Is the involuntary commitment of the mentally ill morally proper? How can we determine proper psychiatric care in a managed health care system? And can a mental health professional violate patient's confidentiality when they believe a patient is a threat to someone? In six non-ideological essays, leading bioethicists, including one with practical experience in medical administration, search for clear moral and legal guidelines for dealing with the complex issues presented when treating mentally ill patients. Objective and readily understandable, Mental Illness and Public Health Care illuminates for the educated reader some of the key ethical issues facing mental health care professionals and provides convincing practical conclusions with real moral import.

A collection of objective essays reviewing the principal arguments for and against stem cell research. Among the issues considered are whether stem cell research treats embryos as "commodities," violates the rights of human embryos, or alienates women from their reproductive labor, and whether human embryos are entitled to full membership in the moral community.

The primary objective of The Health Care Ethics Con sultant is to focus attention on an immediate practical problem: the role and responsibilities, the education and training, and the certification and accreditation of health care ethics consultants. The principal questions addressed in this book include: Who should be considered health care ethics consultants? Whom should they advise? What should be their responsi bilities and what kind of training should they have? Should there be some kind of accreditation or certification program to ensure that those who call themselves ethics consultants are in fact qualified to advise, consult, research, and write in health care ethics? The distinguished authors ofthese articles are persons with diverse backgrounds, interests, presumptions, and val ues. Not surprisingly, therefore, diverse responses have emerged to the questions posed. Though the book's chapters are individually authored, they are informed by the group discussions that went on during active workshop sessions, and by knowledge of the contributions of others. All of the chapters meaningfully represent their consensus. This is not to say that there were no disagreements regarding specific details, but rather that there were no fundamental objections on the book's basic content among a panel of authors who share basic premises regarding the role, responsibilities, education, and certifica tion of health care ethics consultants."

This important work takes as its subject one of medicine 's most pressing arenas of ethical debate. There has been a consistent interest in ethical issues arising in the context of HIV research. Ongoing international and multi-site studies and the continuing search for an HIV vaccine continue to prompt examination of how this research is conducted. Also examined are how participants are engaged in the studies and the obligations of the researchers to individual participants and their communities during the course of and following the conclusion of the research. Each chapter of this book is authored primarily by one of the editors (secondarily by the other) and is accompanied by one to two case studies.

In the modern practice of medicine, new challenges complicate the ethical care of patients. Today's times require a contemporary take on the concept of medical ethics. The idea for this textbook was born out of a need for a teaching resource that merges medical ethics theory with the practical needs of modern clinical medicine. In Evidence-Based Medical Ethics: Cases for Practice-Based Learning, the authors address what has been missing in existing text books and ethics courses to date - clear-cut ethical and legal guidelines that provide a method for the reader to learn how to systematically manage dilemmas seen in the everyday practice of medicine. The reader is guided through several "typical" patient scenarios and prompted by various questions that should be entertained by the treating health care provider. Then, relevant evidence-based medicine, legal precedent, and the ethical theory that applies to the situation are revealed. Often, finding the "best" ethical solution for each problem is automatic, as the solution often becomes self-evident during information-gathering. This general method is reinforced throughout the text with multiple different cases, using a practice-based approach by building on the reader's developing skills. Additionally, we have sought to emphasize a culturally competent manner in resolving these dilemmas, respectfully addressing issues of age, gender, and culture whenever possible. The main goal of Evidence-Based Medical Ethics: Cases for Practice-Bases Learning is to assist the reader in adapting a patient-centered and evidence-based approach to dilemmas faced in their future practice of medicine.

An assessment of some ethical implications of increasing life spans. Taking as a starting point the idea that to increase longevity is a form of medical enhancement, it examines the value of living longer; the means for extending life spans; the consequences of greater longevity for the fair distribution of resources and healthcare in particular.

This book traces the growth of managed care as a mechanism for curbing excessive growth in health costs, and the controversies that have risen around for-profit health care. Also examined are decentralization in US health care, and the absence of comprehensive health care planning, access rules, and minimum health care benefit standards. Finally, the author proposes a framework for improving access to quality, affordable health care in a competitive market environment.

Reframing Disease Contextually will be of particular interest to philosophers of medicine, bioethicists, and philosophers. It may also be of value to medical professionals, historians of western medicine, and health policy makers who take interest in the conceptual foundations of medicine.

This book:
- provides an overview of key debates in the history of modern western medicine on the nature, knowledge, and value of disease;
- illustrates how these debates relate;
- provides a "contextual" or "localized" way of understanding disease;
- includes case studies of e.g. AIDS, genetic disease, and gendered disease;
- conveys the importance of the intersection and interrelation between and among factors that make up disease;
- illustrates how bioethical discussions about disease naming, classification, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment are part of a much greater discussion in philosophy of medicine.

This volume is dedicated to the philosophy of medicine advanced by Edmund D. Pellegrino, a renowned physician educator and philosopher. Pellegrino's thinking about the philosophy of medicine centers on the importance of illness in the life of the patient, and the professional relationship established by promising to alleviate suffering. From this relationship norms are established that contribute to the staying power of medicine as a moral enterprise. Chapters are included from established thinkers and newcomers to the field, all of whom have been influenced by Pellegrino. Some chapters expand upon his thinking for primary care, managed care, and other delivery systems. Other chapters explain in more detail certain key concepts in Pellegrino's thought, like beneficence, doing no harm, and clinical phronesis or prudential decision making. Still others explore areas of difficulty like the reliance on role modeling and virtue ethics, the problem of pluralism and a loss of professional normative ethics, and the search for the foundations of the philosophy of medicine. Constructing a viable philosophy of medicine for the next century is an essential task for grounding the morality of medicine during enormous social and economic change. Pellegrino's thinking and the ideas of those he has influenced will contribute immensely to this challenge.

Social Work and Animals represents a pioneering contribution to the literature of social work ethics and moral philosophy. It advances cogent and detailed arguments for the inclusion of animals within social work's moral framework, arguments that have profound theoretical and practical implications for the discipline and its practitioners.

In this book, Dr. Richard Allen Williams has assembled the very best scholars on healthcare disparities to raise the public consciousness of this issue. Arranged into discrete categories, this volume contains comprehensive coverage, both historical and current, of the healthcare disparity crisis currently plaguing our country in hopes of leading us all to a brighter future.

Medical ethics in Imperial Germany were entangled with professional, legal and social issues. This book shows how doctors' ethical decision-making was led by their notions of male honour, professional politics and a paternalistic doctor-patient relationship rather than concern for patients' interests or the right of the sick to self-determination.

This thoroughly and substantially revised second edition explores the full scope and content of secular bioethics. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, genetic engineering, informed consent, advance directives, triage decisions, health care reform, and distributive justice are given new and provocative treatments within a systematic reassessment of bioethics as a whole.

Global Public Health: A New Era is a comprehensive account of the international state of public health, including an agenda for improving the practice of the discipline across the world. It addresses three major issues, presented in distinct sections: the changing global context for public health; the state of public health theory and practice in both developed and developing countries, and strategies for strengthening the practice of public health in the twenty-first century.
Part One surveys the complex old and new challenges facing public health practitioners, and then summarizes the state of health globally using new data based on measures of the Global Burden of Disease developed by the World Health Organization, and other groups, to better describe population health states and trends.
Part Two presents the first detailed review of the global state of public health. It analyzes the public health situation in all regions of the world. Six chapters cover Europe, North and Latin America, and Australia and New Zealand, including a new chapter focusing on the UK. Three chapters cover China, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The lessons from these chapters are surprisingly similar: the challenges are gerat; the public health workforce and infrastructure have long been neglected, and much needs to be done to reinvigorate the practice of public health.
The third section covers several cross-cutting themes, including the developing field of international public health ethics and the central and neglected role of the public in strengthening the practice of public health. The final chapter summarizes the major themes of the book, and explores the opportunities for building the capacity of the public health workforce to respond to the major global health needs. Despite the enormity of the challenges facing public health practitioners, especially in low and middle income countries, the tone adpoted in the final section of the book is relatively optimistic. The editors are convinced that a reinvigorated public health practice will contribute substantially to improving the public health situation, especially for the most disadvantaged populations, whether in poor or wealthy countries.

Public health is an important and fast-developing area of ethical discussion. In this volume a range of issues in public health ethics are explored using the resources of moral theory, political philosophy, philosophy of science, applied ethics, law, and economics.
The twelve original papers presented consider numerous ethical issues arise within public health ethics. To what extent can the public good or the public interest justify state interventions that impose limits upon the freedom of individuals? What role should the law play in regulating risks? Should governments actively aim to change our preferences about such things as food, smoking or physical exercise? What are public goods, and what role (if any) do they play in public health? To what extent do individuals have moral obligations to contribute to protecting the community or the public good? Where is it appropriate to concentrate upon prevention rather than cure? Given the fact that we cannot be protected from all harm, what sorts of harm provide a justification for public health action? What limits do we wish to place upon public health activities? How do we ensure that the interests of individuals are not set aside or forgotten in the pursuit of population benefits? An excellent line-up of authors from North America, Europe, and the UK tackle these questions.

To what extent should we use technology to try to make better human beings? Because of the remarkable advances in biomedical science, we must now find an answer to this question.
Human enhancement aims to increase human capacities above normal levels. Many forms of human enhancement are already in use. Many students and academics take cognition enhancing drugs to get a competitive edge. Some top athletes boost their performance with legal and illegal substances. Many an office worker begins each day with a dose of caffeine. This is only the beginning. As science and technology advance further, it will become increasingly possible to enhance basic human capacities to increase or modulate cognition, mood, personality, and physical performance, and to control the biological processes underlying normal aging. Some have suggested that such advances would take us beyond the bounds of human nature.
These trends, and these dramatic prospects, raise profound ethical questions. They have generated intense public debate and have become a central topic of discussion within practical ethics. Should we side with bioconservatives, and forgo the use of any biomedical interventions aimed at enhancing human capacities? Should we side with transhumanists and embrace the new opportunities? Or should we perhaps plot some middle course?
Human Enhancement presents the latest moves in this crucial debate: original contributions from many of the world's leading ethicists and moral thinkers, representing a wide range of perspectives, advocates and sceptics, enthusiasts and moderates. These are the arguments that will determine how humanity develops in the near future.

Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glover shows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking and disturbing questions to which it leads.
Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being?
In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, Jonathan Glover examines the emotive idea of "eugenics," and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole?
Should we try to make generalimprovements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere?
This beautifully clear book is written for anyone who cares about the rights and wrongs of parents' choices for their children, anyone who is concerned about our human future. Glover handles these uncomfortable questions in a controversial but always humane and sympathetic manner.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is a site where hi-tech medicine and vulnerable human beings come into close contact. Focusing on a number of medical and ethical challenges encountered by staff and parents, this book provides a new perspective on the complexity of these treatments and the inventiveness of those involved.

Mainstream discussions of ethics often search for a problem-solving theory or explore ontological status. This book argues instead that the proper starting point should be the words and deeds of ordinary people in ordinary disagreements - the ethical concepts in play can only derive full meaning within the context of ordinary human lives.

The book examines the social and cultural context of new genetic knowledge associated with breast cancer. It looks at how this knowledge and technologies are used and received in two contrasting social arenas - cancer genetic clinics and a breast cancer research charity.

Although the 'Israeli case' of bioethics has been well documented, this book offers a novel understanding of Israeli bioethics that is a milestone in the comparative literature of bioethics. Bringing together a range of experts, the book's interdisciplinary structure employs a contemporary, sociopolitical-oriented approach to bioethics issues, with an emphasis on empirical analysis, that will appeal not only to scholars of bioethics, but also to students of law, medicine, humanities, and social sciences around the world. Its focus on the development of bioethics in Israel makes it especially relevant to scholars of Israeli society - both in and out of Israel - as well as medical practitioners and health policymakers in Israel.

Ecology, Community and Lifestyle is a revised and expanded translation of Naess' book Okologi, Samfunn og Livsstil, which sets out the author's thinking on the relevance of philosophy to the problems of environmental degradation and the rethinking of the relationship between mankind and nature. The text has been thoroughly updated by Naess and revised and translated by David Rothenberg.

A thought provoking examination of the interrelationship between and among feminist bioethics, human rights, and global development, Linking Visions addresses global concerns about oppression in the context of health care, medical research, and population health. Reflecting the ever-expanding diversity and comprehensiveness of feminist bioethics, contributors examine such topics as reproductive rights of women in India, HIV/AIDs policies, patenting genetic material, the language of human rights, and consequences of the OGlobal Gag RuleO. Linking Visions demonstrates the far-reaching effects of feminism on global bioethics, highlighting and celebrating the reality that feminist work is no longer relegated solely to the realm of reproductive, sexual, or maternal ethics.

Striving to boldly redirect the philosophy of science, this book by renowned philosopher Philip Kitcher examines the heated debate surrounding the role of science in shaping our lives. Kitcher explores the sharp divide between those who believe that the pursuit of scientific knowledge is always valuable and necessary--the purists--and those who believe that it invariably serves the interests of people in positions of power. In a daring turn, he rejects both perspectives, working out a more realistic image of the sciences--one that allows for the possibility of scientific truth, but nonetheless permits social consensus to determine which avenues to investigate. He then proposes a democratic and deliberative framework for responsible scientists to follow.

Controversial, powerful, yet engaging, this volume will appeal to a wide range of readers. Kitcher's nuanced analysis and authorititative conclusion will interest countless scientists as well as all readers of science--scholars and laypersons alike.

The development of new reproductive technologies has raised urgent questions and debates about how and by whom these treatments should be controlled. On the one hand individuals and groups have claimed access to assisted reproduction as a right, and some have also claimed that this access should be available free of charge. As well as clinically infertile heterosexual couples, this right has been claimed by single women, gay couples, post-menopausal women, and couples who wish to delay having children for various reasons. Others have argued that a desire to have children does not make it a human right, and, moreover, that there are some people who should not be assisted to become parents, on grounds of age, sexuality, or lifestyle. Mary Warnock steers a clear path through the web of complex issues underlying these views. She begins by analyzing what it means to claim something as a 'right', and goes on to discuss the cases of different groups of people. She also examines the ethical problems faced by particular types of assisted reproduction, including artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, and surrogacy, and argues that in the future human cloning may well be a viable an