An International Journal for Pastors and Students of Theological and Religious Studies
An International Journal for Pastors and Students of Theological and Religious Studies
After almost forty years of explosive growth and activity, bioethics has become a mature form of interdisciplinary enterprise. Bioethics journals, conferences, academic programs, and centers proliferate, and bioethicists frequently are called to serve on hospital ethics committees and government commissions, to speak to media, and to testify before congresses and parliaments. From its origin in the work of theologians such as Joseph Fletcher and Paul Ramsey, bioethics evolved into an interdisciplinary field. However, the theoretical work that undergirds this endeavor is primarily philosophical.
This volume from Oxford University Press, edited by philosopher Bonnie Steinbock, is an excellent resource for those who want to delve deeper into the philosophical issues raised by the concerns of bioethics. Most of the authors are American and British philosophers well known to those familiar with the field, including Steinbock, Felicia Ackerman, John D. Arras, Allen Buchanan, Gerald Dworkin, John Harris, Ruth Macklin, Don Marquis, and Ronald Munson, joined by a number of other bioethicists, most of whom are well known. They have each contributed an original essay on one of thirty topics. These include standard issues such as the methodology of bioethics, autonomy, justice, death, reproductive technology, abortion, transplantation, human and animal research ethics, and moral status, and such newer topics as human enhancement technologies, biobanking, stem cell research, cloning, pharmacogenomics, and bioterrorism. The first essay, a masterful review of the issue of bioethical method and the fate of the "four principle" approach against a flock of challengers such as virtue ethics and casuistry, is written by James Childress, one of the co-authors of the canonical text of modern bioethics, Principles of Bioethics.
This is an excellent collection of essays demonstrating the state of secular bioethics today. As far as this book is concerned, religious and theological perspectives have little relevance to bioethics and little to contribute to its debates. There are no authors writing from a particular theological perspective, nor do any topics deal substantively with theological or religious concerns. The book, though excellent, would have been stronger with a chapter on theological approaches to bioethics from someone like Allen Verhey or H. Tristam Englehardt Jr. In spite of this glaring omission, it remains a very worthwhile collection of essays for philosophers, theologians, physicians, lawyers, and others interested in bioethics.