The Variables of Moral Capacity

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-5

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2. Challenges of Moral Capacity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7

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   2. Choices, Autonomy, and Moral Capacity

      • David C. Thomasma

      Pages 9-22

   3. Self-Conceptions, Agency, and the Value of Individual Persons

      • Jeffrey Blustein

      Pages 23-41

   4. Kohlberg and the Structural-Developmental Approach to Moral Psychology

      • Lawrence Walker

      Pages 43-56

   5. Morality and Selfhood

      • Karl Hennig

      Pages 57-77

   6. Developing Moral Capacity from Childhood to Young Adulthood

      • Anneliese A. Pontius

      Pages 79-94

   7. A Dream of Dirty Hands

      • Kristine Arnet Connidis

      Pages 95-111

   8. Capacity is Not in Your Head

      • Jeffrey Spike

      Pages 113-119

   9. How Not to Philosiphize with a Hammer

      • Kathryn Montgomery

      Pages 121-127

   10. How Not to Philosophize with a Hammer

       • Jeffrey Spike

       Pages 129-135

3. Professional Morality and Criteria for Health Care Decisions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 137-137

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   2. Moral Capacity

      • David N. Weisstub, David C. Thomasma

      Pages 139-149

   3. Some Ethical Principles for Adult Critical Care

      • Kenneth Kipnis, Anita Gerhard

      Pages 151-157

   4. The Influence of Pressure on Nurses’ Moral Capacity

      • Beverly Kopala

      Pages 159-171

   5. Surrogate Decision Making

      • Rosamond Rhodes, Ian Holzman

      Pages 173-185

   6. Knowing Well or Living Well

      • Evert van Leeuwen, Astrid Vellinga

      Pages 187-202

   7. Vulnerable Persons

      • Michel Silberfeld

      Pages 203-215

   8. Vulnerability in Research Subjects

      • Kenneth Kipnis

      Pages 217-231

4. Reflections on Moral Incapacity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 233-233

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Moral capacity is an important feature of what it means to be human. In this volume, the contributors have taken on the daunting task of trying to distinguish between legal and moral capacity. This distinction is difficult at times for clinicians, philosophers and legal scholars alike. Part of the challenge of defining moral capacity lies in the difficulty of adequately categorizing it. For this reason, the editors have chosen to divide the book into three parts. The first looks at the concepts involved in the discussion of moral capacity; the second considers the role of moral capacity in the lives of professionals; and the final part reflects on case studies of moral capacity or incapacity illustrating the challenge that moral capacity presents - its definition lying between two seemingly incommensurable models, those of the threshold and continuum.
This volume takes a multidisciplinary approach to the subject, and ties the disciplines of medicine, philosophy and law into the health context. It will be of interest to medical health professionals as well as researchers working in the areas of philosophy and law.

• ethics
• law
• morality
• philosophise
• philosophy
• will

• Loyola University Chicago Medical Center, Maywood, USA

  David C. Thomasma

• University of Montreal School of Medicine, Montreal, Canada

  David N. Weisstub

Policies and ethics