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

Morality's Progress is the summation of nearly three decades of work by a leading figure in environmental ethics and bioethics. The twenty-two papers here are invigoratingly diverse, but together tell a unified story about various aspects of the morality of our relationships to animals and to nature. Jamieson's direct and accessible essays will convince sceptics that thinking about these relations offers great intellectual reward, and his work here sets a challenging, controversial agenda for the future.

This book celebrates Professor Margaret Brazier's outstanding contribution to the field of healthcare law and bioethics. It examines key aspects developed in Professor Brazier's agenda-setting body of work, with contributions being provided by leading experts in the field from the UK, Australia, the US and continental Europe. They examine a range of current and future challenges for healthcare law and bioethics, representing state-of-the-art scholarship in the field. The book is organised into five parts. Part I discusses key principles and themes in healthcare law and bioethics. Part II examines the dynamics of the patient-doctor relationship, in particular the role of patients. Part III explores legal and ethical issues relating to the human body. Part IV discusses the regulation of reproduction, and Part V examines the relationship between the criminal law and the healthcare process. Chapter 10 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138861091_oachapter10.pdf

This book addresses the question of animal rights in the context of literary criticism. Working from a committed position, it asks the question, 'What would literary studies look like if we took animal rights seriously?' It offers critical surveys of the main themes in the history of animal rights and some of the more important contemporary positions together with readings of a wide range of literary texts from classical antiquity to the present day.

What counts as an individual in the living world? What does it mean for a living thing to remain the same through time, while constantly changing? These questions are the province of immunology, one of the most dynamic fields in biology. Immunology answers these questions with its theory of "self" and "nonself" which has dominated the field since the 1940s. Thomas Pradeu argues that this theory is inadequate, because immune responses to self constituents and immune tolerance of foreign entities are the rule, not the exception. Instead Pradeu advances an alternative theory, the continuity theory, which offers a new way to answer the question of what triggers an immune response. It also echoes the recent realization that all organisms, and not only higher vertebrates, have an immune system. Pradeu's main thesis is that the self-nonself theory should be abandoned, but that immunology still proves to be decisive for delineating the boundaries of the organism. Articulating an evolutionary and an immunological perspective, he offers an original conception of the organism. Tolerance of the fetus by the mother and of countless bacteria on the body's surfaces proves that every organism is heterogeneous, that is, made of entities of different origins. In other words, every organism appears as a chimera , a mixed living thing-the cohesiveness of which is ensured by the constant action of its immune system. The Limits of the Self, will be essential reading for anyone interested in the definition of biological individuality and the understanding of the immune system.

Medical issues affecting health care have become everyday media events. In response to mounting public concern, growing numbers of bioethicists are being appointed to medical school faculties and public policy panels. However the ideas voiced in these forums are seldom informed by feminist perspectives. In this important book, a distinguished group of feminist scholars and activists discuss crucial bioethics topics in a feminist light. Among the subjects explored are the care/justice debates, transforming bioethics, practice, and reproduction. The book also covers less commonly discussed issues, such as culturally appropriate responses to reproductive health problems in developing countries.

Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics is a collection of original papers by philosophers from Britain, the USA and Australia. The aim of the book is to redress the imbalance in moral philosophy created by the dominance of consequentialism, the view that the criterion of morality is the maximization of good effects over bad, without regard for basic right or wrong. This approach has become the orthodoxy over the last few decades, particularly in the field of bioethics, where moral theory is applied to matters of life and death. The essays in Human Lives critically examine the assumptions and arguments of consequentialism, reviving in the process important concepts such as rights, justice, innocence, natural integrity, flourishing, the virtues, and the fundamental value of human life.

Providing readers with the confidence needed to debate key issues in bioethics, this introductory text clearly explains bioethical theories and their philosophical foundations. Over 250 activities introduce topics for personal reflection, and discussion points encourage students to think for themselves and build their own arguments. Highlighting the potential pitfalls for those new to bioethics, each chapter features boxes providing factual information and outlining the philosophical background, along with detailed case studies that offer an insight into real-life examples of bioethical problems. Within-chapter essay questions and quizzes, along with end-of-chapter review questions, allow students to check their understanding and to broaden their thinking about the topics discussed. The accompanying podcasts by the author (two of whose podcasts on iTunesU (TM) have attracted over 3 million downloads) explain points that might be difficult for beginners. These, along with a range of extra resources for students and instructors, are available at www.cambridge.org/bioethics.

This progressive resource places concepts of social determinants of health in the larger contexts of contemporary health ethics and the evolution of social reform. It provides needed analysis of the larger causes behind the immediate causes of illness and epidemics, particularly injustice, systemic inequities, and the cumulative effect of compound disadvantages. This moral approach to collective and individual responsibilities-on the part of practitioners as well as the public-supports a sound blueprint for finding answers to longstanding global and local concerns. Readers are challenged to recognize the critical role of social determinants to their perception of health issues, controversies, and possibilities as the book: * Details the epidemiologic evidence regarding social determinants of health. * Key ethical implications of the evidence regarding social determinants of health. * Considers the role of risky health behaviors in determining population health outcomes. * Addresses ethical questions of priority-setting at the policy and practice levels. * Translates social determinants of health into health policy goals. Half textbook, half monograph, Public Health Ethics and the Social Determinants of Health Is geared toward students in MPH programs as well as public health professionals in diverse contexts such as local health departments and non-profit organizations. It informs public health scientists and scholars, and can also serve as an introductory text for students in public health ethics, or as part of a general applied ethics course.

What is epidemiology? What are the causes of a new disease? How can pandemics be prevented? Epidemiology is the study of the changing patterns of disease and its main aim is to improve the health of populations. It's a vital field, central to the health of society, to the identification of causes of disease, and to their management and prevention. Epidemiology has had an impact on many areas of medicine; from discovering the relationship between tobacco smoking and lung cancer, to the origin and spread of new epidemics. However, it is often poorly understood, largely due to misrepresentations in the media. In this Very Short Introduction Rodolfo Saracci dispels some of the myths surrounding the study of epidemiology. He provides a general explanation of the principles behind clinical trials, and explains the nature of basic statistics concerning disease. He also looks at the ethical and political issues related to obtaining and using information concerning patients, and trials involving placebos. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Western philosophy and religion, James Rachels argues, have been shaken by the implications of Darwin's work, most notably the controversial idea that humans are simply a more complex kind of animal. Here, Rachels assesses a number of studies that suggest how closely humans are linked to other primates in behavior, and then goes on to show how this idea undercuts the work of many prominent philosophers.

Created from Animals offers a provocative look at how Darwinian evolution undermines many tenets of traditional philosophy and religion. Rachels begins by examining Darwin's own life and work, presenting an astonishingly vivid and compressed biography. We see Darwin's studies of the psychological links in evolution (such as emotions in dogs, and the "mental powers" of worms), and how he addressed the moral implications of his work, especially in his concern for the welfare of animals. Rachels goes on to present a lively and accessible survey of the controversies that followed in Darwin's wake, ranging from Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism to Edward O. Wilson's sociobiology, and discusses how the work of such influential intellects as Descartes, Hume, Kant, T.H. Huxley, Henri Bergson, B.F. Skinner, and Stephen Jay Gould has contributed to--or been overthrown by--evolutionary science.

With this sweeping survey of the arguments, the philosophers, and the deep implications surrounding Darwinism, Rachels lays the foundations for a new view of morality. Virbrantly written and provocatively argued, Created from Animals offers a new perspective on issues ranging from suicide to euthanasia to animal rights.

There are more connections between spirituality and science than you might think... In 2004, biologist Dee Denver heard the Dalai Lama speak in Bloomington, Indiana. The famous Tibetan monk's speech that day exposed him to the centrality of impermanence in Buddhist thinking, a topic that directly connected to his mutation research in evolutionary biology. He left the event shocked and startled by the unexpected parallels between Buddhism and biology. This experience is not wholly unique to Denver. Spirituality and science are two inherently humane ways to approach our world. Why shouldn't more people look at them in tandem? In this book, Denver shares Buddhist ideas and the tradition's colonial and more recent interactions with biology. He then applies the scientific method to Buddhist principles and draws connections between Buddhist ideas and current research in biology. In doing this, he proposes a new approach to science, Bodhi science, that integrates Buddhist teachings and ethical frameworks. Denver's research supports a connected synergy between biological and Buddhist thinking. This scientific approach to Buddhism offers strong evidence supporting the validity of fundamentally Buddhist principles and logic. The book builds on historical evidence from Sri Lanka, Japan, and Tibetan Buddhism to illustrate these connections.

An argument that what makes science distinctive is its emphasis on evidence and scientists' willingness to change theories on the basis of new evidence. Attacks on science have become commonplace. Claims that climate change isn't settled science, that evolution is "only a theory," and that scientists are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the public are staples of some politicians' rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of science often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without explaining exactly why scientific claims are superior. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls "the scientific attitude"-caring about evidence and being willing to change theories on the basis of new evidence. The history of science is littered with theories that were scientific but turned out to be wrong; the scientific attitude reveals why even a failed theory can help us to understand what is special about science. McIntyre offers examples that illustrate both scientific success (a reduction in childbed fever in the nineteenth century) and failure (the flawed "discovery" of cold fusion in the twentieth century). He describes the transformation of medicine from a practice based largely on hunches into a science based on evidence; considers scientific fraud; examines the positions of ideology-driven denialists, pseudoscientists, and "skeptics" who reject scientific findings; and argues that social science, no less than natural science, should embrace the scientific attitude. McIntyre argues that the scientific attitude-the grounding of science in evidence-offers a uniquely powerful tool in the defense of science.

Healthcare providers are constantly confronted with illness and injury, and the challenges of healing. Yet this very work, the relief of suffering, inflicts on healthcare providers suffering of their own that is often crippling. The most common terms for the pain caregivers and healers suffer from are burnout and moral distress. These common terms are, however, often used judgmentally—as if those trying to heal others have failed themselves, their colleagues, and their patients. The net result is that much discussion of burnout and moral distress, and the interventions they underwrite, have served only to worsen the crisis. Into the Field of Suffering: Finding the Other Side of Burnout provides a much-needed reframing of burnout and moral distress. These depleting experiences are approached as trials virtually inevitable in the course of the healer's vocation. The challenge medical professionals and caregivers face is not avoiding them, but meeting them directly with insight into the role of moral distress and burnout in the development of their vocation. Into the Field of Suffering presents a set of analytical frameworks and awareness skills, which have the potential to transform the work of healers and caregivers. There is a growing body of academic literature on these topics, and many memoirs recounting distressing situations and wounding traumas. Into the Field of Suffering takes its place alongside these works, while offering a distinctly different approach that treats as essential the spiritual dimension of the healing vocation. Practices, teachings and dialogues to assist in the cultivation of compassion and gratitude are key components in this presentation. Schenck and Neely address their readers in a direct voice, speaking to the sense of failure and discouragement so many healthcare professionals and caregivers experience on a daily basis. This is a book that carries a mentor's voice and presence, born out of experience with burnout and moral distress, and grounded in hundreds of conversations, de-briefings and interviews with healthcare workers and caregivers, patients and families.

This book examines all aspects of narrative medicine and its value in ensuring that, in an age of evidence-based medicine defined by clinical trials, numbers, and probabilities, clinical science is firmly embedded in the medical humanities in order to foster the understanding of clinical cases and the delivery of excellent patient care. The medical humanities address what happens to us when we are affected by a disease and narrative medicine is an interdisciplinary approach that emphasizes the importance of patient narratives in bridging various divides, including those between health care professionals and patients. The book covers the genesis of the medical humanities and of narrative medicine and explores all aspects of their role in improving healthcare. It describes how narrative medicine is therapeutic for the patient, enhances the patient-doctor relationship, and allows the identification, via patients' stories, of the feelings and experiences that are characteristic for each disease. Furthermore, it explains how to use narrative medicine as a real scientific tool. Narrative Medicine will be of value for all caregivers: physicians, nurses, healthcare managers, psychotherapists, counselors, and social workers. "Maria Giulia Marini takes a unique and innovative approach to narrative medicine. She sees it as offering a bridge - indeed a variety of different bridges - between clinical care and 'humanitas'. With a sensitive use of mythology, literature and metaphor on the one hand, and scientific studies on the other, she shows how the guiding concept of narrative might bring together the fragmented parts of the medical enterprise". John Launer, Honorary Consultant, Tavistock Clinic, London UK

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.

As noted in Volume 1, the Yearbook series alternates between a biennial volume tracing recent theological discussions on topics in bioethics and a biennial volume tracing recent regional discussions in bioethics. Volume 2 provides for the first time a comprehensive single-volume summary of recent international and regional developments on specific topics in bioethics. To give uniformity to the discussions all authors were asked to report on the following topics: new reproductive technologies, abortion, maternal-fetal conflicts, case of severely disabled newborns, consent of treatment and experimentation, confidentiality, equitable access to health care, ethical concerns raised by cost-containment measures, decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment, active euthanasia, the definition of death, organ donation and transplantation. The internationally respected contributors report on the following 16 areas: the United States, Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom and Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Germany/Austria/Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Spain/Portugal/Italy/Scandinavia, India, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, Council of Europe/EEC. The commentators draw on three sets of resources: Statutes, legislative proposals, and regulatory changes that directly influence, or have implications for, areas of bioethical concern; Case law and court judgments that shape, either decisively or suggestively, recent legal interpretations of particular issues of areas in bioethics; Formal statements of governmentally appointed commissions, advisory bodies, and representative professional groups, as well as less formal statements and recommendations of other organisations. In addition to providing timely summaries of recent developments, the volume offers rich and useful bibliographical references to a wide array of documents, many of which would be difficult for readers to learn about, given the lack of centralized international collection of such documents. The Yearbook should be widely consulted by all bioethicists, public policy analysts, lawyers and theologians.

Advaita Vedanta is one of the best-known schools of Indian philosophy, but much of its history-a history closely interwoven with that of medieval and modern Hinduism-remains surprisingly unexplored. This book focuses on a single remarkable work and its place within that history: The Ocean of Inquiry, a vernacular compendium of Advaita Vedanta by the North Indian monk Niscaldas (ca. 1791 - 1863). Though not well known today, Niscaldas's work was once referred to by Vivekananda (himself a key figure in the shaping of modern Hinduism) as the most influential book in India. The present book situates The Ocean of Inquiry as representative of both a neglected genre (vernacular Vedanta) and a neglected period (ca. 17th-19th centuries) in the history of Indian philosophy. It argues that the rise of Advaita Vedanta to a position of prestige began well before the period of British rule in India, and that vernacular texts like The Ocean of Inquiry played an important role in popularizing Vedantic teachings. It also offers a new appraisal of the period of late Advaita Vedanta, arguing that it should not be seen as one of barren scholasticism. For thinkers like Niscaldas, intellectual "inquiry" (vicara) was not an academic exercise but a spiritual practice-indeed, it was the central practice on the path to liberation. The book concludes by arguing that without understanding both vernacular Vedanta and the scholasticism of the period, one cannot fully understand the emergence of modern Hinduism.

The editors of the Philosophy and Medicine series recognize with grat itude the foresight, understanding, hard labor, and patience of Prof. Kazumasa Hoshino. It is his perseverance that has made this volume a reality. It was his faith in ideas that brought together a cluster of scholars in Tokyo on September 2-4, 1994, at Sophia University for a U. S. -J apan Bioethics Congress. With the support of the Foundation for Advance ment of International Science, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, the Foundation of Thanatology, the Japanese Center for Quality of Life Studies, and Sophia University, scholars from Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States were able to explore the differ ences and similarities in their approaches to bioethics and health care policy. That conference first produced a volume through Shibunkaku Publishers of Kyoto that appeared in 1995 in J apanese: The Dignity of Death, edited by Kazumasa Hoshino. Selections from those materials have been reworked for an English audience and now appear, along with new essays, in this volume. The field of comparative bioethics is only in its infancy. We are deeply grateful to Prof. Kazumasa Hoshino, one of the fathers of J apanese bioethics, for having made this volume possible. H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. Stuart F. Spicker Vll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume's editors and Kluwer Academic Publishers wish to thank Shibunkaku Press, Kyoto, Japan, for permission to publish, without charge, essays derived from the U. S."

How is it that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is still possible for males and females to be denied their inherent right to keep all the body parts with which they were born?

Circumcision is a cultural phenomenon that affects 15.3 million children and young adults annually. In terms of gender, 13.3 millions boys and 2 million girls are subjected to the involuntary removal of part or all of their external sex organs every year. Few people, however, ask why such practices persist or how modern societies can tolerate this inherent violation of human rights. The problem of female circumcision is being addressed on an international level, while male circumcision remains a subject many academics are reluctant to fully or impartially examine. This book explores the problem of male and female circumcision in modern society from religious, anthropological, psychological, medical, legal, and ethical perspectives.

Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision: Culture, Controversy, and Change illuminates the vulnerability of human society to medical, economic, and historical pressures. It provides a much-needed, thoughtful, and detailed analysis of the devastating impact of circumcision on bodily integrity and human rights, and it provides hope for change.

There is growing recognition of the value dimension in psychiatric practice, from the contributions of positive psychology, of documenting the role of virtues in human flourishing and in the medical practice. However, the place of virtues in psychiatric treatment remains largely unexplored. How does a need for virtues fit into the processes of diagnosis, formulation, and treatment? What patient problems and factors should influence the therapist to promote forgiveness, gratitude, humility, or accountability? What is the relationship between the therapist's and the patient's virtues? What is the relevance of religious or spiritual resources to the formation of virtue? How does the cultivation of a particular virtue relate to psychodynamic, behavioral, existential, or spiritual approaches? What ethical questions does it raise, and what are its implications for psychiatric education? The Virtues in Psychiatric Practice explores the role of the virtues in promoting human flourishing within the context of psychiatric practice. Chapters uses case examples to consider the incentives of fostering particular virtues; the place of this approach among psychodynamic, behavioral, existential, or spiritual approaches; and the relationship between the therapist's and the patient's values. Virtues highlighted include forgiveness, gratitude, accountability, self-transcendence, defiance, humility, compassion, love, and practical wisdom. This discussion is organized according to four basic capacities relevant to moral enhancement - self-control, niceness, intelligence, and positivity - which correspond to the four cardinal virtues according to Plato and Aquinas - temperance, justice, prudence, and courage. Edited by psychiatrist and scholar John R. Peteet and written for psychiatrists, psychologists, and medical ethicists, this book will connect recent scientific research on virtue with clinical practice. It therefore aims to give readers a fuller appreciation of the importance of virtue in the therapeutic encounter, a clearer understanding of clinical indications for focusing on particular virtues, and enhanced practical ways of promoting human growth.

For the first time, based on an extensive survey conducted across the whole of Europe by the Association Descartes, the details of over 1,000 persons and organisations are now available. The Directory is broken down into 14 sections : the first section is devoted to European institutions; the next twelve cover each EEC country and list the names of persons and organisations involved in bioethics; a complementary listing covers indispensable persons or organisations; A reference work both for researchers and anybody concerned with bioethics.

Mental illness is an issue of great practical importance. Yet, despite sustained inquiry from scientists and philosophers alike, relatively little attention has been paid to the significance of mental disorder to agency and responsibility. While there is some work that touches on the topic, and a few extended treatments of particular disorders, these only scratch the surface. Agency in Mental Disorder seeks to provide a starting point for deeper and broader philosophical analyses. The 8 new essays in this book address various questions about the relationship between agency and mental disorder. What is the nature of that relationship? In what ways do mental disorders affect capacities for control? How should we understand the mitigations of blame that mental disorders seem to provide, and can we generalize from specific disorders to any interesting claims about disorders as a class? And what makes for a mental disorder in the first place?

Medical uncertainty has been with us for centuries and remains a recurrent problem for patients, doctors, and researchers alike. Yet uncertainty in health care is still poorly understood and ineffectively managed; it is generally feared and avoided rather than directly confronted. This systemic disregard of uncertainty leads us to treat medical uncertainty as a pathological condition to be cured through the pursuit of knowledge, but often further medical knowledge begets further uncertainty in kind. Uncertainty in Medicine offers an alternative, multi-disciplinary perspective on this challenging problem. Integrating insights across clinical medicine and social science, Dr. Paul Han argues that uncertainty is an essential form of knowledge to be cultivated, rather than eradicated, in medical practice. He makes the case that the paradigm of medicine should be expanded to include not only the pursuit of medical knowledge but the treatment and palliation of medical uncertainty and its effects on physicians, other health professionals, and patients. Using clear language and a textbook approach, he analyzes the nature, etiology, and natural history of medical uncertainty, and develops a conceptual framework to guide its management. By promoting a more systematic way of conceptualizing the problem, this framework can enable clinicians and patients to better address medical uncertainty, and can help make uncertainty tolerance a more central focus of medical care. Rational and reassuring, Uncertainty in Medicine forges a new path for approaching medical uncertainty by arming readers from an array of disciplines with the tools they need to diagnose, treat, and confront its challenges more intentionally and effectively.

Neural prosthetics are systems or devices implanted in or connected to the brain that influence the input and output of information. They modulate, bypass, supplement, or replace regions of the brain and its connections to parts of the body that are damaged, dysfunctional, or lost, whether from congenital conditions, brain injury, limb loss, or neurodegenerative disease. Neural prosthetics can restore sensory, motor, and cognitive functions in people with these conditions and enable them to regain functional independence and improve their quality of life. This book explores the neuroscientific and philosophical implications of neural prosthetics. Neuroscientific discussion focuses on how neural prosthetics can restore brain and bodily functions to varying degrees, looking at auditory and visual prosthetics, deep brain and responsive neurostimulation, brain-computer interfaces, brain-to-brain interfaces, and memory prosthetics. Philosophical discussion then considers the degree to which people with these prosthetics can benefit from or be harmed by them. Finally, it explores how these devices and systems can lead to a better understanding of the brain-mind relation, mental causation, and agency. This is an essential volume for anyone invested in the current and future directions of neural prosthetics, including neuroscientists, neurologists, neurosurgeons, neural engineers, psychologists, and psychiatrists, as well as philosophers, bioethicists, and legal theorists.