Bioethics : Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues

by Mark G. Kuczewski and Ronald Polansky (Eds.)

• ISBN13: 9780262611770
• ISBN10: 0262611775
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-07
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

In recent years, bioethicists have worked on government commissions, on ethics committees in hospitals and nursing homes, and as bedside consultants. Because ethical knowledge is based on experience within the field rather than on universal theoretical propositions, it is open to criticism for its lack of theoretical foundation. Once in the clinic, however, ethicists noted the extent to which medical practice itself combined the certitudes of science with craft forms of knowledge. In an effort to forge a middle path between pure science and applied medical and ethical knowledge, bioethicists turned to the work of classical philosophy, especially the theme of a practical wisdom that entails a variable knowledge of particulars. In this book contemporary bioethicists and scholars of ancient philosophy explore the import of classical ethics on such pressing bioethical concerns as managed care, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion. Although the contributors write within the limits of their own disciplines, through cross references and counterarguments they engage in fruitful dialogue.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword	vii
Introduction	ix
I The Character of Medical and Ethical Knowledge	1	(128)
Remembering the Hippocratics: Knowledge, Practice, and Ethos of Ancient Greek Physician-Healers	3	(28)
Robert Bartz
Is Medicine Art, Science, or Practical Wisdom? Ancient and Contemporary Reflections	31	(26)
Ronald Polansky
Phronesis and the Misdescription of Medicine: Against The Medical School Commencement Speech	57	(10)
Kathryn Montgomery
Aristotle, Phronesis, and Postmodern Bioethics	67	(26)
David Thomasma
Confessions of an Unrepentant Sophist	93	(16)
Tod Chambers
Philosophical Therapy, Ancient and Modern	109	(20)
Julia E. Annas
II The Heuristic Value of Classical Approaches	129	(162)
Thrasymachus and Managed Care: How Not to Think about the Craft of Medicine	131	(24)
Alex John London
Potentiality and Persons: An Aristotelian Perspective	155	(24)
Christopher Megone
Can Communitarianism End the Shrill and Interminable Public Debates? Abortion as a Case-in-Point	179	(14)
Mark G. Kuczewski
Classical and Modern Reflections on Medical Ethics and the Best Interests of the Sick Child	193	(36)
Daryl M. Tress
Facing Death Like a Stoic: Epictetus on Suicide in the Case of Illness	229	(22)
Christopher E. Cosans
Euthanasia and the Physician's Role: Reflections on Some Views in the Ancient Greek Tradition	251	(40)
Georgios Anagnastopoulos
Contributors	291	(2)
Index	293