Kantians & Utilitarians (was Re: Singer's latest)

[Justin Schwartz]

Is this a serious question about Marxist medical ethics, Leo? Milton Fisk 
has a new book out on medical ethics, arguing for national health care. 
Richard Schmitt has several books developing Marxist conceptions of human 
nature. I asked Yoshie the same question, but in fact there is good Marxist 
work at precisely the level you pitched the question. The authors I 
mentioned are only good examples. What is lacking is a general ethical 
theory that might rival  utilitarianism or Kantianism. At the level of 
specific problems and applied ethics, Marxists have been active without a 
general theory.

--jks


>
>Where is the ethical theory, based on Hegel and Marx? Where are the 
>Hegelians
>and Marxists who have written, for example, on questions of medical ethics,
>who have developed alternatives to concepts such as personhood which 
>underly
>medical ethics? Without suggesting that either the Kantian or the 
>utilitarian
>systems of ethics are entirely satisfactory, they clearly are the only
>systematic efforts to address the problems of ethics.
>
>Leo Casey
>United Federation of Teachers
>260 Park Avenue South
>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
>
>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
>It never has, and it never will.
>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
>-- Frederick Douglass --
>
>
>
>

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