Medical ethics is the disciplined study of medical morality, with two goals: critically appraising current medical morality and identifying how it should be improved. Medical morality has three components. Physicians, patients, communities, and policy makers have beliefs about what is good and bad character, and right and wrong behavior, in patient care, biomedical research, medical education, and health policy. On the basis of these beliefs, physicians, patients, communities, and policy makers make judgments about how physicians ought to conduct themselves in patient care, research, education, and the formation and implementation of health policy. They then act on their judgments. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Medical Ethics contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on ethical reasoning and its key components; medical ethics, professional medical ethics, and bioethics; and topics in clinical ethics, research ethics, and healthcare policy ethics. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about medical ethics.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Medical Ethics contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on ethical reasoning and its key components; medical ethics, professional medical ethics, and bioethics; and topics in clinical ethics.

This Dictionary presents a broad range of topics relevant in present-day global bioethics. With more than 500 entries, this dictionary covers organizations working in the field of global bioethics, international documents concerning bioethics, personalities that have played a role in the development of global bioethics, as well as specific topics in the field.The book is not only useful for students and professionals in global health activities, but can also serve as a basic tool that explains relevant ethical notions and terms. The dictionary furthers the ideals of cosmopolitanism: solidarity, equality, respect for difference and concern with what human beings- and specifically patients - have in common, regardless of their backgrounds, hometowns, religions, gender, etc. Global problems such as pandemic diseases, disasters, lack of care and medication, homelessness and displacement call for global responses.This book demonstrates that a moral vision of global health is necessary and it helps to quickly understand the basic ideas of global bioethics.

A physician says, "I have an ethical obligation never to cause the death of a patient," another responds, "My ethical obligation is to relieve pain even if the patient dies." The current argument over the role of physicians in assisting patients to die constantly refers to the ethical duties of the profession. References to the Hippocratic Oath are often heard. Many modern problems, from assisted suicide to accessible health care, raise questions about the traditional ethics of medicine and the medical profession. However, few know what the traditional ethics are and how they came into being. This book provides a brief tour of the complex story of medical ethics evolved over centuries in both Western and Eastern culture. It sets this story in the social and cultural contexts in which the work of healing was practiced and suggests that, behind the many different perceptions about the ethical duties of physicians, certain themes appear constantly, and may be relevant to modern debates. The book begins with the Hippocratic medicine of ancient Greece, moves through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, and the long history of Indian 7nd Chinese medicine, ending as the problems raised modern medical science and technology challenge the settled ethics of the long tradition.

Immanuel Kant was one of the most significant philosophers of the modern age. Historical Dictionary of Kant and Kantianism, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on key terms of Kant’s philosophy, Kant’s major works and cover his most important predecessors and successors, concentrating especially on the relation of these thinkers to Kant himself. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Immanuel Kant.

Daoism is the oldest indigenous philosophic-spiritual tradition of China and one of the most ancient of the world’s spiritual structures. The name Daoism comes from the term dao, which meansa “way” or a “road” through the field or woods to one’s village. It is also means the “way” to do something, such as how a master craftsman carves wood, makes a bell, or even butchers an ox. But dao is also a nominative in the history of Daoism, referring to the energizing process that permeates and animates all of reality and moves it along. However, both text and practice in this tradition insist that dao itself cannot be described in words; itis not God in the sense of Western philosophy or religion. Daoism has no supreme being, even if there is an extensive grammar about nominally self-conscious entities and powers for which the Chinese use the word “spirit” (shen). For example, the highest powers of Daoism are variously called Taishang Laojun (the deified Laozi), the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi tianzun), the Jade Emperor (Yuhuang Shangdi), or the Perfected Warrior (Zhenwu). But these are expressions of dao in specific shen; they are not identical to Dao, except in the most unique case—when Laozi, the putative founder of Daoism and author of its major work, Daodejing, is said to be one with the dao. Historical Dictionary of Daoism contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, an extensive bibliography, and more than 400 cross-referenced entries related to the Chinese belief and worldview known as Daoism, including dozens of Daoist terms, names, and practices. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Daoism.

Arthur Schopenhauer made the momentous decision to become a philosopher when he was approximately 22 years old. Prior to that decision, he had been studying medicine at the university in Göttingen. By that age, however, he had concluded that life was a troublesome affair. So he resolved to spend his life reflecting upon it. Schopenhauer was doggedly determined to persevere in what he considered his mission in life, to reflect on the “ever-disquieting puzzle of existence,” to ascertain the meaning of living in a world steeped in suffering and death. He was confident that eventually his work would be recognized, a confidence that enabled him to weather laboring in relative philosophical obscurity for some forty years. What initiated the dawn of Schopenhauer’s fame was a review of his philosophy that appeared in a British journal in 1853, and ever since that time, Schopenhauer drew a readership, one broader than most Western philosophers. He is read not simply and solely by professional philosophers, but also by the wider learned world. Indeed, some have claimed that he is the most widely read Western philosopher. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy contains a chronology, an introduction, an appendix, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on all of Schopenhauer’s books, significant philosophical ideas and concepts, as well as entries covering significant figures in his life and those influenced by this thinking.. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Arthur Schopenhauer.