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23Killing and Allowing to Die: Insights from AugustineChristian Bioethics 27 (3): 264-278. 2021.One major argument against prohibiting euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is that there is no rational basis for distinguishing between killing and allowing to die: if we permit patients to die by forgoing life-sustaining treatments, then we also ought to permit euthanasia and PAS. In this paper, the author argues, contra this claim, that it is in fact coherent to differentiate between killing and allowing to die. To develop this argument, the author provides an analysis of Saint Au…Read more
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20Bioethics, Conflicts of Interest, the Limits of TransparencyHastings Center Report 33 (4): 40-43. 2003.The movement in bioethics toward disclosure of financial conflicts of interest is well and good, most of the time. But in some cases, disclosure is not only unnecessary but destructive. When bioethicists advance arguments whose premises and logical moves are open to scrutiny, disclosure—far from clearing the air of bias—introduces bias.
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20Artificial Nutrition and Hydration and Care at the End of LifeThe National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 21 (3): 453-482. 2021.New Natural Law Theory and the Catholic medico-moral tradition often lead to similar conclusions in hard cases regarding end-of-life care. Considering the provision of artificial nutrition and hydration to patients suffering from post-coma unresponsive wakefulness, however, brings to light subtle ways in which NNL differs from the centuries-old natural law tradition. In this essay, I formalize the methodology embedded within the casuistry of the medico-moral tradition and show how it differs fro…Read more
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19Death Lost in TranslationAmerican Journal of Bioethics 23 (2): 17-19. 2023.We thank Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland for their article on the dead donor rule (Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland 2023). We would like to take this opportunity to go beyond the dead donor rule in order to r...
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19Engaging Pellegrino’s philosophy of medicine: Can one of the founders of the field still help us today?Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 40 (3): 165-168. 2019.
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16The virtues and the vices of the outrageousTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 44 (2): 107-108. 2023.
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14A Computerized System for Entering Orders to Limit Treatment: Implementation and EvaluationJournal of Clinical Ethics 8 (3): 258-263. 1997.
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14In Defense of the Amphibians: A Critical Appraisal of Engelhardt on the Recent History of Christian BioethicsChristian Bioethics 20 (2): 187-195. 2014.
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14An Open Letter to Norman Cantor Regarding Dementia and Physician‐Assisted SuicideHastings Center Report 48 (4): 28-30. 2018.Dear Norm,Thank you for sharing such a personal and heartfelt essay. I have been asked by the editors to comment. Reading it inspires me to do so in a similarly heartfelt way. Although I don't know you well, I thought I'd write to you as if you were my patient.I share your sense that Alzheimer disease is a terrible scourge. I've seen much of this disease over a lifetime of practice, and I deeply understand its ravages and the debility and suffering it causes. But what you propose is not a good s…Read more
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14Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia: Before, During, and After the Holocaust (edited book)Lexington Books. 2020.This book provides a history of Nazi medical euthanasia programs, demonstrating that arguments in their favor were widely embraced by Western medicine before the Third Reich. Contributors find significant continuities between history and current physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and urge caution about their legalization or implementation.
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12Influential Statements on the Provision of Artificial Nutrition and Hydration as a Means of Sustaining LifeThe National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 21 (3): 485-493. 2021.
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12Controversial arguments are controversialTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 44 (4): 325-326. 2023.
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11ICU Care in a PandemicHastings Center Report 51 (6): 58-58. 2021.This letter to the editor responds to commentaries in the September‐October 2021issue of the Hastings Center Report by Douglas B. White and Bernard Lo, by Govind Persad, and by Virginia A. Brown, which were themselves responding, in part, to the article “Life‐Years and Rationing in the Covid‐19 Pandemic: A Critical Analysis,” by MaryKatherine Gaurke, Bernard Prusak, Kyeong Yun Jeong, Emily Scire, and Daniel P. Sulmasy.
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108. Who Owns the Human Genome?In Daniel Monsour (ed.), Ethics & the New Genetics: An Integrated Approach, University of Toronto Press. pp. 123-133. 2007.
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10Correction to: Whole-brain death and integration: realigning the ontological concept with clinical diagnostic testsTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 41 (5): 281-282. 2020.My article, “Whole-brain death and integration: Realigning the ontological concept with clinical diagnostic tests”.
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10Confidence and Knowledge of Medical Ethics Among Interns Entering Residency in Different SpecialtiesJournal of Clinical Ethics 16 (3): 230-235. 2005.
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9Christian Ethics and the Delivery of Health Care (review)Hastings Center Report 29 (5): 42. 1999.
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7Ethics and EvidenceJournal of Clinical Ethics 30 (1): 56-66. 2019.Towards the end of the last century, bioethics underwent an “empirical turn,” characterized by an increasing number of empirical studies about issues of bioethical concern. Taking a cue from the evidence-based medicine movement, some heralded this as a turn toward evidence-based ethics. However, it has never been clear what this means, and the strategies and goals of evidence-based ethics remain ambiguous. In this article, the author explores what the potential aims of this movement might be, ul…Read more
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5The Changing Face of Health Care: A Christian Appraisal of Managed Care, Resource Allocation, and Patient-Caregiver Relationships (review)Hastings Center Report 29 (5): 42. 1999.Christians have considered the care of the sick to be a form of ministry ever since the time of Jesus. As Christians prepare to commemorate the second millenium of the birth of the founder of their religion, they cannot help but notice that health care is changing more than it ever has in the last 2,000 years. Nor can they help but notice that these changes threaten the notion that health care can be practiced as a genuine ministry in the twenty-first century.
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4Dignity and bioethics : history, theory, and selected applicationsIn Adam Schulman (ed.), Human Dignity and Bioethics: Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics, [president's Council On Bioethics. 2008.
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3The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (review)Review of Metaphysics 55 (4): 863-864. 2002.This is the third republication of Jonas’s original, first published in 1966, and previously republished in 1979 and 1982. The prestige of repeated republication generally designates a classic, and this book, while still known by too few, deserves such acclaim. As a general rule, philosophers of science concern themselves either with explaining what scientists do or with prescribing what scientists ought to do. Jonas has a different aim. He examines the fundamental underlying presuppositions of …Read more
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Killing and Allowing to DieDissertation, Georgetown University. 1995.In this dissertation, I defend the view that the distinction between killing and allowing to die is coherent and morally important. ;I first review the history of the distinction from Hippocrates to the early 20th century. I next show that contemporary accounts of the distinction do not reflect the intuitions of those who employ it. I dismiss accounts based on acts and omissions, causing and allowing, harming and benefitting, double effect, the movements of agents, social expectations, and causa…Read more
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ForewordIn Xavier Symons (ed.), Why conscience matters: a defence of conscientious objection in healthcare, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 2022.
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ForewordIn Xavier Symons (ed.), Why conscience matters: a defence of conscientious objection in healthcare, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 2022.
Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |