Religious Methods and Resources in Bioethics

by Camenisch, Paul F.

• ISBN13: 9780792321026
• ISBN10: 0792321022
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-01-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

What does religion or the religious traditions have to contribute to the discussion and resolution of contemporary bioethical issues? Each of the fifteen essays written for this volume addresses this question by treating a limited area within the volume's title area, Religious Methods and Resources in Bioethics. The essays keep in touch with the very concrete and specific nature of bioethics by illustrating their points with selected bioethical problems or cases. Some discuss the basic resources, methods and/or presuppositions which characterize the approach to bioethical issues of an entire tradition or a significant element thereof. Traditions represented include Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam and Judaism. Other authors, while working primarily within their own traditions - most frequently in this section in Christian thought and practice - address methodological issues which arise in a number of traditions. Such matters include casuistry, feminism, principalism and its rivals, virtue ethics, and the issue of ethics' impartial rationality. A final group addresses methodological questions within a given tradition. These include the use of scripture, and of non-canonical authoritative documents, and the role of religious practices in Christian bioethical thinking, and the use of responsa in the Jewish tradition. This volume will be of interest to any persons, beyond beginning undergraduate levels, concerned about religious contributions to bioethical issues.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Methods of Biomedical Ethics in the Religious Traditions
Hindu Bioethics	p. 3
Methodology of Buddhist Biomedical Ethics	p. 31
Taoist Bioethics in the Final Age: Therapy and Salvation in the Book of Divine Incantations for Penetrating the Abyss	p. 67
Islam and Medical Ethics	p. 93
Method in Jewish Bioethics	p. 109
Text and Tradition in Contemporary Jewish Bioethics	p. 127
Methodological Questions Across Traditions
Bioethics and Impartial Rationality: The Search for Neutrality	p. 147
The Confessor as Experienced Physician: Casuistry and Clinical Ethics	p. 165
Ethical Theories, Principles, and Casuistry in Bioethics: An Interpretation and Defense of Principlism	p. 181
Why the Virtues Are Not Another Approach to Medical Ethics: Reconceiving the Place of Ethics in Contemporary Medicine	p. 203
Elements of a Feminist Approach to Bioethics	p. 227
Methodological Foci and Resources within a Tradition
Scripture and Medical Ethics: Psalm 51:10a, the Jarvik VII, and Psalm 50:9	p. 261
A Moral Matrix: Religious Practices and Health Care	p. 289
On Being Medieval Without Menace: Catholic Magisterial Teaching as a Source for Bioethics	p. 301
On Donating Bone Marrow to an Unknown Half-Brother: A Guided Tour Through a Liberal Jewish Responsum on a Biomedical Issue	p. 323
Notes on Contributors	p. 337
Index	p. 339
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