From Physicians’ Professional Ethos towards Medical Ethics and Bioethics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

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2. Introduction

   • Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes

   Pages 1-81

3. Initial Impediments to Ethical Reflection in Medicine

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83

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   2. The History of Medicine as Inspiration for Medico-Ethical Reflection in Germany: Memories from the Free Zone of Historiography

      • Richard Toellner

      Pages 85-107

   3. Human Genetics Between the Physician’s Ethos and Bio-politics: From Eugenics to Human Gene Technology

      • Rolf Löther

      Pages 109-134

   4. The Development of Doctors’ Ethics Into Medical Ethics in the German Democratic Republic and Its Impact on Medical Education

      • Ernst Luther

      Pages 135-162

4. The Culture of Dialogue in Medical and Bio-ethics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 163-163

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   2. Socialist Policy as the Basis of the Physician’s Ethos in the German Democratic Republic: Humanist Ideals and Economic Realities

      • Horst Spaar

      Pages 165-184

   3. Bioethics and the Defence of a Culture of Liberalism: Philosophical Rationality in the Spirit of Modesty

      • Günther Patzig

      Pages 185-201

   4. Contributions by Protestant Theology to Medical Ethics and Bio-Ethics in Germany

      • Jürgen Hübner

      Pages 203-234

5. The Institutionalization of Expertise in Medical and Bio-ethics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 235-235

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   2. Legal Duties, the Physician’s Ethos, and Ways of Dealing with Damage Resulting from Medical Treatment in the German Democratic Republic

      • Ernst Günther

      Pages 237-256

   3. A German Path Toward Bioethics

      • Hans-Bernhard Wuermeling

      Pages 257-265

   4. Philosophy and Ethical Advisory Boards in German Medicine

      • Ludwig Siep

      Pages 267-284

   5. The Development of Medical Ethics Institutions in West Berlin

      • Ruth Mattheis

      Pages 285-293

6. The Focus on Responsiveness to Patients

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 295-295

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   2. Ethical Challenges of the Dying Patient: Managing Cooperation Between Physicians and Caretakers

      • Susanne Hahn

      Pages 297-317

   3. Ethical Elements in Thure von Uexküll’s Psychosomatic Thought

      • Hans Wedler

      Pages 319-331

This book assembles essays by thinkers who were at the center of the German post World War II development of ethical thought in medicine. It records their strategies for overcoming initial resistance among physicians and philosophers and (in the East) politicians. This work traces their different approaches, such as socialist versus liberal bioethics; illustrates their attempt to introduce a culture of dialogue in medicine; and examines their moral ambiguities inherent to the institutionalization of bioethics and in law. Furthermore, the essays in this work pay special attention to the problem of ethics expertise in the context of a pluralism, which the intellectual mainstream of the country seeks to reduce to “varieties of post-traditionalism". Finally, this book addresses the problem of “patient autonomy”,and highlights the difficulty of harmonizing commitment to professional integrity with the project of enhancing physician’s responsiveness to suffering patients. As these essays illustrate, the development of bioethics in Germany does not follow a linear line of progressiveness, but rather retains a sense of the traditional ethos of the guild. An ethos, however, that is challenged by moral pluralism in such a way that, even today, still requires adequate solutions. A must read for all academics interested in the origins and the development of bioethics. 

• Bioethics in Germany
• Medical Ethics and Bioethics
• medical education in germany
• physician ethics and bioethics
• professional medical ethics
• ethical challenges of the dying patient
• history of medicine as inspiration
• human genetics and ethics
• genomics

• International Studies in Philosophy and Medicine, Director of European Programs, Freigericht, Germany

  Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes studied Philosophy, German literature, and communication science in Bonn and Tübingen (Germany), received an MA on the interpretation of Hegel by G. Lukacz, and spent a year as teaching assistant at the Philosophy Department of the Pennsylvania State University. After her return to Bonn, she wrote her dissertation on a Hegelian reconstruction of  David Hume’s epistemology and was offered a position as Assistant Professor by Penn State. After two years she decided to return back to Germany in order to raise a family (2 children). Serving as Director of European Programs of the International Studies in Philosophy and Medicine, she has been organizing as well as presenting at international conferences. As editor of the Journal Christian Bioethics – non-ecumenical studies in medical morality, and member of the editorial board of both the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and the book series Aus orthodoxer Sicht of the Hagia Sophia Edition publishing house (Germany), she continued her work in bioethics, adding a focus on both political philosophy and Orthodox Christian theology. Her essays, written either in German or (mostly) English, have been translated  into Portuguese, Greek, Romanian, Chinese, Russian. In 2016, she received the Engelhardt Award of the Bioethics Center at the Ohio State University.

Policies and ethics