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Classic Works in Medical Ethics: Core Philosophical Readings

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Lots of philosophy articles on medicine. I'm a philosophy professor who teaches medical ethics and I'm distressed that most books and discussions leave out the PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING behind positions on both sides. To this book's credit, all the articles (each reproduced in full) emphasize how and why the author supports or rejects a position on: euthanasia, abortion, genetic testing, locking up the harmless insane, and national medical coverage. I used it in my class and will use it again.

This is a premiere collection of the top philosophical essays behind medical ethics today. I, too, teach a philosophy course on medical ethics and use this anthology as supplementary reading material. Some of the articles are a little heady for undergrads who aren't (yet) philosophy majors, so I also recommend Gregory Pence's companion book, Classic Cases in Medical Ethics, which is considerably more approachable and even interesting to read.

Classic Works in Medical Ethics, edited by Gregory E. Spence may be the perfect approach to a difficult subject, since, by its nature, medical ethics is a case by case, issue by issue driven kind of subject.

One may be a bit surprised that in spite of the appearance in the title of the word "Classic", there is no article older than the 20th century. There is nothing by Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, or even Dr. William James. This is appropriate, since most questions in medical ethics probably developed over the last 50 years, with the advent of antibiotics, organ transplants, and genetic research. Issues over practices as recent as the pre-WW II experiments on Tuskegee students with syphilus are already part of the history of medical ethics, for which you may want to go to Spense's book "Medical Ethics, Accounts of the Cases That Shaped and Define Medical Ethics". Another game changing event was Roe Versus Wade Supreme Court decision which changed the playing field for many issues, not just abortion.

I am not an expert on this field, but I have read several other books on the subject, and I see that most of the "Usual Suspects" are here, such as Peter Singer, Don Marquis, and Joseph Fletcher. I am a bit surprised that there is nothing by Tom Beauchamp or Bernard Gert, authors of major contemporary books on Medical Ethics.

For those who are unfamiliar with writings in philosophy, I must warn you that most articles here are pretty tough reading. Sometimes the gap between agreeing and disagreeing on a subject is wafer thin. But that's the point of providing two or more articles on opposite sides of questions. You get to see if the chap arguing side A is not misrepresenting side B. And, from many of these articles, it appears most authors are playing fair, which is only to be expected, since most articles come from professional journals (medical or philosophical) where articles are reviewed by contemporary experts in the field for accuracy and fairness.

It may even be appropriate to say this book has value in a Pastoral care curriculum, since one thing practicing clergy face far more often than other non-medical people, is how these questions affect people in medical crises.