Reviews for Mason and McCall Smith's Law and Medical Ethics

The average rating for Mason and McCall Smith's Law and Medical Ethics based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-10-06 00:00:00 William R Wortham Terrible title, outstanding book, I put off reading this book for years because of its terribly dull title. But then I kept seeing it referred to again and again and decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad I did! What this book is really about is the way in which England transitioned from a country that believed in individualism or laissez faire, to one that believed in collectivism, or socialism, over the course of the 19th century. There are 12 lectures in all, but lectures IV-VII are really the heart of the book, and could be read profitably on their own if a reader were so inclined. The discussion of individualism is primarily focused on the influence of Jeremy Bentham, whose ideas were a major driving force in the reform of English government including measures to reduce corruption, measures to increase religious freedom, the strengthening of property rights and freedom of contract, and the growth of international free trade. But as Dicey notes, Benthamite utilitarianism also contained within it the seeds of collectivism. In its humanitarianism, in its emphasis on the good of the many over the good of the few, and most especially in its rejection of any firm and absolute principles for constraining the role of government, Benthamism opened the door for those who wished to see the state play a more activist role in promoting the popular welfare. This transition was facilitated by Bentham's intellectual 'heir,' John Stuart Mill, whose Principles of Political Economy seemed to many, including Dicey, to be much less firm in its commitment to individualism and laissez-faire than most previous political economy. Besides this main line of argument, there are lots of fascinating observations in here about the way in which public opinion develops, and the way it influences legislation. Lots of interesting observations, too, about particular intellectuals and ideas of 19th century Britain. Overall, if you're someone who's interested in individualism, 19th century British political thought, or intellectual history, I'd highly recommend this book!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-25 00:00:00 Markus Biegel On one hand, this book represents much of what its critics claim it represents: an early 20th century lament by an aged laissez-faire believer who was horrified by the socialistic tendencies of his age. On the other hand, Dicey makes no bones about his own beliefs, but contains them inside a powerful intellectual history of England in the 19th century, one that relates those intellectual tendencies to concrete legislative changes. Even if much of his analyses have been superseded, Dicey has a peculiar insight due to his being in this time but not of it. Dicey shows his awareness when he relates England's peculiar dominance in the early 19th century, accompanied by its fear of French-style revolution, to the quiescent Toryism of the era. As he said, the younger Pitt governed for decades, but there was probably not one significant social enactment to his name. Legislation was not in the air, and Blackstone's faith in the common law and judge-made law was triumphant against concrete legislative reforms. After 1830, however, he shows how utilitarian ideals, and Jeremy Bentham's obsession with legislative reform, led to everything from the Reform Act of 1832 to the Divorce Act of 1857, all of which hoped to replace British "status" with a belief in "contract" between individuals. He also tied these ideas to the resurgence of Evangelicalism, with its belief in individual conversions, human happiness, and its distrust of history and institutions. But Dicey is at its most astute when he analyzes the rise of "collectivism" after 1870. He shows how the "High Church" Oxford Movement led to a resurgence in romantic feeling and art, which the cold calculations of utilitarians seemed to contradict. He shows how the resurgence in historical method, as in Henry Maine's "Ancient Law" in 1861, led to suspicions of deductive instead of inductive reasoning and towards the idea of a path of historical development. It also led to a resurgence of race-based theorizing and nationalism which contradicted utilitarian's innate cosmopolitanism. Finally, these ideas were both tied to the rise of imperialism and the need for a "muscular" state to control colonial dependencies. As Dicey shows, the fruits of these were everything from the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1896 to the Aliens Act of 1906 (which was the first to try to block immigration to England.) So this is a wonderful intellectual and political history of England in the 19th century, one which has been superseded in some respects, but which always must be consulted.