Health care delivery has become institutionalized. As a result, health care organizations now have the power to determine who has access to what kind of health care and under what circumstances. They shape as well the ethics of the various health care professions. These developments have provoked controversies about what kind of obligations such health care organizations have to patients, caregivers, and society at large. In order to respond to these controversies, an account of health care organizational ethics has become necessary.
The essays in this volume:

-are drawn from an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars in this growing field;

-address the nature of health care organizational ethics, including such issues as corporate fraud and institutional moral integrity;

-cover the broad range of issues that must be addressed for a coherent discussion of organizational moral responsibility;

-cover the range of theoretical and practical issues like no other volume;

-are of interest to researchers, students and professionals working in the fields of bioethics, health care administration and management, organizational science, and business ethics.

Autism is one of the most compelling, controversial, and heartbreaking cognitive disorders. It presents unique philosophical challenges as well, raising intriguing questions in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and philosophy of language that need to be explored if the autistic population is to be responsibly served. Starting from the "theory of mind" thesis that a fundamental deficit in autism is the inability to recognize that other persons have minds, Deborah R. Barnbaum considers its implications for the nature of consciousness, our understanding of the consciousness of others, meaning theories in philosophy of language, and the modality of mind. This discussion lays the groundwork for consideration of the value of an autistic life, as well as the moral theories available to persons with autism. The book also explores questions about genetic decision making, research into the nature of autism, and the controversial quest for a cure. This is a timely and wide-ranging book on a disorder that commends itself to serious ethical examination.

Since World War II, the biological and technological have been fusing and merging in new ways, resulting in the loss of a clear distinction between the two. This entanglement of biology with technology isn't new, but the pervasiveness of that integration is staggering, as is the speed at which the two have been merging in recent decades. As this process permeates more of everyday life, the urgent necessity arises to rethink both biology and technology. Indeed, the human body can no longer be regarded either as a bounded entity or as a naturally given and distinct part of an unquestioned whole. Bits of Life assumes a posthuman definition of the body. It is grounded in questions about today's biocultures, which pertain neither to humanist bodily integrity nor to the anthropological assumption that human bodies are the only ones that matter. Editors Anneke Smelik and Nina Lykke aid in mapping changes and transformations and in striking a middle road between the metaphor and the material. In exploring current reconfigurations of bodies and embodied subjects, the contributors pursue a technophilic, yet critical, path while articulating new and thoroughly appraised ethical standards.

Situated at the intersection of natural science and philosophy, Our Genes explores historical practices, investigates current trends, and imagines future work in genetic research to answer persistent, political questions about human diversity. Readers are guided through fascinating thought experiments, complex measures and metrics, fundamental evolutionary patterns, and in-depth treatment of exciting case studies. The work culminates in a philosophical rationale, based on scientific evidence, for a moderate position about the explanatory power of genes that is often left unarticulated. Simply put, human evolutionary genomics - our genes - can tell us much about who we are as individuals and as collectives. However, while they convey scientific certainty in the popular imagination, genes cannot answer some of our most important questions. Alternating between an up-close and a zoomed-out focus on genes and genomes, individuals and collectives, species and populations, Our Genes argues that the answers we seek point to rich, necessary work ahead.

Contemporary Issues in Bioethics presents a breadth of issues and balanced coverage of the most important topics in bioethics, including human reproduction, euthanasia and assisted suicide, genetics, the right to health care, organ transplantation, human and animal research, and planning for threats to public health. With a diverse range of classic and contemporary essays written by scholars in bioethics and judges in landmark legal cases, this anthology will help you understand issues from a variety of perspectives.

In Bioethics in America, Tina Stevens challenges the view that the origins of the bioethics movement can be found in the 1960s, a decade mounting challenges to all variety of authority. Instead, Stevens sees bioethics as one more product of a "centuries-long cultural legacy of American ambivalence toward progress," and she finds its modern roots in the responsible science movement that emerged following detonation of the atomic bomb.

Rather than challenging authority, she says, the bioethics movement was an aid to authority, in that it allowed medical doctors and researchers to proceed on course while bioethicists managed public fears about medicine's new technologies. That is, the public was reassured by bioethical oversight of biomedicine; in reality, however, bioethicists belonged to the same mainstream that produced the doctors and researchers whom the bioethicists were guiding.

Wondergenes not only imagines a future world in which genetic enhancement is the norm, but asserts that this future has already begun. Genetically engineered substances are already in use by athletes, in vitro fertilization already provides the primitive means by which parents can "select" an embryo, and the ability to create new forms of genetically engineered human beings is not far off. What happens when gene therapy becomes gene enhancement? Who will benefit and who might be left behind? What are the costs to our values and beliefs, and to the future of our society? To answer these questions, Maxwell J. Mehlman provides an overview of the scientific advances that have led to the present state of genetic enhancement and explains how these advances will be used in the future to redefine what we think of as a normal human being. He explores the ethical dilemmas already facing researchers and medical practitioners, and the dilemmas we will all be expected to face. In his forecast of the dangers inherent in this technology, he is particularly concerned with the emergence of a "genobility" made up of those able to afford increasingly expensive enhancement.

Wondergenes is a serious, accessible introduction to the social and personal implications of genetic engineering. Mehlman weighs the social and economic costs of the many proposals to regulate or limit genetic engineering and provides six concrete policy recommendations from professional licensing to a ban on germ-line enhancement that propose to make the future of genetic enhancement more equitable and safe."

Few avenues of scientific inquiry raise more thorny ethical questions than the cloning of human beings, a radical way to control our DNA. In August 2001, in conjunction with his decision to permit limited federal funding for stem-cell research, President George W. Bush created the President's Council on Bioethics to address the ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation. Over the past year the Council, whose members comprise an all-star team of leading scientists, doctors, ethicists, lawyers, humanists, and theologians, has discussed and debated the pros and cons of cloning, whether to produce children or to aid in scientific research. This book is its insightful and thought-provoking report.

The questions the Council members confronted do not have easy answers, and they did not seek to hide their differences behind an artificial consensus. Rather, the Council decided to allow each side to make its own best case, so that the American people can think about and debate these questions, which go to the heart of what it means to be a human being. Just as the dawn of the atomic age created ethical dilemmas for the United States, cloning presents us with similar quandaries that we are sure to wrestle with for decades to come.

This timely volume clearly lays out the central ethical questions raised by today's rapid advances in biotechnology. James Peterson sorts through the maze of clinical decisions occasioned by human genetic intervention, organizing the range of moral considerations that now face us and exploring their practical impact on individuals, families, and communities.

Providing the first account of the story behind genetically engineered plants, Paul F. Lurquin covers the controversial birth of the field, its sudden death, phoenixlike reemergence, and ultimate triumph as not only a legitimate field of science but a new tool of multinational corporate interests. In addition, Lurquin looks ahead to the potential impact this revolutionary technology will have on human welfare.

As Lurquin shows, it was the intense competition between international labs that resulted in the creation of the first transgenic plants. Two very different approaches to plant genetic engineering came to fruition at practically the same time, and Lurquin's account demonstrates how cross-fertilization between the two areas was critical to success. The scientists concerned were trying to tackle some very basic scientific problems and did not foresee the way that corporations would apply their methodology. With detailed accounts of the work of individual scientists and teams all over the world, Lurquin pieces together a remarkable account.

Providing the first account of the story behind genetically engineered plants, Paul F. Lurquin covers the controversial birth of the field, its sudden death, phoenixlike reemergence, and ultimate triumph as not only a legitimate field of science but a new tool of multinational corporate interests. In addition, Lurquin looks ahead to the potential impact this revolutionary technology will have on human welfare.

As Lurquin shows, it was the intense competition between international labs that resulted in the creation of the first transgenic plants. Two very different approaches to plant genetic engineering came to fruition at practically the same time, and Lurquin's account demonstrates how cross-fertilization between the two areas was critical to success. The scientists concerned were trying to tackle some very basic scientific problems and did not foresee the way that corporations would apply their methodology. With detailed accounts of the work of individual scientists and teams all over the world, Lurquin pieces together a remarkable account.

This new series of books brings thoughtful, biblically informed perspectives to contemporary issues in bioethics. Whether exploring abortion, assisted suicide, genetic engineering, or other controversial issues in bioethics, these volumes provide principled discussion of the ethical implications of today's medical and scientific breakthroughs. Extremely useful to students, scholars, and general readers alike, these volumes are ideal for classroom use -- in nontheological as well as theological settings.

This excellent text offers a broad-based introduction to the field of bioethics. Scott Rae and Paul Cox provide an assessment of various secular approaches to bioethics that are particularly influential today, and develop a framework for a Christian approach meant to assist people in addressing the many pressing issues in the field.

Though touching on the numerous debated issues in bioethics, the authors are primarily concerned here to give an account of the central theological notions crucial to an informed Christian perspective on bioethics. Their work makes a stimulating and substantial contribution to a Christian bioethic that can effectively engage the pluralistic culture in which health care is practiced today.

We are in the early years of a technological revolution arising from our understanding of the genetic meaning of life. Scientists' ability to manipulate and decode genes is advancing at an extraordinary pace - so fast we are often unprepared to handle the many vexing legal, economic, ethical and social issues they raise. The combination of genetic research and information technology raises often chilling questions of privacy and genetic discrimination. Should individuals be allowed personal property rights to their DNA, cells or tissues? How should policymakers regulate the biotechnology industry to maximize safety without stifling innovation? What are the appropriate uses of gene therapy and other genetic manipulations? In "Genetic Testing and the Use of Information", leading scholars grapple with issues of genetic privacy, the regulation of genetic testing and genetic discrimination. They consider such questions as: Who should have access to information derived from a genetic test? Should one be obligated to tell a spouse or a child test results? Should governments ever appropriately mandate individual genetic testing or community-wide genetic screening? Will employers be able to require the release of genetic records as a condition of employment? Will insurance companies be allowed to use genetic information to determine risk? At what point does a genetic condition qualify as a disability under the American with Disabilities Act?

Dieser Band prasentiert einen UEberblick uber die Medizinethik. Er stellt konzeptuelle und methodische Zugange zum Fach dar und bietet Einblicke in zentrale Themenfelder. Kurze Einfuhrungen und Lekturefragen zu ausgewahlten Texten erleichtern die systematische Einordnung der verschiedenen theoretischen und praktischen Fragestellungen der Medizinethik.

"This is a valuable clarification, re-statement and defence of principlism as an approach to applied ethics. It is strongly recommended to many teachers of bioethics..." Journal of the American Medical Association

"Childress book deserves careful study by all concerned with the ethical aspect of contemporary biomedical challenges." Science Books & Films

"An ideal supplement for a graduate seminar on bioethics or for upper-division undergraduates needing more information in this area." Choice

In these revised and updated essays, renowned ethicist James F. Childress highlights the role of imagination in practical reasoning through various metaphors and analogies. His discussion of ethical problems contributes to a better understanding of the scope and strength of different moral principles, such as justice, beneficence, and respect for autonomy. At the same time, Childress demonstrates the major role of metaphorical, analogical, and symbolic reasoning in biomedical ethics, largely in conjunction with, rather than in opposition to, principled reasoning."

How should we attempt to resolve concrete bioethical problems? How are we to understand the role of bioethics in the health care system, government, and academe? This collection of original essays raises these and other questions about the nature of bioethics as a discipline. The contributors to the volume discuss various approaches to bioethical thinking and the political and institutional contexts of bioethics, addressing underlying concerns about the purposes of its practice. Included are extended analyses of such important issues as the conduct of clinical trials, euthanasia, justice in health care, the care of children, cosmetic surgery, and reproductive technologies.

From the moment medical students step into a hospital they must confront the moral implication of providing health care. In this brief textbook of medical ethics Dr. English provides a succinct yet comprehensive overview of the issues students will encounter.

What caused physicians in the USA to confront committees, forms, and active patients? Tracing the revolution that transformed the doctor-patient relationship, this book takes the reader into the labouratory and the examining room, tracing the development of new technologies and social attitudes.

In der zeitgenoessischen Reproduktionsethik werden intensiv moralische Probleme von Fortpflanzungstechniken wie Leihmutterschaft oder Gametenspende diskutiert. Erstaunlicherweise wird aber die fundamentale reproduktionsethische Frage, ob wir uns fortpflanzen sollten, kaum thematisiert. Auch Ethiken der Elternschaft eroertern zwar normative Probleme des Eltern-Kind-Verhaltnisses und fragen nach der Grundlage parentaler Pflichten, aussern sich aber meist nicht zu der Frage, ob wir Eltern werden sollten. Der Anti-Natalismus, als dessen wichtigster zeitgenoessischer Vertreter David Benatar gilt, widmet sich dieser zentralen Frage. Anti-Natalisten pladieren dafur, die Frage, ob wir uns fortpflanzen sollten, mit "Nein" zu beantworten. In der vorliegenden Abhandlung wird nach der Tragfahigkeit anti-natalistischer Argumente gefragt; es wird zwischen verschiedenen Formen des Anti-Natalismus differenziert und dargelegt, in welcher Form sich ein Anti-Natalismus verteidigen lasst. Es wird deutlich, dass sich zwar keine Pflicht, sich nicht fortzupflanzen, begrunden lasst, der Anti-Natalismus sich aber in einer bestimmten Form als kritikresistent erweist und zeigen kann, dass und warum es auch unter gunstigen Umstanden moralisch problematisch ist, Kinder in die Welt zu setzen.

The relation between the pursuit of knowledge and the conduct of life-between science and ethics, each broadly conceived-has in recent years been greatly complicated by developments in the science of life. This book examines the ethical questions involved in prenatal screening, in vitro fertilization, artificial life forms, and medical care, and discusses the role of human beings in nature.

Zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts verandert sich durch Entdeckungen und Entwicklungen in Feldern wie den Neurotechnologien und der Hirnforschung, der Gentechnik und synthetischen Biologie, der Prothetik und den Nanotechnologien auch unser Verstandnis der Natur und des Menschseins. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es das Ziel des Sammelbands, Perspektiven aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum mit ausgewahlten europaischen Positionen in einem interdisziplinaren Austausch zusammenzufuhren. Zugleich soll, was bisher eher selten der Fall war, ein Bruckenschlag zwischen empirischer Forschung zu Koerpermodifikationspraktiken und theoretischer Reflektion geleistet werden.

Die Allgemeine Erklarung der Menschenrechte und das Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland haben die Menschenwurde als Hoechstwert und oberstes Prinzip verankert. Biopolitischen Eingriffen durch den Staat sollte damit eine absolute Grenze gesetzt werden. Die Unbestimmtheit der Menschenwurde hat jedoch in den bioethischen Debatten der letzten Jahrzehnte dazu gefuhrt, dass die Vorrangstellung der Menschenwurde in Frage gestellt wurde oder sich Vertreter entgegengesetzter Positionen beide gleichermassen auf die Wurde des Menschen berufen konnten. So stehen Eugenik und Euthanasie - in liberalem Gewande - als legitime Optionen wieder auf der Tagesordnung. Dies ist einerseits eine Problemanzeige und andererseits der Hinweis darauf, das unterschiedliche Lager unter Wurde unterschiedliches verstehen. Der vorliegende Band diskutiert vorranging das Verhaltnis von Menschenwurde und Autonomie als den zentralen Argumentationsgrundlagen dieser Debatte. Dabei wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit es gerechtfertigt ist, den Wurdebegriff durch den Autonomiebegriff zu ersetzen, bzw. ob der Wurdebegriff Aspekte des Autonomiebegriffs integrieren oder ausschliessen muss, um dem Grundanliegen der Allgemeinen Erklarung der Menschenrechte und des Grundgesetzes der Bundesrepublik Deutschland gerecht zu werden, ohne Abstriche am Grundsatz der Unverfugbarkeit zu riskieren.

Genome sequencing is one of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs of the past thirty years. But what precisely does it involve and how is it developing? In this brilliantly wide-ranging, one-stop guide WIRED journalist Rachael Pells explains the science behind genomics. She analyses its practical applications in medical diagnosis and the treatment of conditions that range from cancer to severe allergic reactions to cystic fibrosis. She considers its potential to help with advances in agriculture and environmental science. She explores the ethics of genetic modification and the dangers involved when humans 'play God'. And she addresses the fundamental question: to what extent will future advances transform human longevity and the quality of life.