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A Rich Bioethics: Public Policy, Biotechnology, and the Kass Council (ND Studies in Medical Ethics) (Notre Dame Studies in Medical Ethics)

A Rich Bioethics: Public Policy, Biotechnology, and the Kass Council (ND Studies in Medical Ethics) (Notre Dame Studies in Medical Ethics)

by Adam Briggle (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2010

    $35.64
Synopsis

Several presidents have created bioethics councils to advise their administrations on the importance, meaning and possible implementation or regulation of rapidly developing biomedical technologies. From 2001 to 2005, the President's Council on Bioethics, created by President George W. Bush, was under the leadership of Leon Kass. The Kass Council, as it was known, undertook what Adam Briggle describes as a more rich understanding of its task than that of previous councils. The council sought to understand what it means to advance human flourishing at the intersection of philosophy, politics, science, and technology within a democratic society.

Briggle's survey of the history of U.S. public bioethics and advisory bioethics commissions, followed by an analysis of what constitutes a rich bioethics, forms the first part of the book. The second part treats the Kass Council as a case study of a federal institution that offered public, ethical advice within a highly polarised context, with the attendant charges of inappropriate politicisation and policy irrelevance. The conclusion synthesises the author's findings into a story about the possible relationships between philosophy and policy making.

A Rich Bioethics: Public Policy, Biotechnology, and the Kass Council will attract students and scholars in bioethics and the fields of science, technology, and society, as well as those interested in the ethical and political dilemmas raised by modern science.

$35.64

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 240
 Edition: 1
 Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: 15 Jun 2010
ISBN 10: 0268022216
ISBN 13: 9780268022211

Media Reviews
In this book Dr. Briggle provides a sympathetic account of the President's Council on Bioethics led by Dr. Leon Kass. He shows the wisdom of the approach to bioethics taken by the Kass Council and corrects the unfair and often nasty attacks on the Council and Dr. Kass himself. It is a persuasive and thoughtful reconstruction of the Council's goals and rationale. --Law & Medicine
Briggle had an inspired idea to make the controversies surrounding Leon Kass's chairmanship of the President's Council on Bioethics (2001-5) his point of departure to argue the need for bioethics based in humanistic questioning rather than accepting the more restricted task of what he calls instrumental bioethics, which exists to offer specific policy guidelines. The issues are clear throughout but perhaps best crystallized near the end of the book, when Briggle presents criticisms that the Kass Council failed to be sufficiently policy oriented. --Science and Public Policy
Briggle offers the first book-length analysis of the council's work, setting it in a wider philosophical, historical, and political context. The book also discusses how the procedure for selecting council members led to accusations that it was ideologically narrow. The book's well-balanced analysis and close but fair readings of the council's documents show how the Kass Council dealt with differences and was far more tolerant of varying opinions than many think. This book would be a useful supplementary text in classes on bioethics and public policy. --Choice
. . . Briggle sketches a set of views about nature, rationality, and the self that is decidedly modern and characteristic of instrumentalist thinking. . . . A Rich Bioethics is well worth reading . . . it offers a model for public ethics committees that merits serious consideration. --Commonweal
Author Bio

Adam Briggle is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Texas.