Meta Medical Ethics

This anthology is the culmination of some 20 years of interest in the field of bioethics. I began my studies in the philosophy of science while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. My interest then, as now, continues to be the complex interrelationship between science and the humanities. While grounded in philosophy and molecular biology, I yearned for a more applied realm for exploration and integration of the value laden nature of science in the public policy arena. After receiving my medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, I continued my work in medical ethics focusing primarily on the ethics of human experimentation, newborn and reproductive technologies, and human genetics. As I completed my clinical training at the University of California at Los Angeles and at Harvard, I had the opportunity to use philosophical ethics in an attempt to understand, frame and resolve moral dilemmas in clinical practice. As a professor of medical ethics at Boston University for the past decade, I have taught bioethics at the undergraduate, graduate and post doctoral levels. Over these years I have become increasingly frustrated by the state of contemporary bioethics. Medicine continues to serve as an interesting paradigm for philosophers to explore novel theories about life, death, mind, suffering and meaning. Philosophy, however, has not served medicine quite so well as a source of knowledge and discipline to resolve the contemporary moral dilemmas found in health care.

What is Bioethics? What are its goals and theoretical assumptions? Is it a unique discipline? Must medical ethics be grounded in clinical experience? How can ethical inquiry inform medicine's theory and practice? Must one have a definition of medicine before one can have a medical ethic? Does medicine have a unique or demarcating body of knowledge, methodology, or philosophy? These troubling questions are addressed by a distinguished roster of philosophers, theologians, lawyers, social scientists, physicians and scientists. The unifying theme of this text is a philosophical exploration of the history, nature, scope and foundations of bioethics. There is a critical evaluation of principled, communitarian, legal, narrative and feminist approaches. The book's interdisciplinary focus allows for a lively dialogue which includes papers and accompanying commentaries. Audience: Philosophers of science and medical ethicists, physicians, lawyers, policy makers.

This is the first book in bioethics that explains how it is that you actually go about doing good bioethics. Bioethics has made a mistake about its methods, and this has led not only to too much theorizing, but also fragmentation within bioethics. The unhelpful disputes between those who think bioethics needs to be more philosophical, more sociological, more clinical, or more empirical, continue. While each of these claims will have some point, they obscure what should be common to all instances of bioethics. Moreover, they provide another phantom that can lead newcomers to bioethics down blind alleyways stalked by bristling sociologists and philosophers. The method common to all bioethics is bringing moral reason to bear upon ethical issues, and it is more accurate and productive to clarify what this involves than to stake out a methodological patch that shows why one discipline is the most important. This book develops an account of the nature of bioethics and then explains how a number of methodological spectres have obstructed bioethics becoming what it should. In the final part, it explains how moral reason can be brought to bear upon practical issues via an 'empirical, Socratic' approach.

Structured around eight chapters, this book introduces ethical theory and practice to healthcare students and professionals, including medicine, nursing, public health, dentistry, and research. Increasingly, students and professionals within healthcare are faced with difficult questions and decisions: medical progress and technological innovation are widening the therapeutic scope, thereby both allowing for new, exciting possibilities but also making clinical decisions more intricate. That’s why it is no longer enough to provide healthcare students and professionals with some basics in biomedical ethics; rather, what is needed is also an accessible guide to ethical theories and practices, which does not presuppose any background or training in philosophy while at the same time not renouncing the fundamental questions at the core of the medical profession – this book aims to be exactly that ethical guide.

Graber (philosophy, U. of Tennessee) and Thomasma (medical humanities, Loyola U., Stritch School of Medicine) address the modes of analysis and the conclusions they foster. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book arms both students and professionals with the knowledge to tackle situations of moral uncertainty in clinical practice.

Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title What is so special about human life? What is the relationship between flesh and blood and the human soul? Is there a kind of life that is worse than death? Can a person die and yet the human organism remain in some real sense alive? Can souls become sick? What justifies cutting into a living human body? These and other questions, writes neurosurgeon and philosopher Grant Gillett, pervade hospital wards, clinical offices, and operating rooms. In Bioethics in the Clinic: Hippocratic Reflections, Gillett brings the tools of philosophy to bear on some of the most pressing issues confronting bioethicists today. Gillett draws on many schools of thought, including analytic, moral, and postmodern philosophy; utilitarianism; classical ethical theory; phenomenology; and metaphysics. He engages the reasoning of such philosophers as Aristotle, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Habermas, Levinas, and Martha Nussbaum, and offers both practical and clinical insights into such topics as the principle of "Do no harm," informed consent, confidentiality, cloning, and euthanasia. Opening with an explanation of the axioms to be traced throughout succeeding discussions, with special emphasis on Hippocratic principles, Gillett focuses on general and specific problems of clinical practice, particularly as they affect the physician-patient relationship. The author then goes on to address ethical problems related to both the end of life, including euthanasia, and the beginning of life, such as embryo and stem cell research. Rigorous and elegant, this book will be of interest to those in medical fields, to students and scholars of philosophy, and to lay readers interested in the profound ethical dramas played out in hospitals and doctors' offices every day.

Medical Ethics - General Practice: The Integrative Approach Series - ‘Ethics’ is a word derived from the Greek ethikos, which means ‘habit’ or ‘custom’. Put simply, in modern usage it is the study of how we ought to live or act in response to the situations confronting us in daily life. Medical ethics in particular is a branch of bioethics and is the study of how we ought to live or act as doctors. Ethics, being a branch of philosophy, relates to things such as ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘duty’ and ‘morality’. Making decisions of an ethical nature in medical practice is often difficult and demanding, and the clinician has to balance medical considerations with legal and moral ones. Taking the time to reflect upon ethical issues, and having a structured approach to doing this, can help clinicians to navigate through many potentially challenging situations. Not taking time for this can compound ethical and moral concerns. This has effects upon our wellbeing and can also have medico-legal implications. As with many medico-legal dilemmas, ethical problems are often compounded by poor communication. This chapter does not present a detailed analysis of particular and complex bioethical issues such as euthanasia, stem cell research or abortion. Nor does it make concrete pronouncements about the ‘correct’ view on given topics or course of action in given situations. It does, however, give an overview of generic ethical terms, concepts and methods that can be applied by the clinician to particular situations. We are interested here in ‘applied ethics’ and not simply ‘theoretical ethics’ or ‘meta-ethics’.