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Commentary: A Consensus about “Consensus”?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Extract

In “Bioethics and the Whole: Pluralism, Consensus, and the Transmutation of Bioethical Methods into Gold,” Patricia Martin identifies themes common to three emerging approaches to clinical bioethics--clinical pragmatism, ethics facilitation, and mediation-in order to develop an “ethical consensus method” that can serve as a “practical, step-by-step guide” for decision making She is to be applauded both for her identification of themes common to these three approaches and for her contribution to what we hope will be a growing literature on practical methods for problem solving in clinical bioethics that take seriously the ideal of consensus. After a few preliminary remarks concerning Martin's working model, we focus the majority of our commentary on the notion of “consensus,” which is at the heart of her “ethical consensus method,” and the three approaches from which it is drawn.

Type
Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1999

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References

See Martin, P.A., “Bioethics and the Whole: Pluralism, Consensus, and the Transmutation of Bioethical Methods into Gold,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 27 (1999): 316–27.Google Scholar
Id. at 317.Google Scholar
See id. at 322.Google Scholar
See Core Competencies for Health Care Ethics Consultation: The Report of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (Glenview: American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, 1998): at 11 [hereinafter Core Competencies].Google Scholar
See id. at 11, 12.Google Scholar
See Martin, supra note 1, at 317–19.Google Scholar
An exception is Jonathan Moreno's outstanding work. See Moreno, J.D., Deciding Together: Bioethics and Moral Consensus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
See Pellegrino, E.D., “Clinical Ethics Consultations: Some Reflections on the Report of the SHHV-SBC,” Journal of Clinical Ethics, 10 (1999): 512.Google Scholar
See Core Competencies, supra note 4, at 3–8.Google Scholar
Aulisio, M.P., “Ethics Consultation: Is It Enough to Mean Well?,” HEC Forum, 11 (1999): 208–17, at 211.Google Scholar
See Core Competencies, supra note 4, at 8.Google Scholar
See Aulisio, supra note 10.Google Scholar