Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)
After briefly sketching common-morality principlism, as presented in Principles of Biomedical Ethics, this paper responds to two recent sets of challenges to this framework. The first challenge claims that medical ethics is autonomous and unique and thus not a form of, or justified or guided by, a common morality or by any external morality or moral theory. The second challenge denies that there is a common morality and insists that futile efforts to develop common-morality approaches to bioethics limit diversity and (...) prevent needed moral change. This paper argues that these two critiques fundamentally fail because they significantly misunderstand their target and because their proposed alternatives have major deficiencies and encounter insurmountable problems. (shrink)
"A very good book indeed: there is scarcely an issue anyone has thought to raise about the topic which Childress fails to treat with sensitivity and good judgement....Future discussions of paternalism in health care will have to come to terms with the contentions of this book, which must be reckoned the best existing treatment of its subject."--Ethics. "A clear, scholarly and balanced analysis....This is a book I can recommend to physicians, ethicists, students of both fields, and to those most affected--the (...) patients themselves."--Edmund D. Pellegrino, John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Humanities, Georgetown University Medical Center. (shrink)
After expressing our gratitude to the commentators for their valuable analyses and assessments of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, we respond to several particular critiques raised by the commentators under the following rubrics: the compatibility of different sets of principles and rules; challenges to the principle of respect for autonomy; connecting principles to cases and resolving their conflicts; the value of and compatibility of virtues and principles; common morality theory; and moral status. We point to areas where we see common agreement (...) with our commentators and respond to their critical evaluations. (shrink)
McCarthy, Homan, and Rozier’s call for a renewal of open and honest dialogue between secular and theologically grounded bioethics is admirable. Yet, their essay argues for more than mere dia...
: Moral frameworks for evaluating non-donation strategies to increase the supply of cadaveric human organs for transplantation and ways to overcome barriers to organ donation are explored. Organ transplantation is a very complex area, because the human body evokes various beliefs, symbols, sentiments, and emotions as well as various rituals and social practices. From a rationalistic standpoint, some policies to increase the supply of transplantable organs may appear to be quite defensible but then turn out to be ineffective and perhaps (...) even counterproductive because of inadequate attention to these rich and complex features of human body parts. Excessively rationalistic policies neglect deep beliefs, symbols, sentiments, and emotions and the like, and that deficiency marks many actual and proposed policies. In addition, policies are often too individualistic and too legalistic. (shrink)
This essay explores some of the conceptual and moral issues raised by illegal actions in health care. The author first identifies several types of illegal action, concentrating on civil disobedience, conscientious objection or refusal, and evasive noncompliance. Then he sketches a framework for the moral justification of these types of illegal action. Finally, he applies the conceptual and normative frameworks to several major cases of illegal action in health care, such as "mercy killing" and some decisions not to treat incompetent (...) patients. Keywords: illegal actions, mercy killing, non-treatment of incompetent patients, civil disobedience, conscientious objection, evasive non-compliance, moral justification and disobedience, dissent in health care CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
Inequity has been a hallmark of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, especially in the sharply disproportionate impacts among people of color. Recent studies have confirmed that t...
This article confines itself largely within boundaries of normative bioethics. It examines major types of principle-based methods, case-based methods, virtue ethics, ethics of care, and communitarian perspectives, along with some critical points from feminist perspectives and from rule-based theories. One cautionary note is in order: most of these types of method, theory, or perspective encompass a number of approaches that involve some degree of family resemblance. Since it will be impossible to examine all of these approaches in detail, the article (...) highlights some major themes and criticisms, discusses a few representative positions in more detail, and sketches a few of their implications for practical decision-making about physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia, topics addressed by proponents of all these methods, theories, and perspectives. (shrink)
This article responds to the four pieces in this special symposium of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics on uncontrolled organ donation following circulatory death . The response will focus on lessons and debates about the kinds of consent necessary and sufficient for temporary organ preservation in the context of DCD and for organ donation itself; on conflicts of obligation, loyalty, and interest in DCD and ways to address those conflicts; and on benefit, cost, risk assessments of uDCD programs, (...) including measures to achieve a more favorable balance of benefits, costs, and risks. (shrink)
: Managed care organizations can produce conflicts of obligation and conflicts of interest that may lead to problems of conscience for health care professionals. This paper provides a basis for understanding the notions of conscience and conscientious objection and offers a framework for clinicians to stake out positions grounded in personal conscience as a way for them to respond to unacceptable pressures from managers to limit services.
The several articles in this special issue on organ donation after circulatory determination of death or, as it is often put, donation after cardiac death, draw lessons from different kinds of experience in order to guide efforts in the U.S. to develop or refine policies for DCD. One lesson comes from a major and, by many measures, successful experimental DCD program in Washington, D.C. in the 1990s. Another lesson comes from European countries that have adopted presumed-consent legislation, a form of (...) “opt out” that facilitates DCD as well as donation after neurological determination of death. Another lesson, from the perspective of critical care medicine in Canada, attends to the implications of viewing a dying patient, undergoing resuscitative procedures, as a potential organ donor. A final lesson sketches implications of legislation and court cases in the U.S., often involving DND, for initiating temporary organ preservation in DCD programs before consent has been obtained for organ donation. Some of these lessons are optimistic about the prospects for DCD, especially if certain steps are taken, while others are more cautious, particularly because of the costs and risks involved in DCD. (shrink)
Organ allocation policy involves a mixture of ethical, scientific, medical, legal, and political factors, among others. It is thus hard, and perhaps even impossible, to identify and fully separate ethical considerations from all these other factors. Yet I will focus primarily on the ethical considerations embedded in the current debate in the United States about organ allocation policy. I will argue that it is important to putpatientsfirstbut even then significant ethical questions will remain about exactly how to put patients first.
Case studies raise questions about patients' rights, advanced lifeprolonging measures, human subjects in medical research, and the allocation of health care resources.
The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics is an invaluable reference work. Included are articles on basic ethical concepts; biblical and theological ethics; philosophical traditions; major non-Christian religious traditions; psychological, sociological, political, and other concepts important to Christian ethics; and, finally, substantial problems, such as war, usually including both information and options. With 620 entries cover a spectrum of topics that concern thinking people everywhere, providing clear, concise and accurate information about ethical concerns.
This study examines some of the moral and theological convictions that created tensions for early Christians who affirmed that the government's sword is ordained by God for a fallen world but also that Christians should not exercise it at least in warfare. Three important moral pressures toward Christian participation in war were the recognition of prevention or removal of harm as a requirement of neighbor-love, the related sense of responsibility, fault, and guilt for omissions, and the generalization test proposed by (...) Celsus, who asked Christians to consider what would happen if everyone did what they were doing, i.e., refrained from military service. Along with many other factors, these ideas contributed to the legitimation of Christian participation in war. But this legitimation itself created additional tensions, particularly because of the requirements to "turn the other cheek," to "go the second mile," etc. In order to lessen these tensions, the Church and its theologians developed several interrelated distinctions that could reduce the scope or strength of the radical demands: higher/lower; for oneself/ for others; inner/outer; and private/public. (shrink)
This paper analyzes nonviolent resistance and direct action, as seen by its practitioners and theoreticians, from the standpoint of trust and risk-taking. After an examination of the nature of trust, the author indicates how it can illuminate what selected figures such as Gandhi and King have claimed about nonviolence. He offers this analysis not as a defense but as a way of understanding nonviolence that can serve as a starting point for further discussion.
Do pacifists and proponents of justified violence share a starting point? Whether or not just war theory contains an embedded presumption against violence is an important and disputed question. Substantively it is important not only because it has implications for the possibility of dialogue among Christians of different persuasions but also because the belief that the tradition advances no moral reservations about the use of force may have the effect of lowering the moral barriers against the resort to war. Conceptually (...) it is important because it reflects a fundamental methodological disagreement concerning the meaning and resolution of conflicts among moral duties. (shrink)
This paper analyzes some issues that emerge in attempts to distinguish and relate "moral" and "nonmora1' action-guides. It examines one material criterion (otherregardingness) and three formal criteria (universalizability, prescriptivity, and overridingness) and considers whether they constitute necessary and/or sufficient conditions of "morality." It treats these criteria in relation to ideals and prudential, political, and religious considerations. Furthermore, it contends that the classification of action-guides as moral or nonmoral should not prejudge their respective weights or replace substantive moral debate. The formal (...) and material criteria may determine what counts as morality, not how much morality counts. (shrink)
The editors of the JRE solicited short essays on the COVID‐19 pandemic from a group of scholars of religious ethics that reflected on how the field might help them make sense of the complex religious, cultural, ethical, and political implications of the pandemic, and on how the pandemic might shape the future of religious ethics.
