Textbook of Healthcare Ethics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Historical Introduction

   Pages 1-19

3. Knowledge and Ethics

   Pages 21-27

4. Theoretical Considerations

   Pages 29-64

5. Fallibility and the Problem of Blameworthiness in Medicine

   Pages 65-73

6. The Ongoing Dialectic between Autonomy and Responsibility in a Pluralist World

   Pages 75-95

7. Patients, Society and Healthcare Professionals

   Pages 97-140

8. Genetics and Ethics

   Pages 141-160

9. Problems of Macro-allocation

   Pages 161-195

10. Organ Donation

    Pages 197-216

11. Problems at the Beginning of Life

    Pages 217-247

12. Problems in the Care of the Terminally Ill

    Pages 249-306

13. Common Problems in Everyday Practice

    Pages 307-329

14. Resolving Ethical Problems: An Introduction to Individual Cases

    Pages 331-370

15. Back Matter

    Pages 371-382

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1 Historical Introduction INTRODUCTION This chapter is mainly about the history of medicine and its ethics. As usually c- ceived, history is retrograde: It is what happened yesterday, and, much as we may try, it is what happened yesterday seen with a set of today’s eyes. Trying to understand yesterday’s culture may help us put on a pair of corrective glasses, but it fails in - tirely correcting our vision. Contemporary cultural anthropology may likewise help us understand the way today’s events and cultural habits shape what we call history tomorrow. Past events and the kaleidoscopic pattern of today’s cultures may help guide us into a future that in at least some respects is ours to forge. Learning about ethics yesterday and thinking about ethics as it expresses itself in various cultures today can help us shape the ethics of tomorrow: This is true whether we are speaking of that part of social ethics called “medical” or of any other part of social ethics. The social aspects of medical practice—how the institution called medicine fits into and works within the greater society called culture—shape the way its ethics ultimately must play itself out.

• Biomedical ethics
• Medical Ethics
• autonomy
• bioethics
• ethical theory
• ethics
• health

• School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento

  Erich H. Loewy, Roberta Springer Loewy

Policies and ethics