Bioethics A Return to Fundamentals

by Gert, Bernard; Culver, Charles M.; Clouser, K. Danner

• ISBN13: 9780195114300
• ISBN10: 0195114302
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-07-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book attempts to integrate moral philosophy and clinical medicine ina way that results in a genuine bioethics. The authors provide an explicitaccount of common morality and show how it applies to and is modified by therealities of clinical medicine. They do not try to settle all controversialmatters but rather provide an ethical framework that all parties to the disputecan accept and use as a basis for reaching agreement. Thus, they facilitateethical discussion. The authors' detailed analysis of death and disease maladymaintains the theoretical objectivity of these concepts while recognizing theircentral role in social and medical practices. They also provide detailedanalyses of the central concepts in bioethics: competence, consent, andconfidentiality. Paternalism, one of the most pervasive problem in clinicalmedicine, is treated in detail. The book is richly illustrated with discussionsof clinical cases. The authors explicitly compare their position with otheraccounts of bioethics such as principalism, casuistry, and virtue theory. Theirdiscussion of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide clarifies and evaluatesthe recent legal decisions on these topics. This clearly written book should beof interest not only to students in philosophy of medicine and medical ethicscourses, but also to doctors, nurses, and other health careprofessionals.

Author Biography

Bernard Gert, Ph.D., is the Eunice and Julian Cohen Professor of Ethics and Human Values at Dartmouth College.
Charles M. Culver, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Medical Education at Barry University, Miami, FL.
K. Danner Clouser, Ph.D., is Professor of Humanities at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction	1	(14)
2. Morality	15	(36)
3. Application	51	(20)
4. Principlism	71	(22)
5. Malady	93	(38)
6. Competence	131	(18)
7. Consent	149	(32)
8. Confidentiality	181	(14)
9. Paternalism	195	(22)
10. Justification	217	(34)
11. Death	251	(28)
12. Euthanasia	279	(36)
Index	315