Baruch Brody

(1943 - 2018)

This paper distinguishes four major types of futility (physiological, imminent demise, lethal condition, and qualitative) that have been advocated in the literature either in a patient dependent or a patient independent fashion. It proposes five criteria (precision, prospective, social acceptability, significant number, and non-agreement) that any definition of futility must satisfy if it is to serve as the basis for unilaterally limiting futile care. It then argues that none of the definitions that have been advocated meet the criteria, primarily because their proponents have not paid sufficient attention to the problematic nature of the data supporting the use of their definitions

There is a growing interest in comparison of international health care data with the hope that such studies will enable individual systems to learn from other systems. Such comparisons, however, presuppose that there exist common criteria for evaluating health care systems. The main thesis of this paper is that these comparative studies are misleading because they employ inappropriate operationalizations of these criteria because the operarionalizations are based upon mistaken global conceptualizations of the criteria in question. The essay provides a methodological critique of what has been done and sets a new agenda for future research

Until a few years ago, the works of Thomas Reid were known only by specialists in the history of philosophy, and, insofar as people did think at all about Reid and his school of common sense philosophy, it was generally thought that Kant had been right in dismissing them as naive thinkers who did not really understand what philosophical skepticism was all about. This attitude about Reid changed very rapidly in recent years. More and more people now realize that Reid was one of the most important British philosophers, and that his works are full of deep insights that have only recently been rediscovered.

: Continuing the discussion begun in the March 2006 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, this paper further documents the failure of the United States to adequately consider possible modifications in the traditional robust system of intellectual property rights as applied to biotechnology. It discusses concrete suggestions for alternative disclosure requirements, for exemptions for research tools, and for improved access to clinical advances. In each of these cases, the modifications might be more responsive to the full set of relevant values

I will, in this paper, set out the philosophical foundations and the basic structure of a new theory of justice. I will argue that both these foundations and the theory which is based upon them are intuitively attractive and theoretically sound. Finally, I will argue that both are supported by the fact that they lead to attractive implications such as the following: One can justify at least some governmental redistributive programs which presuppose that those receiving the wealth have a right to it, without being committed to any form of egalitarianism. The justification for these redistributive programs respects property entitlements; it argues, in effect, that property entitlements and rights to some redistribution of wealth presuppose each other, rather than being in conflict with each other. The amount of redistribution to which each indigent person is entitled is directly proportional to the wealth of the society in question and inversely proportional to the number of indigents in the society in question. There are at this stage in the history of Western thought few entirely new ideas in philosophy. Too much has been written about the important issues to allow for entirely new approaches. My theory is no exception to these generalizations, for it draws upon the tradition of John Locke, of the agrarian reforms such as Paine, Spence, and Ogilvie, and of libertarian writers such as Robert Nozick. Nevertheless, I will argue, the resulting theory is a significant advance over the ideas of these earlier writers

: Pharmacogenetics offers the prospect of an era of safer and more effective drugs, as well as more individualized use of drug therapies. Before the benefits of pharmacogenetics can be realized, the ethical issues that arise in research and clinical application of pharmacogenetic technologies must be addressed. The ethical issues raised by pharmacogenetics can be addressed under six headings: regulatory oversight, confidentiality and privacy, informed consent, availability of drugs, access, and clinicians' changing responsibilities in the era of pharmacogenetic medicine. We analyze each of these categories of ethical issues and provide policy approaches for addressing them

This essay challenges the view that the provision of health care must take place within a competitive-free system. The author argues that, presuming that there is a requirement to meet the demands of those who cannot pay for health care, a competitive market provides a good way to deal with injustices within the health care system. The author concludes that the demands for justice are best met when indigent individuals use some portion of the funds they receive from the government to purchase one of the many competing forms of health care. This scheme requires a competitive market in the delivery of health care.

There has been a growing concern over establishing norms that ensure the ethically acceptable and scientifically sound conduct of clinical trials. Among the leading norms internationally are the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki, guidelines by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, the International Conference on Harmonization's standards for industry, and the CONSORT group's reporting norms, in addition to the influential U.S. Federal Common Rule, Food and Drug Administration's body of regulations, and information sheets by the Department of Health and Human Services. There are also many norms published at more local levels by official agencies and professional groups.Any account of international standards should cover both scientific and ethical norms at once – the two are conceptually intertwined. Recent sources recognize that “[s]cientifically unsound research on human subjects is unethical in that it exposes research subjects to risks without possible benefit.”

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of philosophical discussion about such concrete moral issues as just war, distribution of food aid, euthanasia, reverse discrimination, etc. Much of this discussion implicitly assumes that there are true and false positions on these issues, valid or invalid arguments for these positions, etc. Recent years have not witnessed, however, a proliferation of philosophical defenses of these assumptions. With the decline of metaethical discussions, these assumptions have remained just assumptions rather than the conclusions of a philosophical argument.