Current Controversies In Bioethics

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Contributors -- Bioethics: Current Controversies -- Part I Research Ethics: How Should We Justify Ancillary-Care Duties? -- 1 Locating Medical Researchers' Ancillary-Care Obligations within the Division of Moral Labor -- 2 The Grounds of Ancillary Care Duties -- Suggested Further Readings (Part I) -- Study Questions (Part I) -- Part II Clinical Ethics: Are Psychopaths Morally Accountable? -- 3 Fine Cuts of Moral Agency: Dissociable Deficits in Psychopathy and Autism -- 4 Holding Psychopaths Responsible and the Guise of the Good -- Suggested Further Readings (Part II) -- Study Questions (Part II) -- Part III Reproductive Ethics: Is There a Solution to the Nonidentity Problem? -- 5 Dividing and Conquering the Nonidentity Problem -- 6 The Nonidentity Problem: United and Unconquered -- Suggested Further Readings (Part III) -- Study Questions (Part III) -- Part IV Neuroethics: What Is Addiction and Does It Excuse? -- 7 Addiction, Habits, and Blame -- 8 How Addicts Lose Control -- Suggested Further Readings (Part IV) -- Study Questions (Part IV) -- Part V Public Health Ethics: Is Luck Egalitarianism Implausibly Harsh? -- 9 Rarely Harsh and Always Fair: Luck Egalitarianism and Unhealthy Choices -- 10 Luck Egalitarianism, Harshness, and the Rule of Rescue -- Suggested Further Readings (Part V) -- Study Questions (Part V) -- Supplemental Guide to Further Controversies -- Index

Bioethics is the study of ethical issues arising out of advances in the life sciences and medicine. Historically, bioethics has been associated with issues in research ethics and clinical ethics as a result of research scandals such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and public debates about the definition of death, medical paternalism, health care rationing, and abortion. As biomedical technologies have advanced, challenging new questions have arisen for bioethics and new sub-disciplines such as neuroethics and public health ethics have entered the scene. This volume features ten original essays on five cutting-edge controversies in bioethics written by leading philosophers. I. Research Ethics: How Should We Justify Ancillary Care Duties? II. Clinical Ethics: Are Psychopaths Morally Accountable? III. Reproductive Ethics: Is There A Solution to the Non-Identity Problem? IV. Neuroethics: What is Addiction and Does It Excuse? V. Public Health Ethics: Is Luck Egalitarianism Implausibly Harsh? S. Matthew Liao and Collin O’Neil’s concise introduction to the essays in the volume, the annotated bibliographies and study questions for each controversy, and the supplemental guide to additional current controversies in bioethics give the reader a broad grasp of the different kinds of challenges in bioethics.

On February 26, 2020, the Board on Health Sciences Policy of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a 1-day public workshop in Washington, DC, to examine current and emerging bioethical issues that might arise in the context of biomedical research and to consider research topics in bioethics that could benefit from further attention. The scope of bioethical issues in research is broad, but this workshop focused on issues related to the development and use of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and machine learning in research and clinical practice; issues emerging as nontraditional approaches to health research become more widespread; the role of bioethics in addressing racial and structural inequalities in health; and enhancing the capacity and diversity of the bioethics workforce. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

In recent years, advances in biological science and technology have outpaced policymakers' attempts to deal with them. Current Controversies in the Biological Sciences examines the ways in which the federal government uses scientific information in reaching policy decisions, providing case studies of the interactions between science and government on different biomedical, biological, and environmental issues. These case studies document a broad range of complex issues in science policy—from the Human Genome Project to tobacco regulation—and provide an accessible overview of both the science behind the issues and the policy-making process. The cases illustrate the different ways in which science and politics intersect in policy decisions, as well as the different forms policy itself may take—including not only regulatory action but the lack of regulation. Among the topics examined are public and private research funding, as seen in gene patenting; reluctance to regulate even when a product has been proven unhealthy, as in the case of tobacco; a comparison of U.S. and international policy responses to genetically modified organisms; and the competing interests at play in air pollution policy. Each chapter includes shorter side essays on related topics (for example, essays on issues raised by the SARS epidemic accompany the detailed case study of the public health response to the anthrax-laced mail received in the weeks after 9/11). This clear and readable introduction to controversial issues in the biological sciences will be a valuable resource for students of science policy and bioethics and for professionals in industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations who need background on emerging issues in the biological sciences.

Compendium of articles from recent surgical literature that address ethical issues chosen by surgeons.

Disputes in Bioethics tackles some of the most debated questions in contemporary scholarship about the beginning and end of life. This collection of essays takes up questions about the dawn of human life, including: Should we make children with three (or more) parents? Is it better never to have been born? and Why should the baby live? This volume also asks about the dusk of human life: Is "death with dignity" a dangerous euphemism? Should euthanasia be permitted for children? Does assisted suicide harm those who do not choose to die? Still other questions are asked concerning recent views that health care professionals should not have a right to conscientiously object to legal and accepted medical practices. Finally, the book addresses questions about separating conjoined twins as well as the issue of whether the species of an individual makes a difference for the individual’s moral status. Christopher Kaczor critiques some of the most recent and influential positions in bioethics, while eschewing both consequentialism and principalism. Rooted in the Catholic principle that faith and reason are harmonious, this book shows how Catholic bioethical teaching is rationally defensible in terms that people of good will, secular or religious, can accept. Proceeding from a natural law perspective, Kaczor defends the inherent dignity of all human beings and argues that they merit the protection of their basic human goods because of that inherent dignity. Philosophers interested in applied ethics, as well as students and professors of law, will profit from reading Disputes in Bioethics. The book aims to be both philosophically sophisticated and accessible for students and experienced researchers alike.

Islamic Bioethics presents a wide variety of perspectives and debates on how Islamic societies deal with the ethical dilemmas raised by biomedicine and new technologies. The book is a "constructive dialogue" between contributors selected from a multidisciplinary group of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars from different Islamic countries. The 11 chapters illuminate the diversity and complexity of the issues discussed in Islamic bioethics and pave the way to a better understanding of Islamic bioethics and dialogue in the global bioethics community. The chapters take both theoretical and practical approaches to the topic, and each covers an emerging issue in Islamic bioethics. This book will be useful for academics and professional institutions in both Islamic and non-Islamic countries, and will be instrumental in providing researchers, scholars, students, policymakers and medical professionals with access to the latest issues and debates related to Islamic bioethics. Contributors include: Tariq Ramadan, Abdallah Daar, Ali Albar, Mohsin Ebrahim, Baharouddin Azizan Alastair Campbel, Bagher Larijani, Carol Taylor, Gamal Serour, James Rusthoven, Ilhan Ilkilic, Ingrid Mattson, Hassan Chamsi-Pasha, Jonathan Crane, Hakan Ertin, Mehunisha Suleman. Contents: Islamic Ethics: Sources, Methodology and Application (T Ramadan)Islamic Bioethics: Infrastructure and Capacity Building (A Bagheri)What Islamic Bioethics Can Offer to Global Bioethics (A Bagheri et al.)Gender and Sexuality in Islamic Bioethics (I Mattson)Physician-Patient Relationship in Islamic Context (M Al Bar & H Chamsi-Pasha)Islamic Perspective on Brain Death and Organ Transplantation (M Ebrahim)The Stem Cell Debate in Islamic Bioethics (H Ertin & I Ilkilic)Environmental Ethics in Islam (A Baharuddin & M N Musa)Animal Rights in Islam (B Larijani et al.)Biomedical Research Ethics in the Islamic Context: Reflections on and Challenges for Islamic Bioethics (M Suleman)Challenges in Islamic Bioethics (K Alali et al.) Readership: Healthcare professionals, health policy makers, physicians and nurses, lawyers academics, researchers, graduate students and lay public. Keywords: Islamic Bioethics;Bioethics;Biomedical Ethics;Medical Ethics;IslamReview: Key Features: Provides a platform for a better understanding of bioethical issues in Islamic context and how an ethical dilemma is dealt with and how decisions are made in Islamic bioethics from a multidisciplinary group of scholarsBioethical topics presented in this volume are the most critical issues in Islamic bioethics as well as global bioethicsEach chapter presents an update of a bioethical topic and/or challenges in Islamic bioethics from an authoritative bioethics/religious scholarIn an innovative approach this volume presents a constructive dialogue between prominent Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars on Islamic bioethics

The aim of this book is to introduce and discuss bioethics in a three-synergistic way: from the foundations to the current debates in relation to healthcare and social bioethics, and thereafter the possible future challenges. In this sense, the target audience can be from diverse disciplines: life and medical sciences, law, philosophy, psychology, and education. The book will be useful to high school students, in their first contacts with bioethics, college students, teachers and researchers, and the general public interested in these controversial debates of the past, present and future of bioethics.