Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Matters of Life and Death: Making Moral Theory Work in Medical Ethics and the Law

Matters of Life and Death: Making Moral Theory Work in Medical Ethics and the Law

Orentlicher, David

Paperback

PhilosophyMedical ReferenceGeneral Law

ISBN10: 0691089477
ISBN13: 9780691089478
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr
Published: Dec 2 2001
Pages: 248
Weight: 0.79
Height: 0.61 Width: 6.12 Depth: 9.23
Language: English

Philosophical debates over the fundamental principles that should guide life-and-death medical decisions usually occur at a considerable remove from the tough, real-world choices made in hospital rooms, courthouses, and legislatures. David Orentlicher seeks to change that, drawing on his extensive experience in both medicine and law to address the translation of moral principle into practice--a move that itself generates important moral concerns.

Orentlicher uses controversial life-and-death issues as case studies for evaluating three models for translating principle into practice. Physician-assisted suicide illustrates the application of ''generally valid rules, '' a model that provides predictability and simplicity and, more importantly, avoids the personal biases that influence case-by-case judgments. The author then takes up the debate over forcing pregnant women to accept treatments to save their fetuses. He uses this issue to weigh the ''avoidance of perverse incentives, '' an approach to translation that follows principles hesitantly for fear of generating unintended results. And third, Orentlicher considers the denial of life-sustaining treatment on grounds of medical futility in his evaluation of the ''tragic choices'' model, which hides difficult life-and-death choices in order to prevent paralyzing social conflict.


Also in

Philosophy

View All