As 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 philosophical foundations which orient the
debates.  In addition, the substantive
issues are also discussed as each philosophical position is applied to them and
the resultant conclusions or judgments are established. Rather than starting
with an agenda on these current issues and debates the author carefully weaves a
path through the debates and their presuppositions in order to reveal the
foundations for choices that others have made or are making in contemporary
society and theory.

Specifically, Glannon addresses the
assumptions concerning the nature of a person, the value of a community-based
versus an individual-based ethics, when life begins and ends and according to
which presuppositions these issues are being decided. Virtually no current
biomedical issue is left unaddressed here and this makes the text wide-ranging
and yet concisely argued at the same time. From cloning, to surrogate
motherhood, medical research and testing on human subjects and animals both
historically and in current experimentation, the history of the doctor —
patient relationship, living wills, organ donation, the ethics of euthanasia,
withholding medical treatment, eugenics, and allocating scarce resources in
times of crisis, Glannon attempts to include all major current issues in this
field and does a remarkable job. This is not a list of problems but a summary
of current debates, key issues in each that divide the medical and
philosophical communities internally as well as between them, and a precise
overview of the meaning of key terms used in each of these areas.

The roles of feminist ethics,
virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, communitarianism versus
liberalism, cultural relativism versus absolute standards versus casuistry are
all addressed as they play out in the intersection with each of the biomedical
issues above. Glannon considers the limits and paradoxes of various positions
as they arise and how several theoretical stances can be linked up to
compliment each other and form a more comprehensive response to these dilemmas,
in some cases at least.

In addition Glannon cites the major
representatives in these fields and who is conflicting with whom and on what
bases either acknowledged or unacknowledged. This text by refusing to be a
simple participant among others offers a meta-ethics here which serves both
pedagogy and research well in its effort to provide a sweeping overview of not
only the problems in this field but also some of the possible, if contested,
solutions.

©
2005 Irene E. Harvey

Irene E. Harvey, Associate Professor, Philosophy
Department, Penn State University

Categories: Ethics