Reconceiving Medical Ethics [Hardcover]

This volume of original work comprises a modest challenge, sometimes direct, sometimes implicit, to the mainstream Anglo-American conception of the discipline of medical ethics.

It does so not by trying to fill the gaps with exotic minority interest topics, but by re-examining some of the fundamental assumptions of the familiar philosophical arguments, and some of the basic situations that generate the issues. The most important such situation is the encounter between the doctor and the suffering patient, which forms one of the themes of the book. The authors show that concepts such as the body, suffering and consent - and the role such concepts play within patients' lives - are much more complicated than the Anglo-American mainstream appreciates. Some of these concepts have been discussed with subtlety by Continental philosophers (like Heidegger, Ricoeur), and a secondary purpose of the volume is to apply their ideas to medical ethics. Designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students with some philosophical background in ethics,Reconceiving Medical Ethicsopens up new avenues for discussion in this ever-developing field.

Contributors \ Introduction Christopher Cowley \ Part I. The suffering patient, the suffering body \ 1. The body: property, commodity or gift? Alastair V. Campbell \ 2. RicSur's medical ethics: the encounter between the physician and the patient Ga?lle Fiasse \ 3.Bringing the lived body to medical ethics evaluation: learning to see the suffering other Kristin Zeiler \ Part II. When high-tech medicine fails: old age, dying, and mental illness \ 4. Old age and dependency Eric Matthews \ 5. An ethical enquiry into the concept of palliative care Rien Janssens and Guy Widdershoven \ 6. Mental illness and medical ethics: Insights from Heil³|