Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

What is Bioethics?

  • Review Article
  • Published:
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. On this latter activity see Impact Ethics: http://impactethics.ca/ [Accessed 22nd Febuary 2015].

  2. For example see the 40th anniversary issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics containing various articles discussing ‘good medical ethics’.

  3. Interestingly such criticism can be considered as having parallels with those leveled at the Warnock Report. Furthermore, both reports can be characterized as ‘pragmatic’ or as exhibiting pragmatic elements (Belkin 2014, p. xviii; Wilson 2014, p. 161) whilst their longevity belies the strength of such ethico-conceptual or applied (bio)ethical critiques. Or, perhaps merely their importance and relevence.

  4. I am alluding, of course, to Wittgenstein’s notion that human thinking is a river. In this view philosophical investigations cannot aim at excavating its formal foundation so much as it plumbs the depths, perhaps reaching the bed of the river. Whilst this bed may be reasonably static it nevertheless remains mutable and responsive to the currents of life that flow over and above it. Given the nature of applied ethics, and the fact it lies somewhere between moral philosophy and moral practice, I have adjusted the metaphor accordingly.

References

  • Anderson, A. 2005. The way we argue now: A study in the cultures of theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashcroft, R.E. 2001. Emphasis has shifted from medical ethics to bioethics. BMJ 322(7281): 302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, R. 2013. Before bioethics: A history of American medical ethics from the colonial period to the bioethics revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Belkin, G. 2014. Death before dying: History, medicine, and brain death. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, M. 1990. Philosophical integrity and policy development in bioethics. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 15(4): 375–389.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brock, D.W. 1987. Truth or consequences: The role of philosophers in policy-making. Ethics 97(4): 786–791.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collin, R. 2000. Reflexivity and social embeddedness in the history of ethical philosophies. In The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge. The New Syntheses Historical Library, ed. M. Kusch, Vol. 48, 155–178. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.

  • Dunstan, G.R. 1988. Two branches from one stem. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 530: 4–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Emmerich, N. 2013. Medical ethics education: An interdisciplinary and social theoretical perspective. London: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ferber, S. 2013. Bioethics in historical perspective: Medicine and social morality. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuller, S. 2000. In search of an alternative sociology of philosophy reinstating the primacy of value theory in light of Randall Collins’s “reflexivity and embeddedness in the history of ethical philosophies”. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 30(2): 246–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hedgecoe, A.M. 2004. Critical bioethics: Beyond the social science critique of applied ethics. Bioethics 18(2): 120–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. 2011. On the modern cult of the factish gods. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mol, A. 2002. The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Momeyer, R.W. 1990. Philosophers and the public policy process: Inside, outside, or nowhere at all? Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 15(4): 391–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Powers, M. 2005. Bioethics as politics: The limits of moral expertise. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 15: 305–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savulescu, J. 2015. Bioethics: Why philosophy is essential for progress. Journal of Medical Ethics 41(1): 28–33.

  • Toulmin, S.E. 1981. The tyranny of principles. The Hastings Centre Report 11(6): 31–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. 2014. The making of British bioethics. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D. 2012. What can history do for bioethics? Bioethics 27(3): 215–223.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Nathan Emmerich

Authors
  1. Nathan Emmerich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nathan Emmerich.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Emmerich, N. What is Bioethics?. Med Health Care and Philos 18, 437–441 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-015-9628-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-015-9628-7

Search

Navigation