These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: The role of philosophers in the public policy process: a view from the President's Commission.
    Author: Weisbard AJ.
    Journal: Ethics; 1987 Jul; 97(4):776-85. PubMed ID: 11658835.
    Abstract:
    A lawyer who was assistant director of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research describes the difficulties he sees in participation by philosophers in the making of public policy. He attributes the Commission's considerable success in influencing public policy to its consensus building approach. However, in its analysis of the appropriate governmental response to compensation of injured research subjects, the Commission produced only a "useless" report calling for further study. The problem was that the force of the simple argument for compensation based on justice was undercut by an academic libertarian argument. Technical questions of program design are refractory to philosophical analysis, and philosophers are not receptive to pragmatic compromise. Accordingly, philosophers should provide a moral critique of political compromises, rather than play a direct role in policy making.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]