Durham, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy, Misc
  • This chapter examines the relationship between the values of researchResearch and privacy in the context of medical research on patient data. An analytical framework is developed by interpreting the conception of privacyPrivacy advanced in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human RightsHuman rights by reference to the Principle of Generic ConsistencyPrinciple of Generic Consistency, seminally argued to be the supreme principle of moralityMoralityby Alan GewirthAlan Gewirth. This framewor…Read more
  •  13
    Gewirth: Critical Essays on Action, Rationality, and Community
    with Anita Allen, Lawrence C. Becker, David Cummiskey, David DeGrazia, David M. Gallagher, Alan Gewirth, Virginia Held, Barbara Koziak, Donald Regan, Jeffrey Reiman, Henry Richardson, Beth J. Singer, Michael Slote, Edward Spence, and James P. Sterba
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1998.
    As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sa…Read more
  • Individualrechte und soziale Gerechtigkeit
    In Ludger Honnefelder, Dietmar Mieth, Peter Propping, Ludwig Siep, Claudia Wiesemann, Dirk Lanzerath, Rimas Cuplinskas & Rudolf Teuwsen (eds.), Das genetische Wissen und die Zukunft des Menschen, De Gruyter. pp. 375-388. 2003.
  •  13
    This book presents a comprehensive analysis of Kant’s justification of the categorical imperative. The book contests the standard interpretation of Kant’s views by arguing that he never abandoned his view about this as expressed in his Groundwork. It is distinctive in the way in which it places Kant’s argument in the context of his transcendental philosophy as a whole, which is essential to understand it as an argument from within human agential self-understanding. The book reviews that existing…Read more
  •  14
    This book presents a comprehensive analysis of Kant’s justification of the categorical imperative. The book contests the standard interpretation of Kant’s views by arguing that he never abandoned his view about this as expressed in his Groundwork. It is distinctive in the way in which it places Kant’s argument in the context of his transcendental philosophy as a whole, which is essential to understand it as an argument from within human agential self-understanding. The book reviews that existing…Read more
  •  20
    Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 101 Heft: 3 Seiten: 469-471.
  •  63
    Human Nature, Social Theory and the Problem of Institutional Design
    with Stuart Toddington
    Studies in Social and Political Thought 12 2-30. 2006.
    The philosophical concept of the self has had a hard time for a long time. The scepticism that lay behind Hume’s ‘bundle’ theory has been made manifest in ‘post-philosophical’ claims that the self or subject is not so much a ‘something’ that ties together a bundle of sense impressions, but is rather to be seen as an effect of a system of power relations, or an illusory presupposition of the relational properties of syntax.
  •  41
    According to Bernard Williams, attempts to justify a categorically binding impartial principle fail because they can only establish categorically binding requirements on action by making them non-universalizable , and can only establish impartial requirements by rendering them inapplicable to real agents . But, an individual cannot be the particular agent the individual is without being an agent every bit as much as an individual cannot be an agent without being the particular agent that the ind…Read more
  •  7
    Alan Gewirth's _Reason and Morality_, in which he set forth the Principle of Generic Consistency, is a major work of modern ethical theory that, though much debated and highly respected, has yet to gain full acceptance. Deryck Beyleveld contends that this resistance stems from misunderstanding of the method and logical operations of Gewirth's central argument. In this book Beyleveld seeks to remedy this deficiency. His rigorous reconstruction of Gewirth's argument gives its various parts their m…Read more
  •  65
    Alan Gewirth’s claim that agents contradict that they are agents if they do not accept that the principle of generic consistency (PGC) is the supreme principle of practical rationality has been greeted with widespread scepticism. The aim of this article is not to defend this claim but to show that if the first and least controversial of the three stages of Gewirth’s argument for the PGC is sound, then agents must interpret and give effect to human rights in ways consistent with the PGC, or deny …Read more
  •  28
    Why and How Should We Represent Future Generations in Policymaking?
    with Marcus Düwell and Andreas Spahn
    Jurisprudence 6 (3): 549-566. 2015.
    This paper analyses the main challenges to the idea that we should and can represent future generations in our present policymaking. It argues that these challenges can and should be approached from the perspective of human rights. To this end it introduces and sketches the main features of a human rights framework derived from the moral theory of Alan Gewirth. It indicates how this framework can be grounded philosophically, sketches the main features and open questions of the framework and its …Read more
  •  83
    Alan Gewirth's Reason and Morality , in which he set forth the Principle of Generic Consistency, is a major work of modern ethical theory that, though much debated and highly respected, has yet to gain full acceptance. Deryck Beyleveld contends that this resistance stems from misunderstanding of the method and logical operations of Gewirth's central argument. In this book Beyleveld seeks to remedy this deficiency. His rigorous reconstruction of Gewirth's argument gives its various parts their mo…Read more
  •  4
    Precautionary reasoning as a link to moral action
    with Shaun Pattinson
    In James Torr (ed.), Medical Ethics, Greenhaven Press. pp. 39--53. 2000.
  •  65
    Towards a Kantian Phenomenology of Hope
    with Paul Ziche
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (5): 927-942. 2015.
    The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment can be, or otherwise ought to be, regarded as a transcendental phenomenology of hope. Kant states repeatedly that CPoJ mediates between the first two Critiques, or between the theoretical knowledge we arrive at on the basis of understanding and reason’s foundational role for practical philosophy. In other words, exercising the power of judgment is implicated whenever we try to bring together the ethi…Read more
  •  5
    Transcendental Arguments for a Categorical Imperative as Arguments from Agential Self-Understanding
    In Micha H. Werner, Robert Stern & Jens Peter Brune (eds.), Transcendental Arguments in Moral Theory, De Gruyter. pp. 141-160. 2017.
  •  27
    Moral Interests, Privacy, and Medical Research
    with Shaun D. Pattinson
    In Michael Boylan (ed.), International Public Health Policy & Ethics, Dordrecht. pp. 45--57. 2008.
  •  66
    My Body, My Body Parts, My Property?
    with Roger Brownsword
    Health Care Analysis 8 (2): 87-99. 2000.
    This paper challenges the view, commonly held inbiolaw and bioethics, that there can be no proprietaryrights in our own bodies or body parts. Whether thestarting point is the post-intervention informedconsent regime of Article 22 of the Convention ofHuman Rights and Biomedicine or the traditional(exclusionary) understanding of private property it isargued that property in our own bodies or body partsis presupposed. Although these arguments do notdemonstrate that there is property of this kind (f…Read more
  • Legal Argumentation in Biolaw
    with Roger Brownsword
    Bioethics and Biolaw 1. 2000.
  •  28
    Christine Korsgaard claims that Gewirth’s argument for morality fails to demonstrate that there is a categorically binding principle on action because it operates with the assumption that reasons for action are essentially private. This attribution is unfounded and Korsgaard’s own argument for moral obligation, in its appeal to Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument to establish that reasons for action are essentially public, is misdirected and unnecessary. Gewirth’s attempt to demonstrate a s…Read more
  •  45
    It is argued that accepting that there are human rights, or that there are categorically binding requirements of any kind on action, logically requires accepting the PGC (Principle of Generic Consistency) as the supreme criterion of practical reasonableness.Consequently, all legal systems that recognise human rights (hence, the English legal system), all who view law as a matter of obligation, and all who consider that there are categorically binding requirements on action, must take the PGC to …Read more
  •  25
    Law as a moral judgment
    Sweet & Maxwell. 1986.
    The philosophical debate about the concept of Law is dominated by two traditions: Legal Positivism and Natural-Law Theory. Within Anglo-American Jurisprudence, Legal Positivism is unquestionably the more popular approach. Whilst in recent years there have been a number of assaults upon this ruling view, opposition to Legal Positivism is still very much at the margins of contempory Jurisprudence, The authors of this major work argue, however, that Legal Positivism should be rejected, contending t…Read more
  •  18
    Christine Korsgaard claims that Gewirth’s argument for morality fails to demonstrate that there is a categorically binding principle on action because it operates with the assumption that reasons for action are essentially private. This attribution is unfounded and Korsgaard’s own argument for moral obligation, in its appeal to Wittgenstein’s Private Language Argument to establish that reasons for action are essentially public, is misdirected and unnecessary. Gewirth’s attempt to demonstrate a s…Read more
  •  9
    Consent in the law
    Hart. 2007.
    In a community that takes rights seriously, consent features pervasively in both moral and legal discourse as a justifying reason: stated simply, where there is consent, there can be no complaint. However, without a clear appreciation of the nature of a consent-based justification, its integrity, both in principle and in practice, is liable to be compromised. This book examines the role of consent as a procedural justification, discussing the prerequisites for an adequate consent -- in particula…Read more