Authored by:
H. Tristram
Engelhardt, Jr., Department of Philosophy, Rice University, Houston,
Texas
Audience:
A great many people from many walks of life
continue to read this book, including philosophers, bioethicists, nurses, theologians,
seminarians, orthodox and catholic lay people.
Description:
For decades, Engelhardt
has alluded to the ethics that binds moral
friends. While his 'Foundations of Bioethics'
explored the sparse ethics binding moral strangers,
this long-awaited volume addresses the morality
at the foundations of Christian bioethics.
The volume opens with an analysis of the marginalization
of Christian bioethics in the 1970s and the
irremedial shortcomings of secular ethics in
general. Drawing on the Christianity of the
first millennium, Engelhardt provides the ontological
and epistemological foundations for a Christian
bioethics that can remedy the onesidedness
of a secular bioethics and supply the bases
for a Christian bioethics. The volume then
addresses issues from abortion, third-party-assisted
reproduction, and cloning, to withholding and
withdrawing treatment, physician-assisted suicide,
and euthanasia. Practices such as free and
informed consent are relocated within a traditional
Christian morality. Attention is also given
to the allocation of scarce resources in health
care, and to the challenge of maintaining the
Christian identity of physicians, nurses, patients,
and health care institutions in a culture that
is now post-Christian.
Reviews:
"Engelhardt has produced a powerful statement of belief and
a cogent reminder that medicine is not the summun
bonum of life. It is a tool
to comfort and support the patient in living the life most meaningful to him
or her. It is an important book deserving attention."
Hastings Center Report
"This
is a book which – though deliberately dogmatic in ways designed to
offend a society in which all opinions are permitted but no opinion can be
judged wrong – is written with a kind of zest and good humor that deserves
to be enjoyed."
First Things
"Presents a thorough account."
Theology Digest
"This
is an extraordinary book, extraordinary in its scope and erudition, in its
intellectual rigor, and in its demonstration of faith. I commend this book
to all those who can admire the sheer brilliance of the work. It deserves
to be most widely read."
Medical Humanities Review
"This is an extraordinarily
rich and scholarly book. The main arguments are explained and defended with
a combination of clarity, ferocity and a sheer learnedness that makes for exhilarating
reading."
Monash Bioethics Review
"The
book presents a compelling image of the traditional Christian approach. To
those who have not experienced this faith, we can only echo the author’s
invitation: "Come, taste and see."
Divine Ascent
"Engelhardt has thrown down
a challenge to secular bioethics that cannot be avoided. Let the argument begin."
Professor Stanley Hauerwas,
The Divinity School, Duke University
"I
strongly recommend this important, powerful, and challenging book."
James F. Childress, Kyle
Professor of Religious Studies, Professor of Medical Education, University
of Virginia
"A
profound and provocative book."
M. Cathleen Kaveny, Notre
Dame Law School, University of Notre Dame About
the Editor:
H.
Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., holds
degrees in both medicine and philosophy.
He is professor in the Department of Philosophy
at Rice University, professor emeritus
in the Department of Medicine, Baylor College
of Medicine. In
addition to having authored over 300 articles
and chapters of books, as well as having
co-edited more than 30 volumes, his books
include ‘The Foundations of Bioethics’ (2nd
ed., 1996), which has appeared in Chinese,
Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish, ‘Bioethics
and Secular Humanism: The Search for a
Common Morality’, which has also
appeared in Chinese, and ‘The Foundations
of Christian Bioethics’, which has
appeared in Portuguese and Romanian. He
is the editor of The
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and
two book series, Philosophy and Medicine,
and Philosophical Studies in Contemporary
Culture. He is also the founding and senior
editor of Christian
Bioethics. His most recent book is Global
Bioethics: The Collapse of Consensus (M & M
Scrivener Press).
Table
of Contents:
Biblical Quotations
Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: From Christian Bioethics
to Secular Bioethics: The Establishment of
a Liberal Cosmopolitan
Morality.
Chapter 2: At the Roots of Bioethics:
Reason, Faith, and the Unity of Morality.
Chapter 3: Christian
Bioethics as a Human Project: Taking Immanence
Seriously.
Chapter 4: Bioethics
and Transcendence: At the Heart of the Culture
Wars.
Chapter 5: Procreation:
Reproduction, Cloning, Abortion, and Birth.
Chapter 6: Suffering, Disease,
Dying, and Death: The Search for Meaning.
Chapter 7: Providing Health
Care: Consent, Conflicts of Interest, the Allocation
of Medical Resources,
and Religious Integrity.
Chapter 8: Christian
Bioethics in a Post-Christian World.
Index
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