Narratives have always played a prominent role in both bioethics and medicine; the fields have attracted much storytelling, ranging from great literature to humbler stories of sickness and personal histories. And all bioethicists work with cases--from court cases that shape policy matters to case studies that chronicle sickness. But how useful are these various narratives for sorting out moral matters? What kind of ethical work can stories do--and what are the limits to this work? The new essays in "Stories and Their Limits" offer insightful reflections on the relationship between narratives and ethics.

Series Information:
Reflective Bioethics

Onora O'Neill suggests that the conceptions of individual autonomy (so widely relied on in bioethics) are philosophically and ethically inadequate; they undermine rather than support relationships based on trust. Her arguments are illustrated with issues raised by such practices as the use of genetic information by the police, research using human tissues, new reproductive technologies, and media practices for reporting on medicine, science and technology. The study appeals to a wide range of readers in ethics, bioethics and related disciplines.

While procreation is ubiquitous, attention to the ethical issues involved in creating children is relatively rare. In Debating Procreation, David Benatar and David Wasserman take opposing views on this important question. David Benatar argues for the anti-natalist view that it is always wrong to bring new people into existence. He argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm and that even if it were not always so, the risk of serious harm is sufficiently great to make procreation wrong. In addition to these "philanthropic" arguments, he advances the "misanthropic" one that because humans are so defective and cause vast amounts of harm, it is wrong to create more of them. David Wasserman defends procreation against the anti-natalist challenge. He outlines a variety of moderate pro-natalist positions, which all see procreation as often permissible but never required. After criticizing the main anti-natalist arguments, he reviews those pronatalist positions. He argues that constraints on procreation are best understood in terms of the role morality of prospective parents, considers different views of that role morality, and argues for one that imposes only limited constraints based on the well-being of the future child. He then argues that the expected good of a future child and of the parent-child relationship can provide a strong justification for procreation in the face of expected adversities without giving individuals any moral reason to procreate

This book illustrates the significance of biomedical engineering in modern healthcare systems. Biomedical engineering plays an important role in a range of areas, from diagnosis and analysis to treatment and recovery and has entered the public consciousness through the proliferation of implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers and artificial hips, as well as the more futuristic technologies such as stem cell engineering and 3-D printing of biological organs. Starting with an introduction to biomedical engineering, the book then discusses various tools and techniques for medical diagnostics and treatment and recent advances. It also provides comprehensive and integrated information on rehabilitation engineering, including the design of artificial body parts, and the underlying principles, and standards. It also presents a conceptual framework to clarify the relationship between ethical policies in medical practice and philosophical moral reasoning. Lastly, the book highlights a number of challenges associated with modern healthcare technologies.

Published in 2004, this collection will encourage and foster informed discussion of key issues as society comes to grips with the implications of genetic engineering, the mapping and sequencing of the human genome, and the advent of the post-genomic era. The contributors are prominent social scientists, health specialists, journalists, bioethicists and commercial representatives from the UK, Finland, Germany, Holland and Norway who are at the leading edge of current research. the book will therefore appeal to the interested public, health and other professionals, teachers and students. This book was originally published as part of the Cardiff Papers in Qualitative Research series edited by Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont and Amanda Coffey. The series publishes original sociological research that reflects the tradition of qualitative and ethnographic inquiry developed at Cardiff. The series includes monographs reporting on empirical research, edited collections focussing on particular themes, and texts discussing methodological developments and issues.

The Routledge Companion to Bioethics is a comprehensive reference guide to a wide range of contemporary concerns in bioethics. The volume orients the reader in a changing landscape shaped by globalization, health disparities, and rapidly advancing technologies. Bioethics has begun a turn toward a systematic concern with social justice, population health, and public policy. While also covering more traditional topics, this volume fully captures this recent shift and foreshadows the resulting developments in bioethics. It highlights emerging issues such as climate change, transgender, and medical tourism, and re-examines enduring topics, such as autonomy, end-of-life care, and resource allocation.

This book offers new essays exploring concepts and applications of nonideal theory in bioethics. Nonideal theory refers to an analytic approach to moral and political philosophy (especially in relation to justice), according to which we should not assume that there will be perfect compliance with principles, that there will be favorable circumstances for just institutions and right action, or that reasoners are capable of being impartial. Nonideal theory takes the world as it actually is, in all of its imperfections. Bioethicists have called for greater attention to how nonideal theory can serve as a guide in the messy realities they face daily. Although many bioethicists implicitly assume nonideal theory in their work, there is the need for more explicit engagement with this theoretical outlook. A nonideal approach to bioethics would start by examining the sociopolitical realities of healthcare and the embeddedness of moral actors in those realities. How are bioethicists to navigate systemic injustices when completing research, giving guidance for patient care, and contributing to medical and public health policies? When there are no good options and when moral agents are enmeshed in their sociopolitical viewpoints, how should moral theorizing proceed? What do bioethical issues and principles look like from the perspective of historically marginalized persons? These are just a few of the questions that motivate nonideal theory within bioethics. This book begins in Part I with an overview of the foundational tenets of nonideal theory, what nonideal theory can offer bioethics, and why it may be preferable to ideal theory in addressing moral dilemmas in the clinic and beyond. In Part II, authors discuss applications of nonideal theory in many areas of bioethics, including reflections on environmental harms, racism and minority health, healthcare injustices during incarceration and detention, and other vulnerabilities experienced by patients from clinical and public health perspectives. The chapters within each section demonstrate the breadth in scope that nonideal theory encompasses, bringing together diverse theorists and approaches into one collection.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the basic and advanced metabolic engineering technologies used to generate natural metabolites and industrially important biomolecules. Metabolic engineering has the potential to produce large quantities of valuable biomolecules in a renewable and sustainable manner by extending or modifying biosynthetic pathways in a wide range of organisms. It has been successfully used to produce chemicals, drugs, enzymes, amino acids, antibiotics, biofuels, and industrially important pharmaceuticals. The book comprehensively reviews the various metabolites detection, extraction and biosensors and the metabolic engineering of microbial strains for the production of industrially useful enzymes, proteins, organic acids, vitamins and antibiotics, therapeutics, chemicals, and biofuels. It also discusses various genetic engineering and synthetic biology tools for metabolic engineering. In closing, the book discusses ethical, patenting and regulatory issues in the metabolic engineering of microbes. This book is a valuable source not only for beginners in metabolic engineering, but also students, researchers, biotechnology and metabolic engineering based company.

The questions and dilemmas of bioethics touch everyone. Should people who refuse to be vaccinated be treated for COVID-19, even if that displaces vaccinated patients with other serious conditions? What restrictions on abortion should there be, if any? Should women be paid to donate eggs? Bioethics: What Everyone Needs to Know (R) discusses these and other similar questions facing the public today-as well as providing a way for thinking deeply about them. Steinbock and Menzel first examine major moral theories and how they can be used to analyze bioethical issues. They then provide historical background to the birth of bioethics and explain how it shifted from a paternalistic doctor knows best approach to respect for autonomy, a fundamental value in contemporary bioethics. Subsequent chapters cover advance directives, experimentation on human subjects, the definition of death, physician-assisted dying, abortion, disability, just healthcare systems, the allocation of scarce resources, pharmaceutical drug pricing, assisted reproductive technology, egg donation, surrogate motherhood, sex selection, and the genetic modification of humans. Race and gender are considered throughout, as are the ethical issues raised by pandemics. Steinbock and Menzel consider the controversial questions that surface in the public sphere, explaining the facts, and then evaluating different approaches to resolving them.

The essays collected in this volume provide students of ethics with essential tools for making sense of emerging biotechnical capacities and the turbulent power relations these capacities are bringing into the world. Unlike previous reference works in bioethics, which focus on specific domains of human activity (such as genetic research or biomedicine), this volume directs students' attention to the underlying cultural and institutional forces that shape how biotechnologists approach the world, and teaches students how to weigh the ethical significance of these forces. This innovative approach to the ethics of biotechnology, detailed in the volume's introduction, equips students to track the dynamic interplay of biology, digital technology and the high-tech economy which is remaking the living world today and the human relation to it.

This book examines the question of what parental obligations procreators incur by bringing children into being. Prusak argues that parents, as procreators, have obligations regarding future children that constrain the liberty of would-be parents to do as they wish. Moreover, these obligations go beyond simply respecting a child's rights. He addresses in turn the ethics of adoption, child support, gamete donation, surrogacy, prenatal genetic enhancement, and public responsibility for children.

This book fills an important gap in existing health care ethics literature by describing an egalitarian conception of moral respect which applies to autonomous and non-autonomous patients alike. It reframes questions about respect, from its target to the role that respect plays in our moral lives. Taking into account various forms of objectification, it suggests that the unique role of moral respect is to recognize a person as more than a mere object; to recognize them as an equally intrinsically valuable being who possesses dignity. Further, the book argues that respect is central to health care because medicine and experiences of illness are both inherently objectifying. Objectification is sometimes morally permissible, and other times morally troubling-a context of respect can help to distinguish between these situations. Because we can reduce others to mere objects in ways other than violating or denying their autonomy, the approach presented here can also accommodate non-autonomous patients directly without considering them as marginal cases.

Bioscience ethics facilitates free and accurate information transfer from applied science to applied bioethics. Its major elements are: increased understanding of biological systems, responsible use of technology, and attuning ethnocentric debates to new scientific insights. Pioneered by Irina Pollard in 1994, bioscience ethics has become an internationally recognized discipline, interfacing science and bioethics within professional perspectives such as medical, legal, bio-engineering, and economics. Written for students and professionals alike, the fundamental feature of this book is its breadth, important because bioscience ethics interweaves many diverse subjects in the process of gathering specialist scientific knowledge for bioethical review. It contains chapters which embrace topics affecting human reproduction, end-of-life care and euthanasia, challenge human-dominated ecosystems, and review population growth, economic activity and warfare. A background section describes the evolution of ethical consciousness, explores the future, and proposes that the reworking of ethical boundaries can enhance mature decision-making in harmony with changing technology.

This book approaches bioethics on the basis of a conception of life and what is needed for the affirmation of its quality in the most encompassing sense. Lawrence E. Johnson applies this conception to discussions of controversial issues in bioethics including euthanasia, abortion, cloning, and genetic engineering. His emphasis is not on providing definitive solutions to all bioethical issues but on developing an approach to coping with them that can also help us deal with new issues as they emerge. The foundation of this discussion is an extensive examination of the nature of the self and its good and of various approaches to ethics. His bioethic is integrally related to his well-known work on environmental philosophy. The book also applies these principles on an individual level, offering a user-friendly discussion of how to deal with ethical slippery slopes and how and where to draw the line when dealing with difficult questions of bioethics.

This open access book discusses individual, collective, and institutional responsibilities with regard to vaccination from the perspective of philosophy and public health ethics. It addresses the issue of what it means for a collective to be morally responsible for the realisation of herd immunity and what the implications of collective responsibility are for individual and institutional responsibilities. The first chapter introduces some key concepts in the vaccination debate, such as 'herd immunity', 'public goods', and 'vaccine refusal'; and explains why failure to vaccinate raises certain ethical issues. The second chapter analyses, from a philosophical perspective, the relationship between individual, collective, and institutional responsibilities with regard to the realisation of herd immunity. The third chapter is about the principle of least restrictive alternative in public health ethics and its implications for vaccination policies. Finally, the fourth chapter presents an ethical argument for unqualified compulsory vaccination, i.e. for compulsory vaccination that does not allow for any conscientious objection. The book will appeal to philosophers interested in public health ethics and the general public interested in the philosophical underpinning of different arguments about our moral obligations with regard to vaccination.

Food makes philosophers of us all. Death does the same . . . but death comes only once . . . and choices about food come many times each day. In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human history. Will genetically modified food feed the poor or destroy the environment? Is it a threat to our health? Is the assumed healthfulness of organic food a myth or a reality? The answers to these and other questions are engagingly pursued in this substantive collection, the first of its kind to address the broad range of philosophical, sociological, political, scientific, and technological issues surrounding the ethics of food.

Fast-moving and ever-changing, stem cell science and research presents ongoing ethical and legal challenges in many countries. Each development and innovation throws up new challenges. This is the case even where new developments initially seem to solve old dilemmas. Sometimes it becomes evident that new science does not in fact solve old problems and, for that reason, the ethical issues remain. In recognition of this, this book presents innovative and creative analyses of a range of ethical and legal challenges raised by stem cell research and its potential and actual application. The editors of this collection have brought together experts from ethics and law to bring fresh perspectives on the use of and research on stem cells. The chapters in this collection range across a number of different issues in the debate on stem cells, from the ethical dilemmas of conducting stem cell research to those of the clinical application of stem cell technology. Each chapter gives an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the ethical or legal issues at stake. The early chapters give engaging new expositions on the permissibility of using embryos in stem cell research, in particular challenging our views about how we view and construct' the embryo in debates regarding stem cells. Later chapters move on to actual and potential clinical uses of stem cells and present novel arguments about these.

Food makes philosophers of us all. Death does the same . . . but death comes only once . . . and choices about food come many times each day. In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human history. Will genetically modified food feed the poor or destroy the environment? Is it a threat to our health? Is the assumed healthfulness of organic food a myth or a reality? The answers to these and other questions are engagingly pursued in this substantive collection, the first of its kind to address the broad range of philosophical, sociological, political, scientific, and technological issues surrounding the ethics of food.

Medical care and biomedical research are rapidly becoming global. Ethical questions that once arose only in the narrow context of the physician-patient relationship in relatively prosperous societies are now being raised across societies, cultures, and continents. For example, what should be the "standard of care" for clinical trials of medical innovations in poorer countries? Are researchers obligated to compare new therapies or drugs with the best known ones available, or can they use as a benchmark the actual treatments (or lack of treatments) available to poor people? Should pharmaceutical companies seeking to lower the costs of new drug trials be allowed to enroll citizens of less developed countries in them even when those individuals cannot afford and will not be eligible for the resulting drugs? More generally, should the norms of medicine and research be the same across cultures or can they adapt to local social, economic, or religious conditions? Global Bioethics gathers some of the world's leading bioethicists to explore many of the new questions raised by the globalization of medical care and biomedical research. Among the topics covered are the impact of globalization on the norms of medical ethics, the conduct of international research, the ethics of international collaborations, challenges to medical professionalism in the international setting, and the relation of religion to global bioethics.

This study deals with an underexplored area of the emerging technologies debate: robotics in the healthcare setting. The author explores the role of care and develops a value-sensitive ethical framework for the eventual employment of care robots. Highlighting the range of positive and negative aspects associated with the initiative to design and use care robots, it draws out essential content as a guide to future design both reinforcing this study's contemporary relevance, and giving weight to its prescriptions. The book speaks to, and is meant to be read by, a range of disciplines from science and engineering to philosophers and ethicists.

With much of the world's population facing restricted access to adequate medical care, how to allocate scarce health-care resources is a pressing question for governments, hospitals, and individuals. How do we decide where funding for health-care programs should go? Tannsjo here approaches the subject from a philosophical perspective, balancing theoretical treatments of distributive ethics with real-world examples of how health-care is administered around the world today. Tannsjo begins by laying out several popular ethical theories-utilitarianism, which recommends maximizing the best overall outcome; egalitarianism, which recommends smoothing out the differences between people as much as possible; and the maximin/leximin theory, which urges people to give absolute priority to those who are worst off. Tannsjo shows how, in abstract thought experiments, these theories come into conflict with each other and reveal puzzling implications. He goes on to argue, however, that when we consider health-care in the real-world, these theories all agree on a central point: in a well-ordered welfare state, more resources should be directed to the care and cure of people suffering from mental illness, and less to the marginal life extension of elderly patients. Tannsjo's book thus recommends a shift in spending to increase fairness and overall utility-while also recognizing that this kind of dispassionate suggestion, with its purely economic foundation, is unlikely to take hold in policy. Tannsjo's analysis is a case study in how ethical theories can sometimes lead to rational conclusions and recommendations that we are not prepared to accept.

Taking a global viewpoint, this volume addresses issues arising from recent developments in the enduring and topical debates over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and their relationship to Intellectual Property (IP). The work examines changing responses to the growing acceptance and prevalence of GMOs. Drawing together perspectives from several of the leading international scholars in this area, the contributions seek to break away from analysis of safety and regulation and examine the diversity of ways the law and GMOs have become entangled. This collection presents the start of a much broader engagement with GMOs and law. As GMO technology becomes increasingly more complex and embedded in our lives, this volume will be a useful resource in leading further discussion and debate about GMOs in academia, in government and among those working on future policy.

First Published in 1999. When we attend a workshop or read a book, we usually encounter the end result of someone's research, theorizing, or contemplation. However, it is often true that the process of reaching that end-point is just as informative as the end-point itself. Evolving Possibilities is just such a look at the process. In a way, it offers a behind-the-scenes look at Bill O'Hanlon's approach to therapy. This book is a collection of twenty essays and articles written or co-written by Bill O'Hanlon. They span a time period from 1986 to the present. The articles are grouped into four different approaches to psychotherapy: Ericksonian/Strategic Approaches, Solution-Oriented Therapy, Possibility Therapy, and Inclusive Therapy. Moving through these four groups of essays, the reader has the unique opportunity to witness the evolution and transformation of a therapist's thoughts regarding a variety of therapeutic issues. The book offers a refreshing, open look at one therapist's attempts to make sense of psychotherapy, including views that have sparked debate within the professional community. By offering a private look into Bill O'Hanlon's public persona, Evolving Possibilities provides the reader with a thought-provoking study in professional development that is of interest to anyone engaged in the pursuit of more effective psychotherapeutic techniques and approaches.

Murdering Animals confronts the speciesism underlying the disparate social censures of homicide and "theriocide" (the killing of animals by humans), and as such, is a plea to take animal rights seriously. Its substantive topics include the criminal prosecution and execution of justiciable animals in early modern Europe; images of hunters put on trial by their prey in the upside-down world of the Dutch Golden Age; the artist William Hogarth's patriotic depictions of animals in 18th Century London; and the playwright J.M. Synge's representation of parricide in fin de siecle Ireland. Combining insights from intellectual history, the history of the fine and performing arts, and what is known about today's invisibilised sites of animal killing, Murdering Animals inevitably asks: should theriocide be considered murder? With its strong multi- and interdisciplinary approach, this work of collaboration will appeal to scholars of social and species justice in animal studies, criminology, sociology and law.