
In Search of the Good
A Life in Bioethics
Daniel Callahan(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 19. October 2012
Book
Hardback
232 pages
978-0-262-01848-7 (ISBN)
Description
One of the founding fathers of bioethics describes the development of the field and his thinking on some of the crucial issues of our time. Daniel Callahan helped invent the field of bioethics more than forty years ago when he decided to use his training in philosophy to grapple with ethical problems in biology and medicine. Disenchanted with academic philosophy because of its analytical bent and distance from the concerns of real life, Callahan found the ethical issues raised by the rapid medical advances of the 1960s-which included the birth control pill, heart transplants, and new capacities to keep very sick people alive-to be philosophical questions with immediate real-world relevance. In this memoir, Callahan describes his part in the founding of bioethics and traces his thinking on critical issues including embryonic stem cell research, market-driven health care, and medical rationing. He identifies the major challenges facing bioethics today and ruminates on its future.Callahan writes about founding the Hastings Center-the first bioethics research institution-with the author and psychiatrist Willard Gaylin in 1969, and recounts the challenges of running a think tank while keeping up a prolific flow of influential books and articles. Editor of the famous liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal in the 1960s, Callahan describes his now-secular approach to issues of illness and mortality. He questions the idea of endless medical "progress" and interventionist end-of-life care that seems to blur the boundary between living and dying. It is the role of bioethics, he argues, to be a loyal dissenter in the onward march of medical progress. The most important challenge for bioethics now is to help rethink the very goals of medicine.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
3 color photos, 3 b&w photos; 6 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
476 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-01848-7 (9780262018487)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2012
MIT Press
€33.99
Available for download