This book brings together a number of essays that are optimistic about the ways certain neuroscientific insights might advance philosophical ethics, and other essays that are more circumspect about the relevance of neuroscience to philosophical ethics. As a whole, the essays form a self-reflective body of work that simultaneously seeks to derive normative ethical implications from neuroscience, and to question whether and how that may be possible at all. In doing so, the collection brings together psychology, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, ethics, and philosophy of science. Neuroscience seeks to understand the biological systems that guide human behavior and cognition. Normative ethics, on the other hand, seeks to understand the system of abstract moral principles dictating how people ought to behave. By studying how the human brain makes moral judgments, can philosophers learn anything about the nature of morality itself? A growing number of researchers believe that neuroscience can, indeed, provide insights into the questions of philosophical ethics. However, even these advocates acknowledge that the path from neuroscientific is to normative ethical ought can be quite fraught.

Bioethics in Our World: A Reader explores issues related to public health, psychiatry, genetics, and more, and examines the moral worth of actions within these fields. The anthology features collected cases that examine various topics and encourage readers to consider the ethical dilemmas they may face in their futures as clinicians, researchers, and citizens. The book is organized into seven units. The first unit presents the theories of utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and care ethics. Additional units cover topics that are salient to understanding the nature of bioethics and the world in which bioethics exists. These units address ethical issues in research; the history of eugenics and its relationship to eugenic practices today; and reproductive rights and technologies. Readers learn about experiences faced by patients, researchers, and healthcare professionals with regard to race, gender, age, and ability, and how these experiences are the result of a history of bias and stereotyping. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, stem cell research, gene-editing technology, and medicalization are explored. Timely, thought-provoking, and essential, Bioethics in Our World is an exemplary text for courses in public health, psychiatry, genetics, medical research, or any other course that explores bioethics.

This book comprehensively reviews the anatomy, physiology, genetics and pathology of laboratory animals as well as the principles and practices of using laboratory animals for biomedical research.It covers the design of buildings used for laboratory animals, quality control of laboratory animals, and toxicology, and discusses various animal models used for human diseases. It also highlights aspects, such as handling and restraint and administration of drugs, as well as breeding and feeding of laboratory animals, and provides guidelines for developing meaningful experiments using laboratory animals.Further, the book discusses various alternatives to animal experiments for drug and chemical testing, including their advantages over the current approaches. Lastly, it examines the potential effect of harmful pathogens on the physiology of laboratory animals and discusses the state of art in in vivo imaging techniques.The book is a useful resource for research scientists, laboratory animal veterinarians, and students of laboratory animal medicine.

At the onset of "Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity," Leon Kass gives us a status report on where we stand today: "Human nature itself lies on the operating table, ready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale redesign. In leading laboratories, academic and industrial, new creators are confidently amassing their powers and quietly honing their skills, while on the street their evangelists are zealously prophesying a posthuman future. For anyone who cares about preserving our humanity, the time has come for paying attention." Trained as a medical doctor and biochemist, Dr. Kass has become one of our most provocative thinkers on bioethical issues. Now, in this brave and searching book, he also establishes himself as a prophetic voice summoning us to think deeply about the new biomedical technologies threatening to take us back to the future envisioned by Aldous Huxley in "Brave New World." As in Huxley's dystopia, where life has been smoothed out by genetic manipulation, psychoactive drugs and high tech amusement, our own accelerating efforts to master reproduction and genetic endowment, to retard aging, and to conquer illness, imperfection, and death itself are animated by our most humane and progressive aspirations. But we are walking too quickly down the road to physical and psychological utopia, Kass believes, without pausing to assess the potential damage to our humanity from this brave new biology. In a series of meditations on cloning, embryo research, the human genome project, the sale of organs, and the assault on mortality itself, Kass evaluates the ongoing effort to break down the natural boundaries given us and to remake the human body into an instrument of our will. What does it mean to treat nascent human life as raw material to be exploited? What does it mean to blur the line between procreation and manufacture? What are the proper limits to this project for the remaking of human nature? These are the questions we should be asking to prevent runaway scientism with its utopian longings from reshaping humankind in the image of our own choosing. Kass believes that technology has done and will continue to do wonders for our health and longevity and that we have much to be thankful for. But there is more at stake in the biological revolution that saving life and avoiding death. We must also strive to protect the ideas and practices that give us dignity and keep us human. "Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity" challenges us to confront the posthuman future that may await us by thinking deeply about the life and death issues we face today.

This Open Access volume provides in-depth analysis of the wide range of ethical issues associated with drug-resistant infectious diseases. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is widely recognized to be one of the greatest threats to global public health in coming decades; and it has thus become a major topic of discussion among leading bioethicists and scholars from related disciplines including economics, epidemiology, law, and political theory. Topics covered in this volume include responsible use of antimicrobials; control of multi-resistant hospital-acquired infections; privacy and data collection; antibiotic use in childhood and at the end of life; agricultural and veterinary sources of resistance; resistant HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria; mandatory treatment; and trade-offs between current and future generations. As the first book focused on ethical issues associated with drug resistance, it makes a timely contribution to debates regarding practice and policy that are of crucial importance to global public health in the 21st century.

This book discusses recent brain research and the potentially dangerous dual-use applications of the findings of these research projects. The book is divided into three sections: Part I examines the rise in dual-use concerns within various state's chemical and biological non-proliferation regime's during this century, as well as the rapid technologically driven advances in neuroscience and the associated possible misuse considerations in the same period. Part II reviews the brain research projects in the EU, USA, Japan, China and several other countries with regard to their objectives, achievements and measures to deal with the problem of dual-use. Part III assesses the extent to which the results of this civil neuroscience work, which is intended to be benign, are being, and could be protected against future hostile applications in the development of novel chemical and biological weapons.

There have been extraordinary developments in the field of neuroscience in recent years, sparking a number of discussions within the legal field. This book studies the various interactions between neuroscience and the world of law, and explores how neuroscientific findings could affect some fundamental legal categories and how the law should be implemented in such cases. The book is divided into three main parts. Starting with a general overview of the convergence of neuroscience and law, the first part outlines the importance of their continuous interaction, the challenges that neuroscience poses for the concepts of free will and responsibility, and the peculiar characteristics of a "new" cognitive liberty. In turn, the second part addresses the phenomenon of cognitive and moral enhancement, as well as the uses of neurotechnology and their impacts on health, self-determination and the concept of being human. The third and last part investigates the use of neuroscientific findings in both criminal and civil cases, and seeks to determine whether they can provide valuable evidence and facilitate the assessment of personal responsibility, helping to resolve cases. The book is the result of an interdisciplinary dialogue involving jurists, philosophers, neuroscientists, forensic medicine specialists, and scholars in the humanities; further, it is intended for a broad readership interested in understanding the impacts of scientific and technological developments on people's lives and on our social systems.

This Dictionary presents a broad range of topics relevant in present-day global bioethics. With more than 500 entries, this dictionary covers organizations working in the field of global bioethics, international documents concerning bioethics, personalities that have played a role in the development of global bioethics, as well as specific topics in the field.The book is not only useful for students and professionals in global health activities, but can also serve as a basic tool that explains relevant ethical notions and terms. The dictionary furthers the ideals of cosmopolitanism: solidarity, equality, respect for difference and concern with what human beings- and specifically patients - have in common, regardless of their backgrounds, hometowns, religions, gender, etc. Global problems such as pandemic diseases, disasters, lack of care and medication, homelessness and displacement call for global responses.This book demonstrates that a moral vision of global health is necessary and it helps to quickly understand the basic ideas of global bioethics.

Given the profound moral-ethical controversies regarding the use of new biotechnologies in medical research and treatment, such as embryonic research and cloning, this book sheds new light on the role of religious organizations and actors in influencing the bio-political debates and decision-making processes. Further, it analyzes the ways in which religious traditions and actors formulate their bio-ethical positions and which rationales they use to validate their positions. The book offers a range of case studies on fourteen Western democracies, highlighting the bio-ethical and political debates over human stem cell research, therapeutic and reproductive cloning, and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. The contributing authors illustrate the ways in which national political landscapes and actors from diverse and often fragmented moral communities with widely varying moral stances, premises and commitments formulate their bio-ethical positions and seek to influence political decisions.

This book examines the ethics of end of life care, focusing on the kinds of decisions that are commonly made in clinical practice. Specific attention is paid to the intensification of treatment for terminal symptoms, particularly pain relief, and the withdrawal and withholding of care, particularly life-saving or life-prolonging medical care. The book is structured into three sections. The first section contains essays examining end of life care from the perspective of moral theory and theology. The second sets out various conceptual terms and distinctions relevant to decision-making at the end of life. The third section contains chapters that focus on substantive ethical issues. This format not only provides for a comprehensive analysis of the ethical issues that arise in the context of end of life care but allows readers to effectively trace the philosophical, theological and conceptual underpinnings that inform their specific interests. This work will be of interest to scholars working in the area as well as clinicians, specialists and healthcare professionals who encounter these issues in the course of their practice.

Reproductive science continues to revolutionise reproduction and propel us further into uncharted territories. The revolution signalled by the birth of Louise Brown after IVF in 1978, prompted governments across Europe and beyond into regulatory action. Forty years on, there are now dramatic and controversial developments in new reproductive technologies. Technologies such as uterus transplantation that may enable unisex gestation and babies gestated by dad; or artificial wombs that will completely divorce reproduction from the human body and allow babies to be gestated by machines, usher in a different set of legal, ethical and social questions to those that arose from IVF. This book revisits the regulation of assisted reproduction and advances the debate on from the now much-discussed issues that arose from IVF, offering a critical analysis of the regulatory challenges raised by new reproductive technologies on the horizon.

This book charts technological developments from an African ethical perspective. It explores the idea that while certain technologies have benefited Africans, the fact that these technologies were designed and produced in and for a different setting leads to conflicts with African ethical values. Written in a simple and engaging style, the authors apply an African ethical lens to themes such as: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the moral status of technology, technology and sexual relations, and bioethics and technology.

This book configures a consistent epistemology of biolaw that distinguishes itself from bioethics and from a mere set of international instruments on the regulation of biomedical practices. Such orthodox intellection has prevented biolaw from being understood as a new branch of law with legally binding force, which has certainly dwindled its epistemological density. Hence, this is a revolutionary book as it seeks to deconstruct the history of biolaw and its oblique epistemologies, which means not accepting perennial axioms, and not seeing paradigms where only anachronism and anomaly still exist. It is a book aimed at validity, but also at solidity because the truth of biolaw has never been told before. In that sense, it is also a revealing text. The book shapes biolaw as an independent and compelling branch of law, with a legally binding scope, which boosts the effectiveness of new deliberative models for legal sciences, as well as it utterly reinforces hermeneutical and epistemological approaches, in tune with the complexity of disturbing legal scenarios created by biomedical sciences' latest applications. This work adeptly addresses the origins of the European biolaw and its connections with American bioethics. It also analyses different biolaw's epistemologies historically developed both in Europe and in the United States, to finally offer a new conception of biolaw as a new branch of law, by exploring its theoretical and practical atmospheres to avoid muddle and uncertainty when applied in biomedical settings. This book is suitable for academics and students of biolaw, law, bioethics, and biomedical research, as well as for professionals in higher education institutions, courts, the biomedical industry, and pharmacological companies.

Respect for autonomy has become a fundamental principle in human research ethics. Nonetheless, this principle and the associated process of obtaining informed consent do have limitations. This can lead to some groups, many of them vulnerable, being left understudied. This book considers these limitations and contributes through legal and philosophical analyses to the search for viable approaches to human research ethics. It explores the limitations of respect for autonomy and informed consent both in law and through the examination of cases where autonomy is lacking (infants), diminished (addicts), and compromised (low socio-economic status). It examines alternative and complementary concepts to overcome the limits of respect for autonomy, including beneficence, dignity, virtue, solidarity, non-exploitation, vulnerability and self-ownership. It takes seriously the importance of human relationality and community in qualifying, tempering and complementing autonomy to achieve the ultimate end of human research - the good of humankind.

Over the past decades, public trust in medical professionals has steadily declined. This decline of trust and its replacement by ever tighter regulations is increasingly frustrating physicians. However, most discussions of trust are either abstract philosophical discussions or social science investigations not easily accessible to clinicians. The authors, one a surgeon-turned-philosopher, the other an analytical philosopher working in medical ethics, joined their expertise to write a book which straddles the gap between the practical and theoretical. Using an approach grounded in the methods of conceptual analysis found in analytical philosophy which also draws from approaches to medical diagnosis, the authors have conceived an internally coherent and comprehensive definition of trust to help elucidate the concept and explain its decline in the medical context. This book should appeal to all interested in the ongoing debate about the decline of trust - be it as medical professionals, medical ethicists, medical lawyers, or philosophers.

Stem cell research. Drug company influence. Abortion. Contraception. Long-term and end-of-life care. Human participants research. Informed consent. The list of ethical issues in science, medicine, and public health is long and continually growing. These complex issues pose a daunting task for professionals in the expanding field of bioethics. But what of the practice of bioethics itself? What issues do ethicists and bioethicists confront in their efforts to facilitate sound moral reasoning and judgment in a variety of venues? Are those immersed in the field capable of making the right decisions? How and why do they face moral challenge -- and even compromise -- as ethicists? What values should guide them? In The Ethics of Bioethics, Lisa A. Eckenwiler and Felicia G. Cohn tackle these questions head on, bringing together notable medical ethicists and people outside the discipline to discuss common criticisms, the field's inherent tensions, and efforts to assign values and assess success. Through twenty-five lively essays examining the field's history and trends, shortcomings and strengths, and the political and policy interplay within the bioethical realm, this comprehensive book begins a much-needed critical and constructive discussion of the moral landscape of bioethics.

In this book, the author argues that no current philosophical theory of evidence in clinical medical science is adequate. None can accurately explain the way evidence is gathered and used to confirm hypotheses. To correct this, he proposes a new approach called the weight of evidence account. This innovative method supplies a satisfactory explanation and rationale for the "hierarchical pyramid" of evidence-based medicine, with randomized clinical trials and their derivatives, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials at the top and case reports, case series, expert opinion, and the like at the bottom. The author illustrates the development of various "levels" of evidence by considering the evolution of less invasive surgical treatments for early breast cancer. He shows that the weight of evidence account explains the notion of levels of evidence and other efforts to rank them. In addition, he presents a defense of randomization as a method to maximize accuracy in the conduct of clinical trials. The title also considers ethical issues surrounding experimentation with medical therapies in human subjects. It illustrates and discusses these issues in studies of respiratory therapies in neonates and treatment for certain cancers in adults. The author shows that in many cases sufficient evidence can be accrued to warrant generally accepted new therapies without the need for evidence derived from randomized clinical trials.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine was asked to articulate a 5-year strategic vision for international health security programs and provide findings and recommendations on how to optimize the impact of the Department of Defense (DOD) Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) in fulfilling its biosafety and biosecurity mission. Because BTRP is just one of several U.S. government programs conducting international health security engagement, both the strategic vision and the success of the program rely on coordinating actions with the U.S. government as a whole and with its international partners. This report provides several recommendations for optimizing BTRP success in its current mission and the wider-looking strategic vision it proposes. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 The History of Cooperative Threat Reduction (1991-2018) 2 The Changing Biothreat Landscape 3 Addressing Biothreats through Successful Engagement 4 Key Roles for the Department of Defense in Biological Threat Reduction 5 Strategic Vision and the Way Forward 6 Key Findings and Recommendations References Appendix A: Committee Biographies Appendix B: Congressionally-Appropriated Funding for the Biological Threat Reduction Program (2007-2020) Appendix C: U.S. and International Agencies and Organizations Engaged in Global Health Security

This book provides a perspective on the concepts placebo and placebo effects, which has been missing so far: a detailed analysis of the history of the terms, their current use, suggested alternatives and the implications of the conceptual confusion. Everybody knows something about placebos and placebo effects. If, however, people are asked to define the concepts, the spectrum becomes wide. Does 'placebo' refer to an inert treatment or does it cover all elements of the patient-physician-interaction except for pharmacological or other physiological mechanisms? Furthermore, if, by definition, a placebo has no effect, what sense does it make to talk about a 'placebo effect'? Even in scientific literature the concepts 'placebo' and 'placebo effect' are used in many senses and often in a confusing way. While this book discusses many issues which keep puzzling physicians, it also covers the historical developments of the concepts of placebo and placebo effect as well as the conceptual confusion in the definitions. This book is intended for physicians, philosophers, psychologists and any other people interested in placebos, placebo effects and the physician-patient relationship.

This book addresses the complexity of talking about normativity in bioethics within the context of contemporary multicultural and multi-religious society. It offers original contributions by specialists in bioethics exploring new ways of understanding normativity in bioethics. In bioethical publications and debates, the concept of normativity is often used without consideration of the difficulties surrounding it, whereas there are many competing claims for normativity within bioethics. Examples of such competing normative bioethical discourses can be perceived in variations and differences in bioethical arguments within individual religions, and the opposition between bioethical arguments from specific religions and arguments from bioethicists who do not claim religious allegiance. We also cannot merely assume that a Western understanding of normative bioethics will be unproblematic in bioethics in non-Western cultures and religions. Through an analysis of normativity in Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish bioethics, the book creates awareness of the complexity of normativity in bioethics. The book also covers normative bioethics outside an explicitly religiously committed context, and specific attention is paid to bioethics as an interdisciplinary endeavor. It reveals how normativity relates to empirical and global bioethics, which challenges it faces in bioethics in secular pluralistic society, and how to overcome these. By doing that, this book fills an important gap in bioethics literature.

In "Becoming Undone," Elizabeth Grosz addresses three related concepts--life, politics, and art--by exploring the implications of Charles Darwin's account of the evolution of species. Challenging characterizations of Darwin's work as a form of genetic determinism, Grosz shows that his writing reveals an insistence on the difference between natural selection and sexual selection, the principles that regulate survival and attractiveness, respectively. Sexual selection complicates natural selection by introducing aesthetic factors and the expression of individual will, desire, or pleasure. Grosz explores how Darwin's theory of sexual selection transforms philosophy, our understanding of humanity in its male and female forms, our ideas of political relations, and our concepts of art. Connecting the naturalist's work to the writings of Bergson, Deleuze, and Irigaray, she outlines a postmodern Darwinism that understands all of life as forms of competing and coordinating modes of openness. Although feminists have been suspicious of the concepts of nature and biology central to Darwin's work, Grosz proposes that his writings are a rich resource for developing a more politicized, radical, and far-reaching feminist understanding of matter, nature, biology, time, and becoming.

Every year nine million people are diagnosed with tuberculosis, every day over 13,400 people are infected with AIDs, and every thirty seconds malaria kills a child. For most of the world, critical medications that treat these deadly diseases are scarce, costly, and growing obsolete, as access to first-line drugs remains out of reach and resistance rates rise. Rather than focusing research and development on creating affordable medicines for these deadly global diseases, pharmaceutical companies instead invest in commercially lucrative products for more affluent customers. Nicole Hassoun argues that everyone has a human right to health and to access to essential medicines, and she proposes the Global Health Impact (global-health-impact.org/new) system as a means to guarantee those rights. Her proposal directly addresses the pharmaceutical industry's role: it rates pharmaceutical companies based on their medicines' impact on improving global health, rewarding highly-rated medicines with a Global Health Impact label. Global Health Impact has three parts. The first makes the case for a human right to health and specifically access to essential medicines. Hassoun defends the argument against recent criticism of these proposed rights. The second section develops the Global Health Impact proposal in detail. The final section explores the proposal's potential applications and effects, considering the empirical evidence that supports it and comparing it to similar ethical labels. Through a thoughtful and interdisciplinary approach to creating new labeling, investment, and licensing strategies, Global Health Impact demands an unwavering commitment to global justice and corporate responsibility.

This book engages in a critical discussion on how to respect and promote patients' autonomy in difficult cases such as palliative care and end-of-life decisions. These cases pose specific epistemic, normative, and practical problems, and the book elucidates the connection between the practical implications of the theoretical debate on respecting autonomy, on the one hand, and specific questions and challenges that arise in medical practice, on the other hand. Given that the idea of personal autonomy includes the notion of authenticity as one of its core components, the book explicitly includes discussions on underlying theories of the self. In doing so, it brings together original contributions and novel insights for "applied" scenarios based on interdisciplinary collaboration between German and Serbian scholars from philosophy, sociology, and law. It is of benefit to anyone cherishing autonomy in medical ethics and medical practice.

Ethical Futures and Global Science Fiction explores the ethical concerns and dimensions of representations of the future of global science fiction, focusing on the issues that dominate utopian, dystopian and science fiction literature. The essays examine recent visions of the future in science fiction and re-examine earlier texts through contemporary lenses. Across fourteen chapters, the collection considers authors from Algeria, Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the UK and USA. The volume delves into a range of ethical questions of immediate contemporary relevance, including environmental ethics, postcolonial ethics, social justice, animal ethics and the ethics of alterity.

Protected areas have often been defined as the backbones of biodiversity conservation. Protected areas have often been defined as the backbones of biodiversity conservation. However, legitimate demands formulated by countries for their economic development, growing human populations, forest fragmentations, and needs of local communities for sustainable livelihoods are also pressing demands on protected areas, stringently pressuring conservation community to identify means to reconcile long term biodiversity conservation and communities' livelihoods. Hence, integrating conservation activities within the global framework of economic development of countries with high biodiversity had become part of conservation paradigms. Integrated development as a route to conservation, strict protected areas, community managed areas, etc. have been tried but resulted in debatable outcomes in many ways. The lukewarm nature of these results brought 'landscape approach' at the front of biodiversity conservation in Central Africa. Since the late 1990s the landscape approach uses large areas with different functional attributes and shifts foundational biodiversity conservation paradigms. Changes are brought to the role traditionally attributed to local communities, aligning sustainable development with conservation and stretching conservation beyond the confines of traditional protected areas. These three shifts need a holistic approach to respond to different conservation questions. There are only a few instances where the landscape experience has been scientifically documented and lessons learnt drawn into a corpus of knowledge to guide future conservation initiatives across Central Africa. To subjugate one biodiversity conservation landscape as one case study emerged as a matter of urgency to present the potential knowledge acquired throughout the landscape experiment, including leadership and management, processes tried, results (at least partially) achieved, and why such and such other process or management arrangement were been chosen among many other alternatives, etc. The challenges of the implementation of the conservation landscape approach needed also to be documented. This book responds to the majority of these questions; drawing its content from the firsthand field knowledge, it discusses these shifts and documents what has been tried, how successful (unsuccessful) it was, and what lessons learnt from these trials. Theoretical questions such as threat index, and ecological services, etc. are also discussed and gaps in knowledge are identified.