In a morally pluralist, or in Alasdair MacIntyre's terms “morally fragmented”, society it seems almost inevitable that people engaging with issues of bioethics should operate within something like John Rawls's idea of an “overlapping consensus”—the area in which there is broad agreement between people with different comprehensive worldviews, and in which they are able and willing to operate with the shared criteria of what Rawls calls “public reason”. There are, of course, those who are uneasy about this approach, usually because (...) they see moral fragmentation as being more pervasive and consensus more difficult to achieve, than the Rawlsians believe. From opposite wings Alasdair MacIntyre and Tristram Engelhardt join forces to question the viability of the liberal consensus. There are, of course, problems with an overlapping consensus. People with religious convictions often feel that …. (shrink)

This is a thoroughly revised and expanded edition of a book originally published in 1994. It consists of a series of clear and thoughtful short essays, grounded in real cases in health care ethics. The range of coverage is extensive—from informed consent, through futile therapy, genetic testing, organ donation, the use of fetal tissue in research, physician assisted suicide, and many other issues, to early delivery of anencephalic infants. The discussions of individual cases, although necessarily brief, are always clear and (...) well informed, and in general lay out the ethical issues and the various options fairly rather than being strongly directive, partisan, or one-sided. The book …. (shrink)