Classic Works in Medical Ethics: Core Philosophical Readings
Published on 16. October 1997
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-0-07-038115-5 (ISBN)
Description
After thirty years, Medical Ethics has matured to where a collection of core writings in the field is now possible. There is even a danger that some classic articles will cease to be known because they are no longer included in "issue of the moment" anthologies. This book offers classic, well-written articles that have stood the test of time and have something to teach. These are articles with good philosophical analysis dealing with important topics and making significant contributions to understanding of issues. There are no long, boring selections from government commissions or technical pieces from scientific journals. Many selections illustrate how and why philosophers contributed to the progress of medical ethics. The articles cluster around several broad philosophical questions: terminating the lives of dying patients; assisting human life to begin outside the womb; terminating the beginnings of human life; personhood and higher animals, fetuses, impaired newborns, comatose patients; individual rights against the greater social good; and allocating scarce medical resources.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
McGraw-Hill Education - Europe
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-07-038115-5 (9780070381155)
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
Person
Gregory Pence is one of the pioneering bioethicists of America. Having taught for thirty years in a medical school, he has seen many past prophecies of doom fail. He is optimistic about biotechnology. He is internationally famous for defending cloning and genetically modified food against bioLuddites who oppose research on stem cells and cloning. Because of his views, his talks have been picketed by Greenpeace and anti-cloning zealots. His Classic Cases in Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases that Shaped Medical Ethics, 4th ed., 2003, is one of the standard textbooks of bioethics. His Who's Afraid of Human Cloning? (1998) is already regarded as a classic in bioethics for its rigorous attack on opponents of cloning. His Cloning After Dolly: Who's STILL Afraid of Human Cloning? will appear in late 2004. His Designer Food: Mutant Harvest or Breadbasket of the World? won a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2003. He doesn't think the sky will fall if a cloned baby is born. In opposing laws against cloning, he was asked to testify in 2001 before Congress and in 2002 before the California Senate. Constantly in demand for national television, Pence has been interviewed on Bobby Battista's "Talk Back Live" with Bobby Battista, "The Point" with Gretta von Susteren on CNN, "The Early Show with Bryant Gumbel" on CBS, "Wolf Blitzer's Washington" on CNN, as well as on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" and its "Weekend Edition." He has also been interviewed by TIME magazine, the New York Times, and most national publications. He has published in Newsweek, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Pence has given the Soundings Lecture at Castleton State College, VT, the Thornton Lecture at Alma College, MI, the Seidman Trust Lecture at Rhodes College, TN, and the Hughes Memorial Lecture at West Liberty State College in WVA. He has talked at Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. He has given keynote talks about cloning at universities in Portugal, London, Switzerland, and Australia. Pence teaches at the medical school at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), where he also directs a program for gifted undergraduates pre-admitted to UAB medical school. There, he has been voted Best Teacher. He grew up in Washington, D.C., was graduated from the College of William and Mary cum laude in Philosophy, and earned his doctorate from New York University in 1974, where he worked on his dissertation under bioethicist Peter Singer, now at Princeton University.
Content
Introduction: Ethical Theories and Medical Ethics, Gregory PencePART I: ALLOWING DEATH TO OCCUR IN INCOMPETENT PATIENTSChapter 1. Active and Passive Euthanasia, James RachelsChapter 2. On Killing Patients with Kindness: An Appeal for Caution, Alan J. Weisbard and Mark SeiglerChapter 3. The Cognitive Criterion of Humanhood, Joseph FletcherPART II: ALLOWING DEATH BY COMPETENT ADULTS TO OCCURChapter 4. Voluntary Active Euthanasia, Dan BrockChapter 5. The Right to Suicide: A Psychiatrist's View, Jerome MottoChapter 6. Physical-Assisted Dying: Self-Determination Run Amok, Daniel CallahanPART III: ASSISTED REPRODUCTION: EMBRYOSChapter 7. The Moral Status of the Embryo, Peter SingerChapter 8. "Making Babies" Revisited, Leon KassChapter 9. Ending Reproductive Roulette, Joseph FletcherPART IV: ASSISTED REPRODUCTION: SURROGATE MOTHERHOODChapter 10. The Case Against Surrogate Parenting, Herbert KrimmelChapter 11. Surrogate Mothers: Not So Novel After All, John RoberstonPART V: ABORTIONChapter 12. A Defense of Abortion, Judith Jarvis ThomsonChapter 13. On the Moral and Legal Status of AbortionChapter 14. Why Abortion is Immoral, Don MarquisPART VI: ETHICS AND IMPERILED NEWBORNSChapter 15. Abortion and Infanticide, Michael TooleyChapter 16. Involuntary Euthanasia of Defective NewbornsPART VII: EXPERIMENTATION ON ANIMALSChapter 17. All Animals Are Equal, Peter SingerPART VIII: JUST ALLOCATION OF SCARCE MEDICAL RESOURCESChapter 18. The Allocation of Exotic Medical Lifesaving Therapy, Nicholas RescherChapter 19. Alcoholics and Liver Transplantation, Carl Cohen, Martin Benjamin et al.Chapter 20. Rationing Failure: Ethical Lessons of Retransplantation, Peter Ubell, Robert Arnold and Arthur CaplanPART IX: INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENTChapter 21. The Case for Involuntary Hospitalization of the Mentally Ill, Paul ChodoffChapter 22. Involuntary Mental Hospitalization: A Crime Against Humanity, Thomas SzaszPART X: GENETIC INFORMATION AND GENETIC THERAPYChapter 23. Bad Axioms in Genetic Engineering, C. Keith BooneChapter 24. Moral Issues in Human Genetics: Counseling or Control?, Ruth MacklinChapter 25. Resisting Reductionism from the Human Genome Project, Robert N. ProctorPART XI: JUSTICE, FINANCE, AND MEDICAL CAREChapter 26. Saint Martin of Tours in a New World of Medical Ethics, Richard D. LammChapter 27. For and Against Equal Access to Health Care, Amy GutmanPART XII: ETHICS AND AIDSChapter 28. How Society Should Respond to AIDS, Richard Mohr