Pragmatic Bioethics

Authors

Glenn McGee, University of New HavenFollow

Files

Author URLs

Professor McGee's Faculty Profile

Professor McGee's web site

Description

Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the complex demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics.The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research.

ISBN

9780262632720

Publication Date

2003

Publisher

MIT Press

City

Cambridge, Mass.

Keywords

bioethics, philosophy, pragmatism

Subject: LCSH

Bioethics, Pragmatism

Disciplines

Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Life Sciences

Comments

Available in UNH Library. Part of the Basic Bioethics book series.

Repository Citation

McGee, G., ed. Pragmatic bioethics (2nd edition). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003.

Publisher Citation

McGee, G., ed. Pragmatic bioethics (2nd edition). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003.