Am I my brother's keeper?

This article is based on a speech given to mark the 100th anniversary of the Amsterdam School of Social Work. In it, Zygmunt Bauman, one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century, asks the age-old question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’, and in doing so, addresses fundamental questions about the role and task of social work today, within the context of a welfare state that it not just under pressure, but under attack. Bauman concludes that the only way forward is to continue to ‘take responsibility for our responsibility’; to ‘measure the quality of society by the quality of its ethical standards’ (p.11).