Public health agencies regularly survey randomly selected anonymous students to track drug use, sexual activities, and other risk behaviors. Students are unidentifiable, but a recent project that i...

" In Imagination and the Meaningful Brain, psychoanalyst Arnold Modell claims that subjective human experience must be included in any scientific...

Book reviewed in this article: Suffering and the Beneficent Community: Beyond Libertarianism. By Erich H. Loewy. The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. By Eric J. Cassell.

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page W4-W7.

Throughout the history of philosophy the concept of unity has presented a problem. What does it mean to say that the cosmos is one, that a thing is one, that an organism is one, that a nation is one, that mind and body are one, that knower and known are one? Exactly what is it that is denoted when unity is postulated of anything? And when two or more entities are conceived as subsisting in unity, exactly what is the relation (...) between that unity on the one hand, and its correlative duality or plurality on the other? (shrink)

Bioethics and its offspring Health-care Ethics have a variety ofuses and obligations among which and perhaps most importantly istheir social obligation. This paper raises questions as toBioethics fulfilling the necessary criteria for a profession,suggests that it can serve as a link between individual andcommunal problems, discusses the task of health-care ethics as well as ways of teaching it, lists some of the obligationsof health-care ethics professionals and discusses the dangers to and failings of these health-care professionals today. Itconcludes that we (...) are at a crossroads in which we must choosebetween our own personal security and comfort and fulfilling our social role. (shrink)

This paper sets out to examine the integrity and professional standing of “Bioethics.” It argues that professions have certain responsibilities that start with setting criteria for and credentialing those that have met the criteria and goes on to ultimately have social responsibilities to the community. As it now stands we claim that Bioethics—while it certainly has achieved some progress in the way medicine has developed—has failed to become a profession and has to a large extent failed in its social responsibility. (...) We feel that Bioethics has to define itself, set criteria for membership in the profession, police itself and—above all—meet its social responsibility to become a profession meriting that name. (shrink)

This paper argues for the necessity of universal health care (as well as universal free education) using a different argument than most that have been made heretofore. It is not meant to conflict with but to strengthen the arguments previously made by others. Using the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution we argue that universal health care in this day and age has become a necessary condition if the ideals of life, liberty and (...) the pursuit of happiness are to be more than an empty promise and if the discussion of “promoting of general welfare” in the preamble is to have any meaning. (shrink)

This text examines the dominant ways of looking at patient/clinician relationships in healthcare. By challenging these dominant views the author can explore presuppositions that are defective. She further explains how they come to be so readily and uncritically held and reinforced; and, why their implications can have such a profound affect on how we think and act. Using the methodology of philosopher, John Dewey, the author proposes an alternative bio/psycho/social approach to understanding the patient/clinician relationship and for resolving increasingly common (...) bioethical issues that arise in healthcare settings. (shrink)

This paper sets out to examine the integrity and professional standing of “Bioethics.” It argues that professions have certain responsibilities that start with setting criteria for and credentialing those that have met the criteria and goes on to ultimately have social responsibilities to the community. As it now stands we claim that Bioethics—while it certainly has achieved some progress in the way medicine has developed—has failed to become a profession and has to a large extent failed in its social responsibility. (...) We feel that Bioethics has to define itself, set criteria for membership in the profession, police itself and—above all—meet its social responsibility to become a profession meriting that name. (shrink)

In this paper the authors address the recent argument that we have an obligation to seek or actively bring about our own death when we burden others too greatly. Some of the problems with this argument and some of the practical conseqeuences of adopting such a point of view are discussed in this paper. We argue that the argument rests on an individualistic approach which sees the family being burdened as standing alone instead of seeing it as embedded in a (...) burden-sharing community. (shrink)

Here, Erich H. Loewy expands on his earlier book Textbook of Medical Ethics (1989) offering healthcare workers and students a new perspective on ethical practice. Textbook of Healthcare Ethics focuses on the social conditions in which medical practice occurs and how ethical healthcare decisions involves nurses, social workers, psychologists, technicians, and patients as well as physicians. This thoroughly revised and expanded edition addresses historical and theoretical underpinnings and practical concerns. A series of case studies serve as a guideline for (...) further discussion. The text examines provocative issues such as organ donation, care of the terminally ill, abortion, HIV-positive healthcare professionals, physician-assisted suicide, and experimentation with fetal tissue. This is an ideal book for all members of the healthcare team as well as students and residents in any discipline of medicine. (shrink)

The question of whether physicians or other healthcare workers are ethically entitled to strike is troubling in that it entails a conflict in obligations. This question of a conflict of obligations (and the answer to it) has wider implications for many other workers.

Book reviewed in this article: For the Patient's Good: The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care. By Edmund D. Pellegrino and David C. Thomasma.

It is often said that because physicians and other healthcare professionals frequently play a critical role in determining the fate of their patients, they ought if at all possible to be their patient's friend. The relationship of necessity is intimate: physicians have knowledge of their patients' histories and of their bodies which under other circumstances would be reserved to the most intimate of friends, and physicians and patients meet under more or less critical situations. In this paper, I briefly examine (...) the role of the physician as “friend,” an Issue to be much more extensively explored In a book In preparation. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to try to put what has been termed the “care ethics” into a different perspective. While I will discuss primarily the use of that ethic or that term as it applies to the healthcare setting in general and to the deliberation of consultants or the function of committees more specifically, what I have to say is meant to be applicable to the problem of using a notion like “caring” as a fundamental precept in ethical decision (...) making. I will set out to examine the relationship between theoretical ethics, justice-based reasoning, and care-based reasoning and conclude by suggesting not only that all are part of a defensible solution when adjudicating individual cases, but that these three are linked and can, in fact, be mutually corrective. I will claim that using what has been called “the care ethic” alone is grossly insufficient for solving individual problems and that the term can be extremely dangerous. I will readily admit that while blindly using an approach based solely on theoretically derived principles is perhaps somewhat less dangerous, it is bound to be sterile, unsatisfying, and perhaps even cruel in individual situations. Care ethics, as I understand the concept, is basically a non- or truly an anti-intellectual kind of ethic in that it tries not only to value feeling over thought in deliberating problems of ethics, but indeed, would almost entirely substitute feeling for thought. Feeling when used to underwrite undisciplined and intuitive action without theory has no head and, therefore, no plan and no direction; theory eventuating in sterile rules and eventually resulting in action heedlessly based on such rules lacks humanity and heart. Neither one nor the other is complete in itself. There is no reason why we necessarily should be limited to choosing between these two extremes. (shrink)

The history in which bioethics developed is well reviewed in a recent book written by Al Jonsen. This superb little volume gives a concise—even if a necessarily rather subjective—account of the development of the field. A more objective history of the contemporary development of the field cannot be expected from those who helped craft it and awaits historians of the future. What I have been asked to do here is to supply my own personal impressions of the development of this (...) field as I have experienced it. What I have been asked to do here is to supply my own personal impressions of the development of this field as I have experienced it. (shrink)

This paper will discuss the role of compassion in ethics in general and in healthcare ethics in particular. My thesis is that compassion:1) as Rousseau pointed out, is a natural trait common to all higher animals ;2) can and does serve as one of the most important motivators and modulators of ethics in both theoretical and applied aspects;3) must be controlled by, and in turn control, reason if it is to serve its ethical as well as natural purposes; and4) as (...) a natural trait has survival value and, by virtue of being a natural trait, cannot be an obligation although there may very well be an obligation to do all that is necessary to nurture and not crush this sentiment. (shrink)