Principles of Biomedical Ethics

by Tom L. Beauchamp (Author), James F. Childress (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $3.22

  This book first appeared in 1979, and was an attempt to elucidate the underlying principles of medical ethics in non-technical language. Rather than taking a topical approach to ethical issues, the authors systematically analyzed the principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice to provide an integrated framework through which diverse moral problems could be handled. For the third edition, the authors have provided new material on autonomy and informed consent, virtue, privacy, supererogation, rationing, death and dying, clinical research, AIDs and many other issues. This text has a sharper clinical focus. Many new cases have been added, and short case vignettes have been woven into the text.

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $3.22

  This edition represents a thorough-going revision of what has become a classic text in biomedical ethics. Major structural changes mark the revision. The authors have added a new concluding chapter on methods that, along with its companion chapter on moral theory, emphasizes convergence across theories, coherence in moral justification, and the common morality. They have simplified the opening chapter on moral norms which introduces the framework of prima facie moral principles and ways to specify and balance them. Together with the shift of advanced material on theory to the back of the book, this heavily revised introductory chapter will make it easier for the wide range of students entering bioethics courses to use this text. Another important change is the increased emphasis on character and moral agency, drawing the distinction between agents and actions. The sections on truth telling, disclosure of bad news, privacy, conflicts of interest, and research on human subjects have also been thoroughly reworked. The four core chapters on principles (respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice) and the chapter on professional-patient relationships retain their familiar structure, but the authors have completely updated their content to reflect developments in philosophical analysis as well as in research, medicine, and health care. Throughout, they have used a number of actual cases to illuminate and to test their theory, method, and framework of principles.