The third edition of The Basics of Bioethics continues to provide a balanced and systematic ethical framework to help students analyze a wide range of controversial topics in medicine, and consider ethical systems from various religious and secular traditions. The Basics of Bioethics covers the “Principalist” approach and identifies principles that are believed to make behavior morally right or wrong. It showcases alternative ethical approaches to health care decision making by presenting Hippocratic ethics as only one among many alternative ethical approaches to health care decision-making. The Basics of Bioethics offers case studies, diagrams, and other learning aids for an accessible presentation. Plus, it contains an all-encompassing ethics chart that shows the major questions in ethics and all of the major answers to these questions.
Chapter 1: A Map of the Terrain of Ethics
Chapter 2: The Hippocratic Oath and Its Challengers: A Brief History
Chapter 3: Defining Death, Abortion, and Animal Welfare: The Basis of Moral Standing
Chapter 4: Problems in Benefiting and Avoiding Harm to the Patient
Chapter 5: The Ethics of Respect for Persons: Lying, Cheating, and Breaking Promises and Why Physicians Have Considered Them Ethical
Chapter 6: The Principle of Avoiding of Killing
Chapter 7: Death and Dying: The Incompetent Patient
Chapter 8: Social Ethics of Medicine: Allocation of Resources, Transplantation, and Human Subjects Research
Chapter 9: Human Control of Life: Genetics, Birth Technologies and Modifying Human Nature
Chapter 10: Resolving Conflicts Among Principles
Chapter 11: The Virtues in Bioethics
Appendices:
Hippocratic Oath
Principles of Medical Ethics (2001))of the American Medical Association
Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005)
Biography
Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., is Professor of Medical Ethics and former director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, where he is also professor of philosophy and adjunct professor in the medical school. He has taught medical ethics at Georgetown, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Union College, and St. George's University School of Medicine. He was formerly Associate for Medical Ethics at the Hastings Center and is a registered pharmacist.
"As a leader and pioneer in the field, Veatch is very solid in terms of accuracy."
Kyle Fedler, Ashland University, USA
"I've used the Veatch book in teaching bioethics in short courses to non-philosophy audiences: medical students, physical therapy students, physician assistants, etc. They like it very much. It is readable, accessible, and interesting. The examples are well-chosen and memorable. The topics are well-chosen and coverage [is] appropriate. The presentation is balanced and thought-provoking."Leslie Pickering Francis, University of Utah, USA
