Essays on Bioethics

by Hare, R. M.

• ISBN13: 9780198236788
• ISBN10: 0198236786
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-11-07
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

R.M. Hare is well known both for his fundamental work in ethical theory and for his applications of it to practical issues. For this volume he has selected the best of his writings on medical ethics and related topics. The book's chief theoretical interest lies in its synthesis between utilitarian and Kantian ethics, which are shown to have the same practical consequences. The main practical thesis in the book is that we can harm possible people by preventing them from becoming actual people. This thesis, if understood and accepted, would radically alter the terms of the public debate about embryo experimentation and population policy, and (perhaps surprisingly) support a fairly liberal view on abortion. There are also general introductions to medical and psychiatric ethics, and essays on the concept of health, on the morality of experimentation on children, on health care policy, on free will, and on vegetarianism.

Table of Contents

Medical Ethics: Can the Moral Philosopher Help?

The Philosophical Basis of Psychiatric Ethics

Health

Moral Problems about the Control of Behaviour

Possible People

When does Potentiality Count?

In Vitro Fertilization and the Warnock Report

Embryo Experimentation: Public Policy in a Pluralist Society

Little Human Guinea-Pigs?

Abortion and the Golden Rule

A Kantian Approach to Abortion

The Abnormal Child: Moral Dilemmas of Doctors and Parents

Prediction and Moral Appraisal

Health Care Policy: Some Options

Why I am Only a Demi-Vegetarian

References

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.