"Are You There Alone?"
"Are You There Alone?""Are You There Alone?" is a remarkable account of the mental illness of Andrea Yates and her subsequent trial for the murder of her five…
A Casebook of Ethical Challenges in Neuropsychology
A Casebook of Ethical Challenges in NeuropsychologyPerhaps in essence, as Kevin Walsh indicated, there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a neuropsychological test: there are just psychological tests…
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A Matter of Security
A Matter of SecurityIn using attachment theory to analyze and think about forensic psychiatry, the authors of in A Matter of Security offer new ways of thinking about…
A Question of Trust
A Question of TrustOnora O’Neill is wary of suspicion. In her professional capacity as an academic philosopher, she has pursued this theme in regards to medical ethics…
After Harm
After HarmWhat do you say to someone who you have harmed, especially someone who you were trying to help? What if they died? What should you do? How should you act…
Aftermath
AftermathPhilosopher console thy self may well be the dictum that underpins this profoundly painful, honest and searching book by Susan Brison, an academic…
Against Bioethics
Against BioethicsThose of you who are hostile to strident utilitarianism should, perhaps, look away now. Jonathan Baron's utilitarianism is of a particularly strident…
Animals Like Us
Animals Like UsThis entertaining and well-informed book is a must for anyone who has an interest in animal rights. Vegetarians who want to be able to justify their deci…
Are Women Human?
Are Women Human?In her most recent collection of speeches, articles, and essays, Catharine MacKinnon addresses the question: Are women human? Put less ambiguousl…
Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die
Assisted Suicide and the Right to DieBarry Rosenfeld nicely captures the central virtue of his book Assisted Suicide and the Right to Die in the final paragraph: "Although this b…
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Beyond Choice
Beyond ChoiceAlexander Sanger is, as noted on the front cover of this book in a blurb from the Washington Post, the grandson of Margaret Sanger, the pioneer of birth…
Beyond Genetics
Beyond GeneticsAfter an introduction in which the author explains how his fascination with genetics arose from his being an adopted child and thus not like his adoptiv…
Beyond Moral Judgment
Beyond Moral JudgmentAlice Crary is known for her work on ethics and feminism, and on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In her new book she shows how these diverse…
Bioethics
BioethicsThis work consists of a set of of essays dealing with ethical issues related to health-care and medical procedures in Latin America. Although a diverse range of material is presented, there is a fairly consistent viewpoint guiding the essays: that of po…
Bioethics
BioethicsCurrently there is a lack of suitable textbooks to support bioscience students in learning about bioethics in the United Kingdom. Many of the alternative texts either focus heavily on medicine to the exclusion of ethical issues which are more relevant to…
Bioethics
Currently there is a lack of suitable textbooks to support bioscience students in learning about bioethics in the United Kingdom. Many of the alternative…
Bioethics and the Brain
Bioethics and the BrainThe rapid advances of the neurosciences have drawn much attention from philosophic quarters. According to many, the neurosciences are providing insights…
Bioethics Beyond the Headlines
Bioethics Beyond the HeadlinesIf you plan to read only one book this summer on bioethics, Bioethics Beyond the Headlines by Albert R. Jonsen is your book. The author is one…
Bioethics in a Liberal Society
Bioethics in a Liberal SocietyThere are many books on bioethics. Yet few books offer a comprehensive analysis of the political framework within which bioethical decision-making occurs…
Bioethics in the Clinic
Bioethics in the ClinicBioethics in the Clinic is the latest offering by New Zealand neurosurgeon and philosopher Grant Gillett, whose previous output includes the compr…
Biomedical Ethics
Biomedical EthicsAs an introduction to the controversies and possible solutions in the field of Biomedical Ethics this text is first rate. For the student and the scholar alike new to this field the author provides overviews of a wide variety of the contending philosophic…
Biomedical Ethics
Biomedical EthicsHumanism has a long history, beginning around the second half of the fourteenth century and eventually leaving its mark in the modern period. This philosophical movement placed emphasis on the fundamental worth and dignity of the human and situated humans…
BluebirdBoundaries and Boundary Violations in Psychoanalysis
Boundaries and Boundary Violations in PsychoanalysisThis is a book that would primarily be read by mental health professionals. It has been used as a text in classes and it is a clearly written, exce…
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Branded
BrandedAll teenagers want relationships with cool adult professionals and are flattered to be taken seriously by marketing thirtysomethings. Morphing into paid…
Commonsense Rebellion
Commonsense RebellionThis book encourages a revolt against “institutional mental health” and “institutional society”. It sees itself in the tradition of a…
Conducting Insanity Evaluations
Conducting Insanity EvaluationsIn this second edition, Rogers includes revised standards, clinical methods and standards, and draws upon the legal expertise of Shuman. In brief, the te…
Confidentiality and Mental Health
Confidentiality and Mental HealthIt is timely to publish a collection of British perspectives on confidentiality. Legislators are grappling with issues of privacy, access to medical reco…
Conflict of Interest in the Professions
Conflict of Interest in the ProfessionsAs the title attests, Conflict of Interest in the Professions is composed of seventeen thematic articles considering conflicts of interests in a v…
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Contemporary Debates In Applied Ethics
Contemporary Debates In Applied EthicsThis is a book I wish I had when I first began studying ethics. The editors have compiled a range of powerful essays on some of the ongoing debates in c…
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Contentious Issues
Contentious IssuesOne of the greatest problems parents or those that work with youngsters face is the ability to contend with societal and moral issues without appearing t…
Contesting Psychiatry
Contesting PsychiatryThe entire history of psychiatry is a one of struggle and contention. Contesting Psychiatry focuses on this aspect and analyses the history of psy…
Cultural Assessment in Clinical Psychiatry
Cultural Assessment in Clinical PsychiatryCulture, as a ubiquitous aspect of life, allows us to construct our own unique view of the world as individuals and as a part of the larger human drama. …
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Cutting to the Core
Cutting to the CoreCutting to the Core, edited by David Benatar, deals with ethical issues surrounding some of the most controversial surgeries in practice. …
Cyborg Citizen
Cyborg CitizenThere is little doubt that the presence of technology is increasingly felt in the world of politics; representatives reach constituents through web pages…
Defining Difference
Defining DifferenceDisciplinary collaboration with racism is one of the major scandals of academia. Defining Difference, which deals exclusively with academic psycho…
Demons of the Modern World
Demons of the Modern WorldDemons of the Modern World by Malcolm McGrath is an engrossing study of how the childhood fear of demons, monsters, and other scary fantasy creatu…
Digital Soul
Digital SoulAccording to Thomas Georges, the retired electrical engineer who is author of this charmless book, the machines (i.e., the electronic computers) are taki…
Disorders of Volition
Disorders of VolitionThis is a book about the will, what can be learned about it from various impairments of will and from its breakdown. It contains papers on the concept o…
Double Standards in Medical Research in Developing Countries
Double Standards in Medical Research in Developing CountriesRandomized clinical trials (RCTs) constitute a world-wide acknowledged standard of proof to decide about the efficacy of a drug. Their implementation inv…
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Down Girl
Down GirlIn Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Kate Manne provides the reader with an understanding of the nature of misogyny along with an extended defin…
Embodied Rhetorics
Embodied RhetoricsIt’s only fair to say at the outset that I don’t know much about rhetoric. I do know a bit about disability though, from both theoretical an…
Engendering International Health
Engendering International HealthThis is a very rational book, and it that lies both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The authors, all of whom are eminent and well qualif…
Entitled
EntitledThis book is about male entitlement that stems from the fact that women are expected to give traditionally feminine goods (such as sex, care, nurturing, and reproductive labor) to designated, often more privileged men, and to refrain from taking tradition
Erotic Morality
Erotic MoralityContrary to appearances, Holler's Erotic Morality is not a book about the ethics of carnal love. The use of the term "erotic" in the tit…
Ethical Conflicts in Psychology
Ethical Conflicts in PsychologyBersoff's Ethical Conflicts in Psychology (Second Edition) is a textbook aimed at providing graduate level psychology students with a comprehensive o…
Ethical Dilemmas in Pediatrics
Ethical Dilemmas in PediatricsEthical Issues in Pediatrics is a wonderful addition to the body of bioethics literature. It is a well organized presentation of some of the ethi…
Ethical Issues in Dementia Care
Ethical Issues in Dementia CareBy the year 2020 it is estimated that approximately 115,000 individuals will be diagnosed with some form of probable dementia. Because of this fact, a fo…
Ethical Reasoning for Mental Health Professionals
Ethical Reasoning for Mental Health ProfessionalsThis book follows Gary Ford's 2001 Ethical Reasoning in the Mental Health Professions, and so is a second edition all but in name. The new edition…
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Ethical Theory
Ethical TheoryAny anthology on a topic as broad as moral philosophy risks committing sins of omission. In lieu of what Shafer-Landau calls the "point-counterpoint…
Ethically Challenged Professions
Ethically Challenged ProfessionsAlthough editors Yvonne Bates and Richard House have striven man- (and woman-) fully to corral thirty short essays about psychotherapy into sober-soundin…
Ethics
EthicsIt is virtually impossible to give a summary of Ethics that does justice to the depth and breadth of topics covered in David Wiggins' new introduction to moral theory. Ethics is both highly informative, providing detailed expositions of the arguments of m…
Ethics and the Metaphysics of Medicine
Ethics and the Metaphysics of MedicineClear and concise, Ethics and the Metaphysics of Medicine makes an important contribution to bioethics by providing a systematic framework for t…
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Ethics Done Right
Ethics Done RightEthics done Right is not a monograph but a collection of (mainly previously published) papers. These are brought closer together by an introductio…
Ethics Expertise
Ethics ExpertiseCan there be experts in ethics, and if so, what does it take to be one? Of course, people can know a great deal about moral philosophy, and the various…
Ethics for Everyone
Ethics for EveryoneEthics for Everyone guides the reader through a healthy mix of twenty-one real-life and fictitious situations demanding difficult ethical choices.…
Ethics for the New Millennium
Ethics for the New MillenniumIf the reader comes to Ethics for the New Millennium looking for The Big Tibetan Buddhist Secret, the reader can forget it. The Dalai Lama of Tibe…
Ethics in Health Care
Ethics in Health CareThis book is specifically targeted at nurses, and it is in the context of a nursing perspective that the ethical considerations discussed in it are exami…
Ethics in Psychology
Ethics in PsychologyThere is only one way to describe Koocher and Keith-Spiegel's Ethics in Psychology, Professional Standards and Cases: This is a "classic-in-…
Ethics, Culture, and Psychiatry
Ethics, Culture, and PsychiatryPsychiatry requires a greater knowledge of ethics than many other medical specialties. Its practice is keenly sensitive to cultural nuances and the preva…
Evaluating the Science and Ethics of Research on Humans
Evaluating the Science and Ethics of Research on HumansThe widespread existence of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at educational and professional institutions across the country has brought to the surface a…
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False-Memory Creation in Children and Adults
False-Memory Creation in Children and AdultsDavid F. Bjorklund’s book, False-Memory Creation in Children and Adults: Theory, Research, and Implications, represents as its title suggests…
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Fatal Freedom
Fatal FreedomDying voluntarily is an option that all cognizant human beings possess. To intentionally bring about one's own death is to enact suicide. In Fatal Fre…
Feminist Theory
Feminist TheoryAs both a teacher and consumer of philosophy, my experience has mostly been to find writings on feminism bound within general philosophical texts. For e…
First, Do No Harm
First, Do No HarmAs Annette Baier says, "Morality is the culturally acquired art of selecting which harms to notice and worry about, where the worry takes the form o…
Flesh Wounds
Flesh WoundsThis book must bemuse some of our fellow citizens who think only in terms of market and appearance. As any other element acting in a free market, one has…
Foucault and the Government of Disability
Foucault and the Government of DisabilityThe Question is not what is real, but which reality is important. Michael Foucault, the prolific French philosopher cum sociologist, was all…
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Freedom vs. Intervention
Freedom vs. InterventionThis brief book provides an introductory over-view of moral paternalism: When, the author asks, should we intervene in others' lives, even against their…
From Silence to Voice
From Silence to VoiceNurses constitute the largest professional group in health services and yet are often the least visible in articulating health issues and even in speakin…
Gluttony
GluttonyThis short book is published, in Association with the New York Public Library, as part of OUP's The Seven Deadly Sins lecture and book series, who…
Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees
Handbook for Health Care Ethics CommitteesAnyone who has been paying attention to healthcare issues realizes that as treatment options have expanded, so have our ethical dilemmas. Partly in…
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Health Care Ethics for Psychologists
Health Care Ethics for PsychologistsI really had high expectations for Hanson, Kerkhoff and Bush's Health Care for Psychologists: A Casebook. The book is put out by the American Psy…
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Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics
Historical and Philosophical Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics is a collection of five historical and three philosophical essays. The ethical the…
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Holy War
Holy WarWILL THE REAL GITA, PLEASE, STAND UP? Mahatma Gandhi had been dead less than eight years when I arrived to the Gujarat Vidyapeet, in Ahme…
Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing
Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene EditingThe issues raised in the volume are then multidisciplinary. These centre on tensions between the sciences and normative studies, in particular, recent and emerging issues in bioethics (especially prescient in a post-COVID world). Nonetheless, they are cru
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Human Goodness
Human GoodnessThe author attempts to compare classical and modern philosophers on various ethical issues, analyzing the worth of ancient moral standards in the new con…
In the Land of the Deaf
In the Land of the DeafReleased in 1994, In the Land of the Deaf is a documentary by Nicolas Philibert featuring deaf people living in a French town. We see school chil…
In the Name of Identity
In the Name of IdentityWhy is it that “so many people commit crimes nowadays in the name of religious, ethnic, national or some other identity” (9) – this is the…
In Two Minds
In Two MindsIn Two Minds is an excellent casebook of tough ethical problems in mental health. It aims to provide a thorough discussion of a number of perspect…
Informed Consent in Medical Research
Informed Consent in Medical ResearchProblems related to informed consent are seldom out of the news. There is a consensus that informed consent is required for medical treatment or experime…
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Intelligence, Race, and Genetics
Intelligence, Race, and GeneticsThis little book of about 200 pages consists mainly of passages from an extended interview conducted by e-mail with Arthur Jensen, the infamous psycholog…
Is There an Ethicist in the House?
Is There an Ethicist in the House?Is There An Ethicist in the House? is a collection of fifteen articles and essays representative of Jonathan Moreno's writings from 1988 - 2003 on…
Just Words
Just WordsThe relationship between speech and harm is an intriguing and timely topic, presenting complex theoretical challenges with remarkable political implications. Although it is widely recognized that speech can be harmful in different ways, it is by far not u
Lack of Character
Lack of CharacterPhilosophers can be an obtuse lot. A line of research can be happily conducted in another field and it might take thirty or so years before philosophers take note of it. Such is the case with situationist social psychology. For at least fifty years social…
Lack of Character
Philosophers can be an obtuse lot. A line of research can be happily conducted in another field and it might take thirty or so years before philosophers…
Law and the Brain
Law and the BrainThis is a rather introductory, clear, and readable collection of papers for those interested in issues at the intersection between brain science and the…
Learning About School Violence
It is common knowledge that our children report feeling increasingly unsafe traveling to and from school, as well as during time spent at school. Studies…
Legal and Ethical Aspects of Healthcare
Legal and Ethical Aspects of HealthcareLegal and Ethical Aspects of Healthcare is authored by United Kingdom bioethicists, Sheila McLean and John Kenyon Mason. Overall, the casebook is…
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Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society
Liberal Education in a Knowledge SocietyWritings on liberal education are not in general a delight to read. It is too easy to decry what we manage to do, or fail to do, in our various educatio…
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Life at the Bottom
Life at the BottomIn A Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, Jean Jacques Rousseau, the 18th century father of modern socialist thought, urged his fellow Frenchm…
Listening to the Whispers
Listening to the WhispersListening to the Whispers is the fifth book in a series called Interpretive Studies in Healthcare and the Human Sciences. Edited…
Mad in America
Mad in AmericaMad In America is a powerfully troubling argument against the way that psychiatry treats schizophrenia and other major mental illnesses. The first…
Madhouse
MadhouseIn Madhouse Andrew Scull turns his attention from the broad sweep of psychiatry that has been his focus in the past, to a single asylum, and the work of a single alienist, Dr Henry Cotton. Madhouse is a tale of horror so terrible it is hard to credit. The…
Madhouse
In Madhouse Andrew Scull turns his attention from the broad sweep of psychiatry that has been his focus in the past, to a single asylum, and the w…
Making Babies, Making Families
Making Babies, Making FamiliesPolitical theorists have long regarded themselves as the elite of the profession of political science, and Mary Shanley's excellent new book supports the…
Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory
Masculinity Studies and Feminist TheoryThe whole notion of masculinity studies may conjure up images of masculine protests to women’s studies and feminism in general and, more specificall…
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Meditations for the Humanist
Meditations for the HumanistThis little two-hundred-page book is a paperback reissue of a collection, originally published in 2002, of sixty one "humanist meditations," wh…
Melancholia and Moralism
Melancholia and MoralismLast month, I attended an AIDS benefit concert by the Sinikithemba HIV-positive Choir of South Africa. Its theme was "Give Us Hope" and resound…
Mental Health Professionals, Minorities and the Poor
Mental Health Professionals, Minorities and the PoorWhat shines most brightly through the pages of Illovsky's book is the deep compassion he feels for all of the unfortunates in this world. Not only does h…
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Merit, Meaning, and Human Bondage
Merit, Meaning, and Human BondageNomy Arpaly's book is a contribution to that hoariest of philosophical problems, free will versus determinism. The book sets itself two tasks. The fi…
Metaethical Subjectivism
Metaethical Subjectivism"There are no objective values." Thus begins J.L Mackie's classic Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), in which metaethical error-t…
Moral Cultivation
Moral CultivationThe blurb on the back of Moral Cultivation hails the book as "a great contribution to the study of virtue ethics". Strictly speaking t…
Moral Development and Reality
Moral Development and RealityIn Moral Development and Reality, John C. Gibbs surveys the theory of moral development, re-evaluating old ideas on the topic as well as offering…
Moral Dilemmas in Real Life
Moral Dilemmas in Real LifeTechnological advances and cultural anomie are among the forces have combined to make moral discourse more difficult, more complex, and more elusive than…
Moral Distress in the Health Professions
Moral Distress in the Health ProfessionsMoral Distress in the Health Professions traces the history and evolution of the concept of moral distress (chs. 1, 2, and 4), demonstrates the variety of ways it is experienced by health professionals in the US (chs. 3 and 9) and around the world (ch. 8)
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Moral Minds
Moral MindsThere are planters and there are weeders in the garden of science. In Moral Minds, Marc Hauser bends his back in the former capacity and it rema…
Moral Repair
Moral RepairTraditionally, much of moral philosophy has been interested in the nature and content of moral norms, requirements and reasons, which tell us what we oug…
More Than Human
More Than HumanPut down that keyboard, and prepare to be wired directly into the on-coming World Wide Mind. Can't control your computer cursor by your thoughts alone?…
My Body Politic
My Body PoliticStories are told to make sense of things. Some stories are told specifically to make political or moral sense, taking stock of a situation and locating i…
Nano-Bio-Ethics
Nano-Bio-EthicsNano-Bio-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Nanobiotechnology is a concise introduction (88 pages) to the key conceptual and ethical issues related t…
Narrative Prosthesis
Narrative ProsthesisNarrative prosthesis? What should that mean? Does it mean that people with disabilities use narratives to comfort themselves? OK, that might be the case…
Neonatal Bioethics
Neonatal BioethicsThere are not too many bioethical books that successfully unite philosophical competence in ethical judgment with seasoned medical expertise. This work o…
Neuroethics
NeuroethicsNeuroethics: Anticipating the Future, edited by Judy Illes gathers together a distinguished group of theorists and researchers to explore the critical issues raised by the field of neuroscience. The book is divided into four main sections. These are: 1. N
Of War and Law
Of War and LawOf War and Law, by David Kennedy, explores the contemporary relationship between war (and peace) and the legal institutions with which it intera…
On Apology
On ApologyWhile much has been written on the power and impact of apologies (including at least two books with ''power'' and ''apology'' in their titles), th…
On Inhumanity
On InhumanityAs the title may indicate, David Livingstone Smith’s main purpose in ‘On Inhumanity’ is to offer a theory of dehumanization. Smith has previously published a book on dehumanization, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others (St. Mart
On the Take
On the TakeOn the Take propounds relentlessly the core theme that many doctors, to the not infrequent disadvantage of patients, drink from the oftentimes e…
One Nation Under Therapy
One Nation Under TherapyThe short version of this book is that the American nation-state is under the sway of therapism and that therapism is having important deleterious effect…
Our Posthuman Future
Our Posthuman FutureIn 1989 Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man…
Out of the Shadows
Out of the ShadowsE. Fuller Torrey is one of the more internationally well known spokespersons on mental health issues and has produced a large number of books and papers…
Passionate Deliberation
Passionate DeliberationAlthough this book is published in a series entitled 'Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture' (edited by H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.), the bulk of…
Patient Autonomy and the Ethics of Responsibility
Patient Autonomy and the Ethics of ResponsibilityIt is no secret that all is not well -- and hasn't been for some time now -- in the realm of doctor-patient relations. Patients should have trust in…
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PC, M.D.
PC, M.D.Hardly a newspaper is printed without containing at least an article of some attack or other against the medical profession, a noticeable number of them mak…
Personhood and Health Care
Personhood and Health CarePersonhood, it’s a crucial concept in our everyday lives and in health care. Yet, to a significant extent in the area of secular bioethics it has b…
Persons, Humanity, and the Definition of Death
Persons, Humanity, and the Definition of DeathThis is a very fine and scholarly challenge to what Lizza calls the 'biological paradigm' of death. The paradigm provides the theoretical groundi…
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Perspectives On Health And Human Rights
Perspectives On Health And Human RightsThis volume of essays, a reader in fact, is a follow-up to the 1999 edition, but it is not really to be compared. It will serve as an excellent introduct…
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Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition
Philosophy of Technology: The Technological ConditionPhilosophy of technology: the technological condition offers a comprehensive though non-balanced survey to the main currents in the history of philosophy…
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Physician-Assisted Dying
Physician-Assisted DyingThis volume, by a group of physicians, ethicists, lawyers, and activists, is a defence of the legalization of physician-assisted dying for the few and mo…
Practical Rules
Whenever I attend a biomedical ethics meeting or conference, I am often reminded of the wide gap between philosophers and clinicians. Clinicians often lo…
Praise and Blame
Praise and BlamePraise and Blame is a well-written, readable, book. Giving an overview of the many philosophical debates which impact on its central theme…
Psychiatric Ethics
Psychiatric EthicsPsychiatric Ethics is one of the best collections of articles in its area. Most of the authors are psychiatrists, and the book is aimed primarily…
Psychology and Consumer Culture
Psychology and Consumer CultureListening to the Tavis Smiley Show recently, I learned that the average person in the United States carries about a dozen credit cards in his or her pock…
Public Health Law and Ethics
Public Health Law and EthicsOver $1.4 trillion, or 14 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), was spent on health care in the United States in 2001. This includes b…
Punishing the Mentally Ill
Punishing the Mentally IllBruce Arrigo's Punishing the Mentally Ill sets out to demonstrate that "decisions reached by law and psychiatry are, knowingly or not, always…
Putting Morality Back Into Politics
Putting Morality Back Into PoliticsPutting Morality Back into Politics is a self descriptive title in which Richard Ryder puts forth a theory for increasing the standards for ethi…
Race
RaceThis pastiche of a book summarizes and updates the reasons for believing that differences of race are not only real but also biologically significant, a…
Radical Hope
Radical Hope1. The Set-Up: A Peculiar Form of Human Vulnerability--Culture's "Blind Spot" Jonathan Lear's latest book, Radical Hope: E…
Reckoning With Homelessness
Reckoning With HomelessnessVirtually everyone living in medium-large size cities is aware of homeless people. Perhaps they even know where these people hangout during the day. Ma…
Reframing Disease Contextually
Reframing Disease ContextuallyMary Ann Cutter's "Reframing Disease Contextually" draws together a number of themes in philosophy of medicine in order to make the case that d…
Refusing Care
Refusing CareForced treatment of any description is perhaps the single most important question facing consumers, mental health practitioners and lawyers in the mental…
Refuting Peter Singer's Ethical Theory
Refuting Peter Singer's Ethical TheoryPeter Singer’s ideas aren’t just a threat to society; they endanger the very existence of ethics and ethical behavior. At least this is how Sus…
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Religion Explained
Religion ExplainedThis is an altogether remarkable book. Accustomed as I was to the older literature on religion such as Freud’s Future of an Illusion I expect…
Rethinking Commodification
Rethinking CommodificationWe are fast approaching the worldwide market availability of most material products, and many services -- including many emotional and intimate services…
Rethinking Mental Health and Disorder
Rethinking Mental Health and DisorderThis is an excellent book. It is a collection of essays written by a variety of authors. Their perspectives on the kinds of human suffering that are, in…
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Rights
RightsTo my mind, there remains no doubt that we live, for the better or worse, in the so-called 'Age of Rights', and that the trend to evaluate all mo…
Risk and Luck in Medical Ethics
Risk and Luck in Medical EthicsDickenson raises an uncomfortable question for medical ethics: is there really more of an element of luck than we might care to acknowledge? Is it a real…
Science in the Private Interest
Science in the Private InterestSheldon Krimsky's latest book will probably shock those readers who still think of scientific research conducted at non-profit universities as a disinter…
Science, Seeds and Cyborgs
Science, Seeds and CyborgsKarl Marx wrote, "As individuals express their life, so they are." Finn Bowring's text, Science, Seeds, and Cyborgs: Biotechnology and the…
Scratching the Surface of Bioethics
Scratching the Surface of BioethicsIf the discipline of ethics can have its 'metaethics', then the discipline of bioethics can have its 'metabioethics'. This book would be a notable contri…
Self-Made Madness
Self-Made MadnessIn the appropriate circumstances, mental illness constitutes an excuse. People who commit crimes while in the grip of delusions, for instance, are often…
Self-Trust and Reproductive Autonomy
Self-Trust and Reproductive AutonomyThere is a long tradition of feminist critique of reproductive technologies and the concept of autonomy. Carolyn McLeod’s book, Self-Trust and Re…
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Sexual Ethics
Sexual EthicsAurel Kolnai was born in 1900 into a well-to-do Hungarian Jewish family, and converted to Catholicism when he was a young scholar in Vienna. He had some…
Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore
Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It AnymoreIn Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore Joanne Lynn looks at the issues facing the American health care system by its aging population.…
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Spiral of Entrapment
Spiral of Entrapment"A crisis may be defined as an acute emotional upset in which one's usual problem-solving abilities fail". (p. 88)Spira…
Split Decisions
Split DecisionsFeminist theory has a problem with its 'others'. Bluntly stated, this is the gambit of Janet Halley's Split Decisions. M…
Suffering, Death, and Identity
Suffering, Death, and IdentityThis book results from a recent international conference on Persons and, like many such collections, suffers from a lack of thematic unity. Nevertheless,…
Taming the Troublesome Child
Taming the Troublesome ChildThere are books that promise a lot and deliver little, books that seem not to promise a great deal but are immensely rewarding, and everything in between…
Text and Materials on International Human Rights
Text and Materials on International Human RightsThe teaching of international law, just as many other areas, has been strongly affected by the Internet and its almost unlimited access to most sources o…
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The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Forensic Psychiatry
The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Forensic PsychiatryLooking at the 'Contents' pages of this text, I recalled Rosner's discussion of definitions of 'forensic psychiatry' in his valuable Principles and Pr…
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The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics
The Blackwell Guide to Medical EthicsThe pace of change, especially in the bio-medical field, is so breathless, so unremitting that the ethical challenges posed to clinicians mount and chang…
Read the full review of The Blackwell Guide to Medical Ethics
The Case against Assisted Suicide
The Case against Assisted SuicideDuring the latter decades of the last century the issue of medical participation in death took on a new dimension, with several jurisdictions passing law…
The Case Against Perfection
The Case Against PerfectionMichael Sandel's The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering is a short and accessible--though not simpli…
The Case of Terri Schiavo
The Case of Terri SchiavoWithdrawing and/or withholding life support has become completely common in American hospitals. For example, 65,000 chronic dialysis patients die each ye…
The Challenge of Human Rights
The Challenge of Human RightsThis would be a terrific book if it were better written. Its scope is admirable, beginning with a chapter on the history of the concept of human rights i…
The Commercialization of Intimate Life
The Commercialization of Intimate LifeArlie Russell Hochschild is a sociologist, at the University of California at Berkeley, whose well-known books--The Managed Heart: Commercialization o…
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The Difficult-to-Treat Psychiatric Patient
The Difficult-to-Treat Psychiatric PatientIn The Difficult-to-Treat Psychiatric Patient, academic psychiatrists Mantosh Dewan and Ronald Pies have assembled a compendium of articles about…
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The End of Morality
The End of MoralityThe End of Morality is a book which, presupposing belief in objective norms and values involves normal agents in massive error (hence the position: error theory), discusses the what’s next problem; put basically, this problem comes to deciding on the righ
The Essentials of New York Mental Health Law
The Essentials of New York Mental Health LawThis excellent book is organized in two parts. The first is an introduction to the law, with a focus on the famous Tarasoff decision and its effe…
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The Ethical Dimensions of the Biological and Health Sciences
The Ethical Dimensions of the Biological and Health SciencesThere are many resources dealing with a variety of the ethical aspects of the biological sciences. However, if you want a readily accessible compendium t…
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The Ethics of Hooking Up
The Ethics of Hooking UpThe transition from the dating script to the hooking up one has been well researched by social scientists. But the case is quite different with respect to philosophers. To my knowledge, Rocha's The Ethics of Hooking Up is the only book length philosophica
The Evolution of Mental Health Law
The Evolution of Mental Health LawCurrently in the UK we are in the middle of a long process of attempting to rewrite our mental health legislation. Needless to say it is creating a great…
The Future of Human Nature
The Future of Human NatureIn this short book, Habermas, one of the world's most eminent philosophers, turns his attention to the question of the permissibility of the genetic engi…
The Handbook of Disability Studies
The Handbook of Disability StudiesThe Handbook of Disability Studies is a massive tome that breaks ground in many ways. It is the first attempt to bring together representative vo…
The High Price of Materialism
The High Price of MaterialismKasser and many others have studied the effects of materialism on people's lives. The results may startle you! "Indeed, what stands out acr…
The Language Police
The Language PoliceIn The Language Police, Diane Ravitch, a historian of educational practices, describes how tests and textbooks specifically targeted to school chi…
The Love Cure
The Love CureEveryone--patients, licensing boards, the legal profession, insurance companies, and most particularly therapists themselves and their professional assoc…
The Lucifer Effect
The Lucifer EffectPhilip Zimbardo, unlike so many people in the world, has a fame that he deserves. He is the mind behind the famous Stanford Prison Experiment--a…
The Mark of Shame
The Mark of ShameStigma is a pervasive issue in mental health and one that has deep historical and cultural roots. In this survey of the concept of stigma, psychology Pro…
The Mind Has Mountains
The Mind Has MountainsPaul McHugh, Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, enjoys a little bit of controversy. He likes to poke and prod at some of the shibboleths, or…
The Moral Mind
The Moral MindWhence the idea of "conscience"? The moral notion of ought, and the acknowledgment that we sometimes do things that we ought not do, req…
The Moral Psychology of Internal Conflict
The Moral Psychology of Internal ConflictEllis' project intends to confront an increasing relativization of ethics. We may avoid relativistic ethics because - and this is his main thesis - the search for truth is a natural human tendency. If the truth is properly pursued, relativity is blocked.
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The Portable Ethicist for Mental Health Professionals
The Portable Ethicist for Mental Health ProfessionalsWouldn't it be nice to have a portable ethicist that you could consult whenever you had doubts about how to proceed ethically in your mental health practice…
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The Price of Truth
The Price of TruthThe theme of The Price of Truth is that the ideal of science as the objective, disinterested pursuit of knowledge is just that, an ideal, and th…
The Prosthetic Impulse
The Prosthetic ImpulseTo cut straight to the punchline, this edited collection is an honorable failure. Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra set out to explore the way that the ter…
The Psychopath
The PsychopathJames Blair’s research on the cognitive neuroscience of psychopathy is widely regarded as having provided some of the most significant insights int…
The Pursuit of Perfection
The Pursuit of PerfectionBioethicians commonly distinguish between "treatment" and "enhancement". The doctor's proper role is to treat diseases or conditions,…
The Right Road to Radical Freedom
The Right Road to Radical FreedomThis is one more book by Tibor R Machan's on libertarian philosophy. The book is small and in fact some of the chapters have already been published i…
The Root of All Evil
The Root of All EvilSeveral scholars have addressed the topic of evil and its origin. In their book, The Root of All Evil, Sharon G. Mijares, Aliaa Rafea, Rac…
The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics
The Routledge Handbook of Animal EthicsThe most appropriate words to describe The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics are: clear, concise, and concrete. The handbook is edited by Bob Fischer who teaches philosophy at Texas State University, and he is currently one of the most competent scholar
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The Silent World of Doctor and Patient
The Silent World of Doctor and PatientFirst published two decades ago, Jay Katz's The Silent World of Doctor and Patient proffered a new model of physician-patient communication, one t…
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The Sleep of Reason
The Sleep of ReasonFrom Foucault, we know clearly enough that human sexuality cannot be reduced to the field of just natural phenomena. Sexuality has its history. It is, af…
The Social Psychology of Good and Evil
The Social Psychology of Good and EvilPerhaps nothing really fascinates like good and evil. Perhaps there is nothing more human, or indeed inhuman. Perhaps there is nothing more profound or,…
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The Stem Cell Controversy
The Stem Cell ControversyNow in its second edition, The Stem Cell Controversy has been an invaluable anthology for my own personal research, and in my teaching as well. I should say, right away, that in my experience this is one of the best books available for introducing the iss…
The Stem Cell Controversy
Now in its second edition, The Stem Cell Controversy has been an invaluable anthology for my own personal research, and in my teaching as well.…
The Story of Cruel and Unusual
The Story of Cruel and UnusualColin Dayan's essay on the history of the understanding of cruel and unusual punishment was spurred by the Bush administration's push to allow to…
The Trouble with Diversity
The Trouble with DiversitySeemingly, there is a consensus across the spectrum that diversity is inherently virtuous. Initially, it had a niche market of professors and indep…
The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious ExperienceThis is a slim volume (149 pages, including an index and introduction) that republishes a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies: contr…
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The Virtuous Life in Greek Ethics
The Virtuous Life in Greek EthicsThe Virtuous Life in Greek Ethics will be of possible interest to two overlapping audiences: those who want to make sense of the ethical writings…
The Voice of Breast Cancer in Medicine and Bioethics
The Voice of Breast Cancer in Medicine and BioethicsBreast cancer is a disease that inspires controversy. On one hand, at least some cases of breast cancer can be strongly linked to genetic causes, l…
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The War Against Boys
The War Against BoysJudging from the subtitle of The War Against Boys alone, it’s clear that Sommers has an axe to grind: she blames the feminist movement for ma…
Therapy with Children
Therapy with ChildrenTherapy with Children is a misleading title for this book since it is actually more about the topic of the subtitle, concerning the legal and ethi…
Times of Triumph, Times of Doubt
Times of Triumph, Times of DoubtScience, as one of the most potent and reliable sources of knowledge, which to meet moral, ethical and political questions and challenges every now and t…
Toleration
TolerationCatriona McKinnon's Toleration "aims to provide an introduction to the dominant ways that toleration can be theorized and its practice…
Understanding Evil
Understanding EvilThis ambitious book is part of the series, At the Interface: Probing the Boundaries, and consists of the papers given at the Third Annual Confere…
Understanding Terrorism
Understanding TerrorismThe events of 9/11 have already generated a huge number of publications, but readers looking to go beyond exploitative instant journalism, political expo…
Unprincipled Virtue
Unprincipled VirtueWhat makes an action morally praiseworthy? The Aristotelian recipe tells us that a virtuous action is performed intentionally and willingly, for its own…
Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics
Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on EthicsIt is very likely that among living philosophers Peter Singer is the most read; it is a virtual certainty that he is the most controversial. He is, barri…
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Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People
Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary PeopleJohn Conroy's Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People considering torture from a variety of perspectives, presents an account of the dynamics of torture…
Users and Abusers of Psychiatry
Users and Abusers of PsychiatryLucy Johnstone's Users and Abusers of Psychiatry takes a critical look at current psychiatric treatment, mostly in the UK. It is a substantial bo…
Values in Conflict
Values in ConflictCan universities be responsive to the forces of the market place, globalization, and government policies without turning higher education into a mere co…
What Price Better Health?
What Price Better Health?As the amount spent on medical research each year soars toward the trillions, in close chase is a national ethics debate about what researchers should or…
What Would Aristotle Do?
What Would Aristotle Do?Elliot D. Cohen is well known in the philosophical counseling community as a founding member and director of the Society for Philosophy, Counseling, and…
What's Wrong with Children's Rights
What's Wrong with Children's RightsWhat's Wrong With Children's Rights, by Martin Guggenheim, a professor of clinical law at New York University, is a meticulously-crafted, well-res…
Who Qualifies for Rights?
Who Qualifies for Rights?The moral issues concerning compulsory psychiatric care has been a topic of debate for decades. Over time, legislatures all over the world have struggled…
Whose America?
Whose America?This nicely written, carefully edited, and beautifully produced book by a professor of education at New York University consists of stories about bitter…
Whose View of Life?
Whose View of Life?According to David Hume, "The wise man, therefore, proportions his belief according to the evidence." After reading Jane Maienschein's Whos…
Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability
Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on DisabilityThere is a poem by T. S. Eliot on the use of memory, and this use, says Eliot, is liberation -- not only from the future as well as the past. Reading the…
Read the full review of Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability
Why Not Kill Them All?
Why Not Kill Them All?It takes a little courage to ask the awful, but obvious questions. And that is exactly what Chirot and McCauley show. They are not revealing any great in…
Why Vegan?
Why Vegan?In the U.S., philosophers (unlike economists, physicists, medical researchers, etc.) rarely make their way into public consciousness. This is true even of philosophers whose work has had wide influence upon how everyday North Americans think and act. Pete
Wisdom, Intuition and Ethics
Wisdom, Intuition and EthicsThe aim of this book is “to take a fresh look at the possibilities of ethical intuitionism” (1). The author begins with a sense of dissatisfact…
Women and Borderline Personality Disorder
Women and Borderline Personality DisorderThe main claims of Women and Borderline Personality Disorder are that BPD is a feminized category and that it illuminates how contemporary treats…
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