Overview
- The first clear analysis of moral acquaintances that addresses both Kevin Wildes’s and Erich Loewy’s versions of the important concept
- Provides a method for making justified moral resolutions in difficult cases in the modern world of moral disagreement
- Delivers a solid critique of three major methods of bioethical decision-making – libertarian, principle- based, and casuistry
- Takes seriously the problem of pluralism and the need for justified solutions in real cases
Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine (PHME, volume 103)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (5 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
The potential of modern medicine in a pluralistic world leads to the potential for moral conflict. The most prevalent bioethical theories often either overestimate or underestimate the amount of shared moral belief that can be used to address those conflicts. This work presents a means for taking seriously the pluralism in the modern world while recognizing the likelihood of moral “acquaintance” between persons with differing views. It criticizes moral theories that overstate the extent of the problem of pluralism as well as those that imply too much agreement between reasonable moral persons, yet it locates a means for the resolution of many moral conflicts in moral acquaintanceship. Drawing from the work of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., casuists and principle-based theorists, and Erich Loewy and Kevin W. Wildes’s initial development of the concept of moral acquaintanceship, Moral Acquaintances and Moral Decisions is philosophically indepth work with direct applications for decisionmaking in real medical settings. A work in moral theory as well as a source of real world guidance, clinically oriented bioethics professionals as well as students of bioethical theory should find the theory of moral acquaintanceship provided here important to their work.
Reviews
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Moral Acquaintances and Moral Decisions
Book Subtitle: Resolving Moral Conflicts in Medical Ethics
Authors: Stephen S. Hanson
Series Title: Philosophy and Medicine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2508-1
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Medicine, Medicine (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-481-2507-4Published: 01 October 2009
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-0522-7Published: 30 November 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-90-481-2508-1Published: 18 September 2009
Series ISSN: 0376-7418
Series E-ISSN: 2215-0080
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 174
Topics: Theory of Medicine/Bioethics, Ethics, Social Sciences, general