Schroeder (eds.), Applied Ethics: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, Routledge. pp. 1--181. 2002.
    This is a reprint of an article in a collection edited by Cristopher Cowton and Roger Crisp, Business Ethics: Perspectives on the Practice of Theory (1998). The article reflects on (a) the tension between aprioristic applied philosophy --geared to thought experiments constructible in the armchair-- and applied philosophy informed by contact with relevant practitioners; and (b) the tension between the content of business ethics and the receptiveness of a business audience to its moralising messa…Read more
  •  52
    Non-Professional Healthcare Workers and Ethical Obligations to Work during Pandemic Influenza
    with H. Draper, J. Ives, S. Damery, S. Greenfield, J. Parry, J. Petts, and S. Wilson
    Public Health Ethics 3 (1): 23-34. 2010.
    Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering s…Read more
  •  14
    Medical Repatriation: The Need for a Bigger Picture
    with Nicholas Oakley
    American Journal of Bioethics 12 (9): 8-9. 2012.
    The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 9, Page 8-9, September 2012
  • Descartes 'Meditattons': Background Source Materials
    Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 61 (4): 830-831. 1999.
  •  15
    Health Care, Ethics and Insurance (edited book)
    Routledge. 1998.
    This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two…Read more
  •  30
    The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes
    Philosophical Review 107 (3): 491. 1998.
    The aim of this volume is to "serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists" and to provide "the most convenient, accessible guide to Hobbes available." As with any such anthology, the quality of the individual contributions and the degree to which they contribute to these goals vary somewhat from paper to paper. But on the whole, the work succeeds admirably and constitutes a valuable resource for those interested in learning more about the great English philosopher. Space does not p…Read more
  •  32
    Hobbes and History (edited book)
    with G. A. John Rogers and Thomas Sorell
    Routledge. 2000.
    Much of Thomas Hobbes's work can be read as historical commentary, taking up questions in the philosophy of history and the rhetorical possibilities of written history. This collection of scholarly essays explores the relation of Hobbes's work to history as a branch of learning.
  •  142
    Telecare, remote monitoring and care
    with Heather Draper
    Bioethics 27 (7): 365-372. 2012.
    Telecare is often regarded as a win/win solution to the growing problem of meeting the care needs of an ageing population. In this paper we call attention to some of the ways in which telecare is not a win/win solution but rather aggravates many of the long-standing ethical tensions that surround the care of the elderly. It may reduce the call on carers' time and energy by automating some aspects of care, particularly daily monitoring. This can release carers for other caring activities. On the …Read more