Bioethics in Social Context

by Hoffmaster, C. Barry; Hoffmaster, Barry

• ISBN13: 9781566398459
• ISBN10: 1566398452
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-15
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

The problems of bioethics are embedded in people's lives and social worlds. They are shaped by individual biographies and relationships, by the ethos and institutions of health care, by economic and political pressures, by media depictions, and by the assumptions, beliefs, and values that permeate cultures and times. Yet these forces are largely ignored by a professional bioethics that concentrates on the theoretical justification of decisions.The original essays in this volume use qualitative research methods to expose the multiple contexts within which the problems of bioethics arise, are defined and debated, and ultimately resolved. In a provocative concluding essay, one contributor asks his fellow ethnographers to reflect on the ethical problems of ethnography. Author note: Barry Hoffmaster is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. From 1991 to 1996 he was the Director of the Westminster Institute for Ethics and Human Values in London, Ontario, and he served as President of the Canadian Bioethics Society in 1994-95. He is a Fellow of the Hastings Center.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(11)
Barry Hoffmaster
Clinical Narratives and Ethical Dilemmas in Geriatrics	12	(27)
Sharon R. Kaufman
Situated Ethics, Culture, and the Brain Death ``Problem'' in Japan	39	(30)
Margaret Lock
Constructing Moral Boundaries: Public Discourse on Human Experimentation in Twentieth-Century America	69	(21)
Sydney A. Halpern
Media Images, Genetics, and Culture: Potential Impacts of Reporting Scientific Findings on Bioethics	90	(22)
Peter Conrad
Emotions in Medical and Moral Life	112	(25)
Renee R. Anspach
Diane Beeson
A Contextual Approach to Clinical Ethics Consultation	137	(16)
Patricia A. Marshall
Family Values and Resistance to Genetic Testing	153	(27)
Diane Beeson
Teresa Doksum
Ethics Committees and Social Change: Plus ca change?	180	(19)
Cate McBurney
Irony, Ethnography, and Informed Consent	199	(22)
Charles L. Bosk
Afterword	221	(8)
Barry Hoffmaster
About the Contributors	229	(2)
Index	231