Cornell University
Sage School of Philosophy
PhD, 1972
Houston, Texas, United States of America
  •  270
    Kant’s Formula of Humanity‹
    Mind 117 (465): 85-106. 2008.
    This paper is concerned with the normative content of Kant's formula of humanity (FH). More specifically, does FH, as some seem to think, imply the specific and rigid prescriptions in 'standard' deontological theories? To this latter question, I argue, the answer is 'no'. I propose reading FH largely through the formula of autonomy and the formula of the kingdom of ends, where I understand FA to describe the nature of the capacity of humanity-a capacity for self-governance. The latter, I suggest…Read more
  •  100
    An epistemic theory of democracy, I assume, is meant to provide on answer to the question of why democracy is desirable. It does so by trying to show how the democratic process can have epistemic value. I begin by describing a couple of examples of epistemic theories in the literature and bringing out what they presuppose. I then examine a particular type of theory, worked out most thoroughly by Joshua Cohen, which seems to imply that democracy has epistemic value. The key idea in this theory is…Read more
  •  69
    The very idea of pure procedural justice
    Ethics 90 (4): 502-511. 1980.
  •  64
    Rural Healthcare Ethics: No Longer the Forgotten Quarter
    with Mary Ann Greene and Alan West
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 19 (4): 510-517. 2010.
    The rural health context in the United States presents unique ethical challenges to its approximately 60 million residents, who represent about one quarter of the overall population and are distributed over three-quarters of the country’s land mass. The rural context is not only identified by the small population density and distance to an urban setting but also by a combination of social, religious, geographical, and cultural factors. Living in a rural setting fosters a sense of shared values a…Read more
  •  50
  •  46
    Collaboration of Ethics and Patient Safety Programs: Opportunities to Promote Quality Care
    with Julia Neily, Peter Mills, and William B. Weeks
    HEC Forum 20 (1): 15-27. 2008.
  •  43
    The Presence of Ethics Programs in Critical Access Hospitals
    with Marie-Claire Rosenberg, Todd Mackenzie, and William B. Weeks
    HEC Forum 22 (4): 267-274. 2010.
    The purpose of this study was to assess the presence of ethics committees in rural critical access hospitals across the United States. Several studies have investigated the presence of ethics committees in rural health care facilities. The limitation of these studies is in the definition of ‘rural hospital’ and a regional or state focus. These limitations have created large variations in the study findings. In this nation-wide study we used the criteria of a critical access hospital (CAH), as de…Read more
  •  40
    Rural health care ethics: Is there a literature?
    with Gili Lushkov, Andrew Pomerantz, and William B. Weeks
    American Journal of Bioethics 6 (2). 2006.
    To better understand the available publications addressing ethical issues in rural health care we sought to identify the ethics literature that specifically focuses on rural America. We wanted to determine the extent to which the rural ethics literature was distributed between general commentaries, descriptive summaries of research, and original research publications. We identified 55 publications that specifically and substantively addressed rural health care ethics, published between 1966 and …Read more
  •  39
    The evolving role of ethics advisory committees in VHA
    with Ginger Schafer Wlody
    HEC Forum 9 (2): 129-146. 1997.
  •  36
    Utilitarianism, institutions, and justice
    Philosophical Review 109 (1): 135-138. 2000.
    Utilitarianism is subject to objections of at least three kinds: It is wrong about the nature of the fundamental property in virtue of which wrong acts are wrong. It is self-defeating in the sense that acting as it requires will actually undermine the goal of maximization. The acts it requires are, intuitively, wrong. In the book under review, Bailey replies to objections of all three kinds, but especially to the third.
  •  35
    Property Rights, Liberty and Redistribution
    Philosophical Topics 13 (2): 133-140. 1985.
  •  34
    Eudaimonism and Justice
    Southwest Philosophy Review 12 (1): 247-256. 1996.
  •  32
    The Ethical Role of the Consultant
    with William B. Weeks
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2 (4): 477. 1993.
    In the United States, physicians are Increasingly functioning In the consultative role. This change in role Is undoubtedly a result of a surge in the numbers of specialists, the relative decreasing number of primary care physicians, and the emergence of tertiary care centers as primary treatment providers. This change In the style of practicing medicine has led to role confusion In attending physician-patient-consultant relationships
  •  32
    Justice and rational cooperation
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 14 (3): 303-311. 1976.
  •  30
    Ethics Committees at Work: Physician Experience as a Measure of Competency: Implications for Informed Consent
    with Paul B. Hofmann, Neal Cohen, and Robert L. Schwartz
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 5 (3): 458. 1996.
    The following description is based upon an actual case in which a patient initiated legal action after suffering a complication subsequent to an invasive diagnostic procedure performed by a senior fellow. Named as codefendants were the senior fellow, attending physician, and the hospital. Because any hospital with house staff is potentially vulnerable to similar litigation, Ethics Committees at Work is addressing the questions raised by this dilemma
  •  29
    Clinical ethics in the veterans health administration
    with James E. Reagan and Karen J. Lomax
    HEC Forum 9 (2): 120-128. 1997.
  •  28
    Network News
    with David H. Law
    Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 3 (1): 143. 1994.
  •  27
    Conceptions of morality and the doctrine of double effect
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 16 (5): 545-564. 1991.
    Whether one should accept a principle like DDE cannot be settled independent of one's more general moral theory. In this, I take it, I agree with Professor Boyle, though I do not think he has shown that DDE has a role only in his particular form of absolutism. Still, since his theory does require DDE, an important question is what the alternatives are – whether we must choose between this absolutism and either utilitarianism or intuitionism. A form of contractualism, the requirements of which de…Read more
  •  26
    Rights and Relativity
    Southwest Philosophy Review 16 (1): 101-108. 2000.
  •  24
    The Institutions of Deliberative Democracy
    Social Philosophy and Policy 17 (1): 181. 2000.
    This paper addresses two questions. First, how different is the ideal underlying deliberative democracy from the ideal expressed in contemporary liberal theory, especially contractualist theory and "political liberalism"? Second, what specific institutional prescriptions, if any, follow from deliberative democracy? It is argued that the deliberative ideal has become quite abstract and, in fact, does not differ significantly from many forms of contemporary liberalism. Moreover, it is something of…Read more
  •  20
    Objective: To determine whether bioethicists are distributed along a rural-to-urban continuum in a way that reflects potential need of those resources as determined by the general population, hospital facilities and hospital beds.Methods: US members of a large, multidisciplinary professional society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities , the US population, hospital facilities and hospital beds were classified across a four-tier rural-to-urban continuum. The proportion of each group …Read more
  •  19
    Response to Commentaries on “Is There a Rural Ethics Literature?”1
    American Journal of Bioethics 6 (4). 2006.
    No abstract
  •  17
    A proposed rural healthcare ethics agenda
    with A. Pomerantz, K. Howard, and A. Bushy
    Journal of Medical Ethics 33 (3): 136-139. 2007.
    The unique context of the rural setting provides special challenges to furnishing ethical healthcare to its approximately 62 million inhabitants. Although rural communities are widely diverse, most have the following common features: limited economic resources, shared values, reduced health status, limited availability of and accessibility to healthcare services, overlapping professional–patient relationships and care giver stress. These rural features shape common healthcare ethical issues, inc…Read more
  •  16
    Equal Opportunity
    Social Theory and Practice 10 (2): 157-184. 1984.
  •  16
    The Opportunities and Challenges for Shared Decision-Making in the Rural United States
    with Paul J. Barr and Mary G. Castaldo
    HEC Forum 27 (2): 157-170. 2015.
    The ethical standard for informed consent is fostered within a shared decision-making process. SDM has become a recognized and needed approach in health care decision-making. Based on an ethical foundation, the approach fosters the active engagement of patients, where the clinician presents evidence-based treatment information and options and openly elicits the patient’s values and preferences. The SDM process is affected by the context in which the information exchange occurs. Rural settings ar…Read more