Preventive Medicine between Obligation and Aspiration

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 1-9

3. Preventive Medicine: Moral Problems and Moral Norms

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

      PDF

   2. What is Preventive Medicine?

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 13-23

   3. Medical-Ethical Dimensions of Preventive Medicine

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 25-49

   4. The Prevention Paradox and Tensions between Private and Public Interests

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 51-67

   5. Medicalization as a Moral Problem for Preventive Medicine

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 69-99

4. Obligation and Beyond

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

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   2. The Concept of Duty and Obligation

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 103-122

   3. Medicalization, Moral Obligations and Beyond

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 123-146

   4. Beyond Obligation

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 147-170

   5. Conclusions

      • Marcel Verweij

      Pages 171-175

5. Back Matter

   Pages 177-191

   PDF

Preventive Medicine between Obligation and Aspiration is a study of ethical questions regarding mass screening, vaccination, and health policy programmes. These interventions aim to enhance public health but may also constrain personal autonomy and cause harm, and influence our moral views. So far, these issues have hardly been subject to systematic ethical analysis. This study aims to fill this gap by providing an overview of moral problems in preventive medicine and by explicating norms for good practice. Throughout the book it is argued that some moral concerns about prevention - namely concerns about medicalization - cannot be adequately grasped in terms of strict and binding moral norms. Various moral concepts and types of norms `beyond obligation' are explored and developed in order to give practical meaning to these rather vague concerns. In this way the book contributes to applied ethics as well as to ethical theory. It is of interest to professionals in public health and preventive medicine and to scholars in applied ethics and moral philosophy.

• Ethics and Moral Philosophy
• Public Health
• applied ethics
• autonomy
• ethical theory
• ethics
• health
• health policy
• morality
• prevention
• preventive medicine
• screening

`...the book makes a valuable contribution to this increasingly important area of philosophy of medicine and health care, and may be generally of interest to scholars in applied ethics'
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 5:1 (2002)

• Centre for Bioethics and Health Law, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

  Marcel Verweij

• Department of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  Marcel Verweij

Policies and ethics