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22The common good in a secular society: The relevance of a Roman catholic notion to the healthcare allocation debateJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 18 (6): 569-587. 1993.This essay analyzes Roman Catholic social teaching on the right to health care and the legitimacy of healthcare rationing. It considers that discussion at two levels: (1) the specific warrants that undergird key terms; and (2) the accessibility and applicability of those warrants to policy choices in a secular society. The essay concludes with a number of broader reflections meant to reserve an appropriate place for religious voices in the process of policy-making, as distinguished from its just…Read more
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82Theoretical and clinical concerns about brain death: The debate continuesJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 26 (5). 2001.This Article does not have an abstract
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16Suffering, Sovereignty, and the Purposes of God: Christian Convictions and Medical KillingChristian Bioethics 1 (3): 249-255. 1995.Despite a variety of “non-ecumenical” features in Christian arguments about suicide, assisted suicide, and euthanasia, there are obvious “ecumenical” aspects to be found in the general Christian prohibition of these practices. A fair reading of the Christian tradition requires that we acknowledge both the differences that distinguish particular perspectives and the fundamental themes that allow an identifiably Christian position to emerge in stark contrast to the secular discussion of these issu…Read more
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68Reconsidering wisdom, keywords, concepts, and modelsJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 29 (6). 2004.This Article does not have an abstract
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19Perseverations on a critical themeJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 18 (5): 491-502. 1993.In response to my earlier critique of recent attempts to rebut principlism as an ethical approach, Green, Gert, and Clouser (GG&C) have in turn offered their own critique of my appraisal. This essay identifies eight major criticisms GG&C raise in their response and offers a rejoinder to each. Among them, three are especially important: (1) that the label of ‘deductivism’ fails to capture GG&C's ethical method and should be replaced by ‘descriptivism’; (2) that pluralistic accounts, including pri…Read more
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9Engelhardt’s Diagnosis and Prescription: Persuasive or Problematic?Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (6): 631-649. 2018.In a spirit of critical appreciation, this essay challenges several core aspects of the critique of secular morality and the defense of Orthodox Christianity offered by H. Tristram Engelhardt in After God. First, I argue that his procedurally driven approach to a binding morality based solely on a principle of permission leaves morality without any substantive definition in general terms, in ways that are both conceptually problematic and also at odds with Engelhardt’s long-standing distinction …Read more
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116Concepts and methods in recent bioethics: Critical responsesJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 23 (5). 1998.This Article does not have an abstract
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8Attitudes toward the Use of Deception in Psychologically Induced PainIRB: Ethics & Human Research 15 (6): 6. 1993.
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88The method of 'principlism': A critique of the critiqueJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (5): 487-510. 1992.Several scholars have recently criticized the dominant emphasis upon mid-level principles in bioethics best exemplified by Beauchamp and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics . In Part I of this essay, I assess the fairness and cogency of three broad criticisms raised against ‘principlism’ as an approach: (1) that principlism, as an exercise in applied ethics, is insufficiently attentive to the dialectical relations between ethical theory and moral practice; (2) that principlism fails to o…Read more
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18Informed consent as a tool for medical managementJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 21 (1): 101-109. 1996.
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12Duties to OthersHastings Center Report 25 (5): 44. 1995.Book reviewed in this article: Duties to Others. Edited by Courtney S. Campbell and B. Andrew Lustig.
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29The Troubled Dream of Life. Daniel Callahan. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 3 (3): 486. 1994.
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40Roman Catholic Norms and the Allocation of Critical Care ResourcesHEC Forum 15 (1): 100-106. 2003.
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4Christian Bioethics: Reflections on a Quarter-Century with the JournalChristian Bioethics 28 (1): 11-24. 2022.This essay reflects on 25 years since Christian Bioethics began publication and, in somewhat autobiographical fashion, engages two core concerns. First, although “non-ecumenism” may often appear a pretext for contention and division, I suggest that a respectful non-ecumenism may provide the opportunity for dialogue and the occasion for employing certain tools from religious studies. Second, although many are skeptical about the possibilities of identifying a “common morality,” a defense of that …Read more
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Duties to OthersSpringer. 1994.Despite reservoirs of moral discourse about duties in religious communities, professional caregiving traditions, and philosophical perspectives, the dominant moral language in contemporary biomedical ethics is that of `rights'. Duties to Others begins to correct this imbalance in our ethical language through theoretical expositions of the ideas of duty and of the `other', and by applied exemplifications of particular duties to identified others that arise in the context of health care. A pronoun…Read more
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43Managed Care, Catholic Vision, and the Claims of JusticeChristian Bioethics 6 (3): 219-229. 2000.There are numerous challenges posed to Roman Catholic health care institutions by recent developments in health care delivery. Some are practical, involving the acceptable limits of accommodation to and collaboration with secular networks of health care delivery. Others, quite often implicated in the first set, are explicitly theological. What does it mean to be a distinctively Roman Catholic health care institution? What are the nature and the scope of Roman Catholic institutional identity? Mor…Read more
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49The Church and the World: Are There Theological Resources for a Common Conversation?Christian Bioethics 13 (2): 225-244. 2007.Abortion is an especially salient issue for considering the general problematic of religiously based conversation in the public square. It remains deeply divisive, fully thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade. Such divisiveness cannot be interpreted as merely an expression of profound differences between “secular” and “religious” voices, because differences also emerge among Christian denominations, reflecting different sources of moral authority, different accounts of moral discernment, and differ…Read more
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41Sexual Ethics and Communal Judgments: On the Pluralism of Virtues, Values, and PracticesChristian Bioethics 4 (1): 3-13. 1998.Different judgments by Christian communities on issues in sexual ethics involve different weightings of various sources of moral authority, different understandings of the normativity of the natural, and different assessments of the scope of freedom to be exercised in relation to the goods of marriage. These fundamental differences of interpretation can be exemplified by the ongoing Roman Catholic discussion of the legitimacy of voluntary sterilization in certain “hard cases.” The contributors t…Read more
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76Challenging "common-sense" assumptions in bioethicsJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 30 (4). 2005.This Article does not have an abstract
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89At the Roots of Christian Bioethics: Critical Essays on the Thought of H. Tristram Engelhardt, JrChristian Bioethics 17 (3): 315-327. 2011.H. Tristram Engelhardt has made profound contributions to both philosophical and religious bioethics, and his philosophical and religious works may be read in mutually illuminating ways. As a philosopher, Engelhardt has mustered a powerful critique of secular efforts to develop a shared substantive morality. As a religious scholar, Engelhardt has affirmed a Christian bioethics that does not emanate from human rationality but from the experience of God found in Orthodox Christianity. In this coll…Read more