Main description:

This bioethics handbook offers concise, up-to-date, and easy to read chapters on a broad range of bioethical topics in the following categories: foundational concepts, theory and method, healthcare ethics, research ethics, public health, technology, and the environment.

The volume provides a snapshot of current bioethics, taking into account current affairs and emerging new topics. Each chapter acknowledges and critically breaks down the historical developments of the subject and the most authoritative existing literature on respective topics, providing accessible and up-to-date philosophical analysis. As such, the chapters are designed to be attractive as primary or supplementary teaching material for university classes of the philosophical or bioethical variety, with clear demarcations and indicators for key terms, ideas, and arguments that should also facilitate productive note-taking and points for critical discussion for students. The handbook also serves as a one-stop starting resource for multi- and interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners who engage with bioethics in their work.

Contents:

Key: green indicates new/emerging topics not seen/uncommon in other handbooks of similar type

Foundational Concepts

Moral Status
Autonomy and Responsibility
Disability
Health, Disease, and Well-being
Neurodiversity
Mental Health and Psychiatry

Theory and Method

Ethical Theories
Bioethical Principles
Naturalism in Bioethics
Phenomenological approaches
The Precautionary Principle

Healthcare Ethics

Clinical Decision-making

Consent and Treatment
Substituted/Proxy Decision-making/Guardianship
Nursing Ethics
Conscientious Objection

Life and Death

Euthanasia and Assisted Death
Refusals of Lifesaving Treatment
Organ Sales and Transplants
Abortion and Sex Selection

Epistemic Challenges in Healthcare

Bias in Healthcare
Epistemic Injustice
Epistemic Paternalism

Research Ethics

Consent and Understanding in Research
Animal Experimentation
Race and Gender in Research

Public Health

Public Health: Foundations

Priority Setting and Resource Allocation
Health Care Rights
Inequality, Justice, and Vulnerable Populations

Public Health: Applied Issues

Big Pharma and Ethics
Occupational and work-related illness
Nudging and Paternalism in Public Health

Public Health: Pandemic Ethics

Infectious Diseases and Ethical Dilemmas
Pandemic Planning
Vaccination Ethics
Human Infection Studies

Technology

Reproduction

The Ethics of Parenthood
Prenatal Testing
Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Artificial Womb Technology

Developments in Biomedical Technologies

AI and Robots in Medical Practice
Performance Enhancing Drugs
Cosmetic Enhancement
Neuroethics

The Environment

Medical Waste
Climate Change
Population Control
Migration and Health