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Public Debate

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Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics

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Abstract

Ethical issues in healthcare and biomedical research are often a matter of public debate. This entry will explore several prominent views on how such debate should be conducted within pluralistic democratic societies. It begins by considering John Rawls’s account of public reason. It then examines how this account applies to the controversial issues of abortion and physician-assisted suicide, where one can see why some have objected to this view, especially with regard to the way it requires citizens to bracket their comprehensive moral, religious, and philosophical doctrines. Next, this entry will consider some alternative approaches that endorse more expansive forms of public reason that allow greater room for appeals to comprehensive doctrines. While one might expect that many of the controversial issues in bioethics will continue to be a matter of public debate going forward, it will be seen that a necessary step towards making progress in these debates is to get clear on how such debate should be conducted.

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  • Dworkin, R. (1993). Life’s dominion: An argument about abortion, euthanasia, and individual freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

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  • Taylor, C., & Maclure, J. (2011). Secularism and freedom of conscience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE, 68178, USA

    David McPherson

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  1. David McPherson
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Correspondence to David McPherson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University Center for Healthcare Ethics, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Henk ten Have

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McPherson, D. (2015). Public Debate. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_357-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_357-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2

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