Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Series | Book | Chapter

213136

Why clinical bioethics so rarely gives morally normative guidance

Tristram Engelhardt

pp. 151-174

Abstract

What is bioethics, that it could so rapidly establish its academic and social status in the United States and then almost as quickly be accepted across the world? The emergence of bioethics is one of the remarkable cultural occurrences of the 20th century. Within seven years after the founding of the Kennedy Institute where the term bioethics was re-coined, the first edition of The Encyclopedia of Bioethics had been published. By the 1980s, bioethics was widely recognized as both an academic and a quasi-clinical profession, such that it is now impossible to imagine American medical schools without courses in bioethics or without ethicists serving on their Institutional Review Boards. For that matter, it is hard to imagine academically affiliated hospitals without ethics committees or bioethics consultants (health care ethics consultants). Bioethics and the presence of clinical ethicists have become part of the everyday lifeworld of not just the United States, but of much of Europe, the Pacific Rim, and elsewhere. In some forty years, bioethics has come to command a significant cultural and social authority.

Publication details

Published in:

Engelhardt Tristram (2012) Bioethics critically reconsidered: having second thoughts. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 151-174

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-2244-6_8

Full citation:

Engelhardt Tristram (2012) „Why clinical bioethics so rarely gives morally normative guidance“, In: T. Engelhardt (ed.), Bioethics critically reconsidered, Dordrecht, Springer, 151–174.