ABSTRACT

Bioethics: 50 Puzzles, Problems, and Thought Experiments collects 50 cases—both real and imaginary—that have been, or should be, of special interest and importance to philosophical bioethics. Cases are collected together under topical headings in a natural order for an introductory course in bioethics. Each case is described in a few pages, which includes bioethical context, a concise narrative of the case itself, and a discussion of its importance, both for broader philosophical issues and for practical problems in clinical ethics and health policy. Each entry also contains a brief, annotated, list of suggested readings. In addition to the classic cases in bioethics, the book contains discussion of cases that involve several emerging bioethical issues: especially, issues around disability, social justice, and the practice of medicine in a diverse and globalized world.

Key Features:

  • Gives readers all chapters presented in an identical format:
    • The Case
    • Responses
    • Suggested Readings
  • Includes reference to up-to-date literature in journals devoted both to more generalist ethics and to bioethics
  • Offers short and self-contained chapters, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course
  • Features actual or lightly fictionalized cases in humanitarian aid, offering a type of case that is often underrepresented in bioethics books
  • Authored by three scholars who are actively involved in the central research areas of bioethics

part I|16 pages

Bioethics and Philosophical Methodology

chapter 1|5 pages

Bioethics as Moral Theory

The Transplant and the Trolley

chapter 2|5 pages

Bioethics as Metaphysics

The Brain Transplant

chapter 3|4 pages

Bioethics across Cultures

The Farewell

part II|36 pages

Creating Life

chapter 4|5 pages

Should I Have Children?

The Islanders and the Cube

chapter 5|5 pages

Which Children Should I Have, I?

The Non-Identity Problem

chapter 6|5 pages

Which Children Should I Have, II?

Gattaca

chapter 7|6 pages

Making People Happy, or Making Happy People?

The Repugnant Conclusion

chapter 8|6 pages

Is Abortion Permissible?

Thomson's Violinist

chapter 9|7 pages

What We Owe to Our Unborn Children

Rescues Easy and Hard

part III|27 pages

The Value of Life

chapter 10|5 pages

Is It Bad to Be Disabled, I?

The Case of Cara and Daisy

chapter 11|4 pages

Is It Bad to Be Disabled, II?

Adaptive Preference?

chapter 12|5 pages

Morbidity versus Mortality

The QALY Trap

chapter 13|6 pages

What Makes a Disability?

The Counterfactual Test

chapter 14|5 pages

When Is a Life Worth Living?

The Challenge of Covert Consciousness

part IV|21 pages

Deciding for Others

chapter 15|4 pages

Deciding for Disability

The Ashley Treatment

chapter 16|5 pages

Dilemmas of Decision-Making

Kill Mary to Save Jodie?

chapter 17|5 pages

Deciding for the Future

Margo's Advance Directive

chapter 18|5 pages

My Decision Alone?

Family, Community, and Consent in Global Context

part V|23 pages

Deciding for Yourself

chapter 19|5 pages

Wrongs without Harms?

Two Cases on the Basis of Informed Consent

chapter 20|6 pages

Who is Competent to Consent?

Anorexia Nervosa

chapter 21|5 pages

The Ethics of Influence, I

A Clinical Nudge

chapter 22|5 pages

The Ethics of Influence, II

The Nocebo Effect

part VI|32 pages

Killing and Dying

chapter 23|5 pages

Better to Die?

The “Mercy” Killing at Memorial

chapter 24|5 pages

To Kill, or Let Die?

Rachels on Active and Passive Euthanasia

chapter 25|5 pages

What Does It Mean to Kill?

Stopping Hearts, Artificial and Otherwise

chapter 26|5 pages

Counting Deaths

Statistical and Identified Lives

chapter 27|5 pages

What Does It Mean to Die, I?

Jahi McMath and the Definition of Death

chapter 28|5 pages

What Does It Mean to Die, II?

Death and the Sanctity of the Body in Islam

part VII|22 pages

The Ethics of Clinical Research

chapter 29|5 pages

When is Clinical Research Ethical?

The Tuskegee Study

chapter 30|5 pages

Using or Misusing?

Short-Course AZT Trials

chapter 31|5 pages

What Can Consent Justify?

Challenge Trials for COVID-19

chapter 32|5 pages

A Right to Try?

Access to Experimental Medicines

part VIII|28 pages

Fair Distribution

chapter 33|5 pages

Do the Numbers Count?

Taurek's Tradeoffs

chapter 34|5 pages

Ours or Us?

Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa Cell Line

chapter 35|5 pages

Allocation in an Emergency

Ventilator Triage

chapter 36|6 pages

Data and Distribution

Algorithmic Fairness

chapter 37|5 pages

Fairness in the Clinic

The Racial Empathy Gap

part IX|24 pages

Public Health

chapter 38|5 pages

Fair Access to Care, or Freedom of Conscience?

Physician Refusals

chapter 39|5 pages

Stay at Home?

The Ethics of Lockdowns

chapter 40|6 pages

Freedom and Viruses

The Case of Medical Misinformation

chapter 41|6 pages

My Body, My Choice?

Vaccine Mandates

part X|12 pages

The Boundaries of Medicine

chapter 42|5 pages

What Should We Change?

The Yeshiva Student and His Orientations

chapter 43|5 pages

Can Medicine Make Us Better?

The God Machine

part XI|37 pages

Medicine across Borders

chapter 44|5 pages

Does It Harm to Help?

Rescuing Migrants

chapter 45|5 pages

Who Owns the Image?

Photographing Survivors

chapter 46|5 pages

Harm Minimization, I

Female Genital Cutting

chapter 47|5 pages

Harm Minimization, II

Physicians and Caning

chapter 48|5 pages

Doing the Best with What We Have?

Foreign Medicine and the Haiti Earthquake

chapter 49|5 pages

How to Keep Helping, I

Taking Sides in the Arab Spring?

chapter 50|5 pages

How to Keep Helping, II

Compromise with the Taliban