The Methods of Bioethics: An Essay in Meta-Bioethics 1st Edition John Mcmillan

The Methods of Bioethics: An Essay in Meta-Bioethics 1st Edition John Mcmillan – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780192557643, 0192557645

Product details:

• ISBN 10:  0192557645
• ISBN 13: 9780192557643
• Author: John Mcmillan

This is the first book in bioethics that explains how it is that you actually go about doing good bioethics. Bioethics has made a mistake about its methods, and this has led not only to too much theorizing, but also fragmentation within bioethics. The unhelpful disputes between those who think bioethics needs to be more philosophical, more sociological, more clinical, or more empirical, continue. While each of these claims will have some point, they obscure what should be common to all instances of bioethics. Moreover, they provide another phantom that can lead newcomers to bioethics down blind alleyways stalked by bristling sociologists and philosophers. The method common to all bioethics is bringing moral reason to bear upon ethical issues, and it is more accurate and productive to clarify what this involves than to stake out a methodological patch that shows why one discipline is the most important. This book develops an account of the nature of bioethics and then explains how a number of methodological spectres have obstructed bioethics becoming what it should. In the final part, it explains how moral reason can be brought to bear upon practical issues via an ’empirical, Socratic’ approach.

Table of contents:

1. How to Find Your Footing in Bioethics
Part I. Bioethics
2. What Is Bioethics?
The Origins of Bioethics
My Definition of Bioethics and What It Needs to Do
The Essence of Bioethics
Battin’s Trichotomy and Clinical Consultation
Bioethics and Public Policy
Scholarly Bioethics
Moral Reason
Medical Ethics versus Bioethics
Bioethics as Distinct from Applied Ethics
Philosophical Bioethics
Empirical Bioethics
Philosophical Bioethics versus Missionary Bioethics
Ethics as Distinct from Law
Conclusions
3. ‘Good’ Bioethics
No Special Pleading
The Strength of ‘No Special Pleading’
Engagement with Experience
Good Bioethics Always Involves Sound Reason
Conclusions
Part II. The Spectres of Bioethics
4. Four Spectres of Bioethics
The Moral Mantra Mistake and the Tedious Theory Tendency
Four Principles and the Search for Theory
The Ethics Sausage Machine
Other Ethics Sausage Makers
Philosopher Kings and Other Queens of the Sciences
The Snooty Specialist Spectre
Other Queens of the Sciences
Sociology ‘of’ Bioethics
5. The Fact/Value Spectre
Putnam and the Fact/Value Distinction
If Not Empirical, Then Nonsense or Subjective (Positivism)
Bioethics Research Positivism
Evidence Based Medicine
Values Based Medicine
Conclusions
Part III. The Methods of Bioethics
6. Empirical, Socratic Bioethics
Philosophical Forefathers
Socratic Reasoning: Speculative Reason and Drawing Distinctions
Bioethics Should Be Rigorous and Systematic
Empirical and Socratic
Non-invasive Prenatal Testing
Anencephalic Babies and the Dead-Donor Rule
Epistemic Humility and Philosophy
Epistemic Humility and Moral Theory
Epistemic Humility and the Additional Complications of Bioethics
A Kantian Argument for Why Bioethics Must Involve Concepts and the Empirical
7. What Is an Ethical Argument?
Building a Case
Picking an Ethical Question or Claim
Constructing a Syllogism
Questioning and Examining Factual Claims
Minimize Your Theoretical Assumptions
Freedom and Harm-Based Arguments
8. Speculative Argument and Bioethics
Speculative Practical Reason
Speculative Reason: The Counterexample
Speculative Reason: The Argument by Analogy
Speculative Reason: Deepening Moral Understanding
Speculative Reason: Intuition Pumps
Speculative Reason: The Heuristic Device
Conclusions
9. Drawing Distinctions: Defining, Reclaiming, and Analysing Moral Concepts
Drawing Programmatic Distinctions
Drawing Distinctions That Mark Important Moral Differences
Clarifying the Implications of a Concept
Reclaiming Moral Concepts
Clarifying Concepts
10. Drawing DistinctionsNovel, Sublime, and Slippery Moral Concepts
Introducing Moral Concepts
Transcendental Distinctions
Slippery-Slope Arguments
Conclusions
11. What It Is to Reason about Ethics

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