Beyond a Western Bioethics

Beyond a Western Bioethics
Author: Angeles Tan Alora
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2001-07-20
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781589012493

In Beyond a Western Bioethics, physicians Angeles Tan Alora and Josephine M. Lumitao join eight other contributors to provide a comprehensive exploration of bioethical issues outside of the dominant American and western European model. Using the Philippines as a case study, they address how a developing country's economy, religion, and culture affect the bioethical landscape for doctors, patients, families, and the society as a whole. American principles of medical ethics assume the primacy of individual autonomy, the importance of truth-telling, and secular standards of justice and morality. In the Philippines, these standards are often at odds with a culture in which family relationships take precedence over individualism, and ideas of community, friendship, and religion can deeply influence personal behavior. Pervasive poverty further complicates the equation. Contributors move from a general discussion of the moral vision informing health care decisions in the Philippines to an exploration of a wide range of specific cases: family planning, care of the elderly, organ transplants, death and dying, medical research, AIDS care, doctor-patient relationships, informed consent, and the allocation of scarce health-care resources. Written for both students and professionals, the book provides a much-needed perspective on how medical ethics are practiced in a developing nation, and it successfully challenges the wisdom of global bioethical standards that do not account for local cultural and economic differences.

Rethinking Health Care Ethics

Rethinking Health Care Ethics
Author: Stephen Scher
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2018-08-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9811308306

​The goal of this open access book is to develop an approach to clinical health care ethics that is more accessible to, and usable by, health professionals than the now-dominant approaches that focus, for example, on the application of ethical principles. The book elaborates the view that health professionals have the emotional and intellectual resources to discuss and address ethical issues in clinical health care without needing to rely on the expertise of bioethicists. The early chapters review the history of bioethics and explain how academics from outside health care came to dominate the field of health care ethics, both in professional schools and in clinical health care. The middle chapters elaborate a series of concepts, drawn from philosophy and the social sciences, that set the stage for developing a framework that builds upon the individual moral experience of health professionals, that explains the discontinuities between the demands of bioethics and the experience and perceptions of health professionals, and that enables the articulation of a full theory of clinical ethics with clinicians themselves as the foundation. Against that background, the first of three chapters on professional education presents a general framework for teaching clinical ethics; the second discusses how to integrate ethics into formal health care curricula; and the third addresses the opportunities for teaching available in clinical settings. The final chapter, "Empowering Clinicians", brings together the various dimensions of the argument and anticipates potential questions about the framework developed in earlier chapters.

Elements of African Bioethics in a Western Frame

Elements of African Bioethics in a Western Frame
Author: Godfrey B. Tangwa
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9956578150

For millennia, Africans have lived on the African continent, In close contact with the diversities of nature: floral, faunal and human; and in so doing they have developed cultures, values, attitudes and perspectives To The problems, ethical and otherwise, that have arisen from the existential pressures of their situation. The problem, however, Is that such values and perspectives do not necessarily form coherent ethical theories. Theory-making is a second order activity requiring a certain amount of leisure and comfort which the existential conditions of life on the African continent have not easily permitted in the retrospect-able past. The elements of African bioethics are to be found in its cultural values, traditions, customs and practices. These are research-able, highlight-able and usable by those who would. The bioethical problems of our current global existential situation are such that all possible solutions, no matter their provenance, ought to be tried. Western culture†has far too loud a voice combined with deaf ears in contemporary ethical discourse. But it should never be forgotten that other cultures†have their own word to say and that alternative values, ways of thinking and practices exist, and attempt should always be made to bring these out and to highlight them, if they could possibly contribute To The satisfactory solution of a global problem. This book brings together various papers on bioethical issues and problems, written at different times, some previously published, each of which attempts to bring out some African†elements, perspective or concern. The African narrative style predominates through these essays but their framing conforms, more or less, To the Western paradigm for presenting academic issues.

Global Bioethics

Global Bioethics
Author: Henk ten Have
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2016-02-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317300823

The panorama of bioethical problems is different today. Patients travel to Thailand for fast surgery; commercial surrogate mothers in India deliver babies to parents in rich countries; organs, body parts and tissues are trafficked from East to Western Europe; physicians and nurses migrating from Africa to the U.S; thousands of children or patients with malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS are dying each day because they cannot afford effective drugs that are too expensive. Mainstream bioethics as it has developed during the last 50 years in Western countries is evolving into a broader approach that is relevant for people across the world and is focused on new global problems. This book provides an introduction into the new field of global bioethics. Addressing these problems requires a broader vision of bioethics that not only goes beyond the current emphasis on individual autonomy, but that criticizes the social, economic and political context that is producing the problems at global level. This book argues that global bioethics is a necessity because the social, economic and environmental effects of globalization require critical responses. Global bioethics is not a finished product that can simply be applied to solve global problems, but it is the ongoing result of interaction and exchange between local practices and global discourse. It combines recognition of differences and respect for cultural diversity with convergence towards common perspectives and shared values. The book examines the nature of global problems as well as the type of responses that are needed, in order to exemplify the substance of global bioethics. It discusses the ethical frameworks that are available for global discourse and shows how these are transformed into global governance mechanisms and practices.

Bioethics Around the Globe

Bioethics Around the Globe
Author: Catherine Myser
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2011-06-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0199749825

Contemporary bioethics, now roughly 40 years old as a discipline, originated in the United States with a primarily Anglo-American cultural ethos. It continues to be professionalized and institutionalized as a maturing discipline at the intersections of philosophy, medicine, law, social sciences, and humanities. Increasingly bioethics - along with its foundational values, concepts and principals - has been exported to other countries, not only in the developed West, but also in developing and/or Eastern countries. Bioethics thus continues to undergo intriguing transformations as it is globalized and adapted to local cultures. These processes have occurred rapidly in the last two decades, with relatively little reflection and examination. This volume brings together contributors from a wide variety of disciplines to take a critical, empirical look at bioethics around the globe, examining how it is being transformed - at both local and global levels - in this process of cross-cultural exporting and importing. One concern is to identify sociocultural forces and consequences which may positively or negatively affect ethics and social justice goals. This book thereby offers the first comparative anthropology and sociology of globalizing bioethics in the field, exploring the global dissemination, local adaptations, cultural meanings and social functions of bioethics theories, practices and institutions and comparing developed and developing countries. The volume considers a full range of countries on every inhabited continent, including: Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Topics include government agendas such as nationalism and nation building; agendas of powerful, associated professions (e.g., medicine, law); theological and political agendas such as 'culture wars'; agendas of entrepreneurial economies of profit; and other cultural and ideological agendas consciously or unconsciously advanced or contested by bioethics work in particular countries based on their unique history, politics and culture. This cross-cultural exploration of globalizing bioethics will be of great interest to a field that is increasingly introspective about its underlying sociocultural assumptions and biases. "At last-an unabashedly sociological and anthropological look at the globalization of bioethics, a really fresh approach to a maturing discipline. The chapters speak from the perspective of sophisticated Western-developed exporters of the bioethical paradigm [and equally sophisticated] Eastern-developing and third-world and interdisciplinary critics suspicious of the canonical view. Trained in the dominant school of American, mainstream philosophy, Myser draws on her long-standing commitment to a social and cultural approach to bioethics to take a fresh look at bioethics globally. She grasps the globalization of bioethics and the skepticism about analytical philosophy's Americanized consensus. The book sets the stage for a new era in bioethics theory and practice {debating] whether a universal common morality underlies the rich variation in national and cultural bioethics traditions." - Robert Veatch, Georgetown University "This path-breaking volume is the first to explore the global export of Western bioethics to a variety of non-Western settings. Explicitly critical, the book also points to the liberating potential of bioethics to achieve social justice and improve the lives of patients around the world. The book is a must-read for all medical anthropologists interested in bioethics." - Marcia Inhorn, Yale University "Bioethics Around the Globe should change the way bioethics is conceived and practiced in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its rich and wide-ranging comparative examination opens new possibilities for bioethical reflection. I enthusiastically recommend this wonderful book." - James F. Childress, University of Virginia "The past 40 years have seen a remarkable spread of bioethics to every part of the world. Dr. Myser's collection is a wonderful and rich exploration of its international impact, revealing important similarities and differences from country to country. It will have an important impact." - Daniel Callahan, The Hastings Center

Feminism & Bioethics

Feminism & Bioethics
Author: Susan M. Wolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 398
Release: 1996-04-11
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780195095562

Bioethics tackles the most vexing problems in health care and the biological sciences: from reproductive technologies to euthanasia, the AIDS epidemic, mapping the human genome, human subjects research, and health care reform. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the special problems faced by women and to feminist analyses of current health care issues other than reproduction. This breakthrough volume of original essays authored by leading figures in bioethics and feminist theory moves beyond the areas of reproduction and nursing, taking bioethics into new territory. The book starts with an investigation of the relationship between feminism and bioethics and introduces different approaches to the problem. These chapters stress the importance of liberal feminism that prefers feminist over feminine analysis, integrates the experience of women of color, draws from the women's self-help movement, and uses the feminist stand-point theory.; In the second part of the book, the authors apply the feminist perspective to different bioethics problems: euthanasia, AIDS, the definition of health, doctor-patient communication, the Human Genome Project, the conduct of biomedical research, and health care reform. They demonstrate the gain and benefit that results when bioethics pays attention to gender and feminism. This volume will change the way bioethicists, students, patients, and the public think about these profoundly challenging problems.

The Self Beyond Itself

The Self Beyond Itself
Author: Heidi M. Ravven
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2014-09-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1595588000

“Intertwines history, philosophy, and science . . . A powerful challenge to conventional notions of individual responsibility” (Publishers Weekly). Few concepts are more unshakable in our culture than free will, the idea that individuals are fundamentally in control of the decisions they make, good or bad. And yet the latest research about how the brain functions seems to point in the opposite direction . . . In a work of breathtaking intellectual sweep and erudition, Heidi M. Ravven offers a riveting and accessible review of cutting-edge neuroscientific research into the brain’s capacity for decision-making—from “mirror” neurons and “self-mapping” to surprising new understandings of group psychology. The Self Beyond Itself also introduces readers to a rich, alternative philosophical tradition of ethics, rooted in the writing of Baruch Spinoza, that finds uncanny confirmation in modern science. Illustrating the results of today’s research with real-life examples, taking readers from elementary school classrooms to Nazi concentration camps, Ravven demonstrates that it is possible to build a theory of ethics that doesn’t rely on free will yet still holds both individuals and groups responsible for the decisions that help create a good society. The Self Beyond Itself is that rare book that injects new ideas into an old debate—and “an important contribution to the development of our thinking about morality” (Washington Independent Review of Books). “An intellectual hand-grenade . . . A magisterial survey of how contemporary neuroscience supports a vision of human morality which puts it squarely on the same plane as other natural phenomena.” —William D. Casebeer, author of Natural Ethical Facts

The Moral Status of Persons

The Moral Status of Persons
Author: Gerhold K. Becker
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789042012011

The advances in molecular biology and genetics, medicine and neurosciences, in ethology and environmental studies have put the concept of the person firmly on the philosophical agenda. Whereas earlier times seemed to have a clear understanding about the moral implications of personhood and its boundaries, today there is little consensus on such matters. Whether a patient in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease is still a person, or whether a human embryo is already a person are highly contentious issues. This book tackles the issue of personhood and its moral implications head-on. The thirteen essays are representative of the major strands in the current bioethical debate and offer new insights into humanity's moral standing, its foundations, and its implications for social interaction. While most of the essays approach the issue by drawing on the rich intellectual tradition of the West, others offer a cross-cultural perspective and make available for ethical consideration the philosophical resources and the wisdom of the East. The contributors to this book are highly recognized philosophers, ethicists, theologians, and professionals in health care and medicine from East Asia (China, Japan), Europe, and North America. The first part of the book probes the foundations of personhood. Examining critically the main theories on personhood in contemporary philosophy, the authors offer alternatives that better respond to contemporary challenges and their implications for bioethics. The focus of the second part is firmly on the Confucian relational concept of the person and on the social constitution of personhood in traditional Japanese culture. While the essays challenge the individualistic features of personhood in the Western tradition, they lay the foundations for a richer concept that holds great promise for the resolution of moral dilemmas in modern medicine and health care. The third part of the book enters into a dialogue with the Christian tradition and draws on its spiritual heritage in the search for answers to the contemporary challenges to human dignity and value. Its focus is on the Catholic social thought and Lutheran theology. The fourth part addresses the moral status of persons in view of specific issues such as the effects of brain injury, gene therapy, and human cloning on personhood. It extends the scope of research beyond human beings and inquires also into the moral status of animals.

The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America (Large Print 16pt)

The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America (Large Print 16pt)
Author: Wesley J. Smith
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2010-10-06
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 145877841X

When his teenaged son Christopher, brain-damaged in an auto accident, developed a 106-degree fever following weeks of unconsciousness, John Campbell asked the attending physician for help. The doctor refused. Why bother? The boy's life was effectively over. Campbell refused to accept this verdict. He demanded treatment and threatened legal action. The doctor finally relented. With treatment, Christopher's temperature subsided almost immediately. Soon afterwards he regained consciousness and today he is learning to walk again. This story is one of many Wesley Smith recounts in his groundbreaking new book, The Culture of Death. Smith believes that American medicine ''is changing from a system based on the sanctity of human life into a starkly utilitarian model in which the medically defenseless are seen as having not just a 'right' but a 'duty' to die.'' Going behind the current scenes of our health care system, he shows how doctors withdraw desired care based on Futile Care Theory rather than provide it as required by the Hippocratic Oath. And how ''bioethicists'' influence policy by considering questions such as whether organs may be harvested from the terminally ill and disabled. This is a passionate, yet coolly reasoned book about the current crisis in medical ethics by an author who has made ''the new thanatology'' his consuming interest.

The Anticipatory Corpse

The Anticipatory Corpse
Author: Jeffrey P. Bishop
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2011-09-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0268075859

In this original and compelling book, Jeffrey P. Bishop, a philosopher, ethicist, and physician, argues that something has gone sadly amiss in the care of the dying by contemporary medicine and in our social and political views of death, as shaped by our scientific successes and ongoing debates about euthanasia and the “right to die”—or to live. The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying, informed by Foucault’s genealogy of medicine and power as well as by a thorough grasp of current medical practices and medical ethics, argues that a view of people as machines in motion—people as, in effect, temporarily animated corpses with interchangeable parts—has become epistemologically normative for medicine. The dead body is subtly anticipated in our practices of exercising control over the suffering person, whether through technological mastery in the intensive care unit or through the impersonal, quasi-scientific assessments of psychological and spiritual “medicine.” The result is a kind of nihilistic attitude toward the dying, and troubling contradictions and absurdities in our practices. Wide-ranging in its examples, from organ donation rules in the United States, to ICU medicine, to “spiritual surveys,” to presidential bioethics commissions attempting to define death, and to high-profile cases such as Terri Schiavo’s, The Anticipatory Corpse explores the historical, political, and philosophical underpinnings of our care of the dying and, finally, the possibilities of change. This book is a ground-breaking work in bioethics. It will provoke thought and argument for all those engaged in medicine, philosophy, theology, and health policy.