Observing bioethics / Renée C. Fox and Judith P. Swazey ; with the assistance of Judith C. Watkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fox, Renée C. (Renée Claire), 1928-2020.

Contributor:

Swazey, Judith P.

Watkins, Judith C.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medical ethics--United States--History.

Medical ethics.

Bioethics--United States--History.

Bioethics.

Bioethics--history.

History.

United States.

History, 20th Century.

Sociology.

Medical Subjects:

Bioethics--history.

United States.

History, 20th Century.

Sociology.

Physical Description:

xii, 388 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Based on original primary and extensive secondary source materials, the book views bioethics as a complex phenomenon that is not only related to advances in modern biology, medicine, and biotechnology, but also to the fundamental values and beliefs and larger moral and existential questionswhich American society has been collectively grappling in its courts, legislatures, and media. Although they center their analysis on U.S. bioethics, the authors also trace the field's international spread, including case studies of bioethics in France and Pakistan - two of the many societies inwhich it has developed. While recognizing the intellectual, moral and sociological importance of American bioethics, they are critical of certain of its characteristics, and concerned about their implications-especially the problems of thinking socially, culturally, and internationally that haveexisted since bioethics' inception; the field's "tenuous interdisciplinarity"; and the extent to which the "culture wars" on the larger American scene have recently penetrated it.

Contents:

The coming of bioethics

The coming of bioethicists

"Choices on our conscience": the inauguration of the Kennedy Institute of Education

"Hello, Dolly": bioethics in the media

Celebrating bioethics and bioethicists

Thinking socially and culturally in bioethics

Reminiscences of observing participants

Bioethics circles the globe

Bioethics in France

The development of bioethics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

The coming of the culture wars to American bioethics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-371) and index.

ISBN:

9780195365559

0195365550

OCLC:

175056041