In this book, nine thought-leaders engage with some of the hottest moral issues in science and ethics. Based on talks originally given at the annual "Purdue Lectures in Ethics, Policy, and Science," the chapters explore interconnections between the three areas in an engaging and accessible way. Addressing a mixed public audience, the authors go beyond dry theory to explore some of the difficult moral questions that face scientists and policy-makers every day. The introduction presents a theoretical framework for the book, defining the term "bioethics" as extending well beyond human well-being to wider relations between humans, nonhuman animals, the environment, and biotechnologies. Three sections then explore the complex relationship between moral value, scientific knowledge, and policy making. The first section starts with thoughts on nonhuman animal pain and moves to a discussion of animal understanding. The second section explores climate change and the impact of "green" nanotechnology on environmental concerns. The final section begins with dialog about ethical issues in nanotechnology, moves to an exploration of bio-banks (a technology with broad potential medical and environmental impact), and ends with a survey of the impact of biotechnologies on (synthetic) life itself. Contents: Part 1: Animals: Moral agency, moral considerability, and consciousness (Daniel Kelly) and From minds to minding (Mark Bernstein); Animal Pain: What is it and why does it matter? (Bernard Rollin). Part 2: Environment: The future of environmental ethics (Holmes Rolston III); Climate change, human rights, and the trillionth ton of carbon (Henry Shue); Ethics, environment, and nanotechnology (Barbara Karn). Part 3: Biotechnologies: Nanotechnologies: Science and society (James Leary); Ethical issues in constructing and using bio-banks (Eric Meslin); Synthetic life: A new industrial revolution (Gregory Kaebnick).

Medical or hio- ethics has in recent years been a growth industry. Journals, Centers and Associations devoted to the subject proliferate. Medical schools seem increasingly to be filling rare positions in the humanities and social sciences with ethicists. Hardly a day passes without some media scrutiny of one or another ethical dilemma resulting from our new-found ability to transform the natural conditions of life. Although bioethics is a self-consciously interdisciplinary field, it has not attracted the collaboration of many social scientists. In fact, social scientists who specialize in the study of medicine have in many cases watched its development with a certain ambivalence. No one disputes the significance and often the painfulness of the issues and choices being addressed. But there is something about the way these issues are usually handled which seems somehow inappropri ate if not wrong-headed to one trained in a discipline like sociology or history. In their analyses of complex situations, ethicists often appear grandly oblivious to the social and cultural context in which these occur, and indeed to empirical referents of any sort. Nor do they seem very conscious of the cultural specificity of many of the values and procedures they utilize when making ethical judg ments. The unease felt by many in the social sciences was given articulate expression in a paper by Renee Fox and Judith Swazey which appeared in 1984.

In this book, nine thought-leaders engage with some of the hottest moral issues in science and ethics. Based on talks originally given at the annual "Purdue Lectures in Ethics, Policy, and Science," the chapters explore interconnections between the three areas in an engaging and accessible way. Addressing a mixed public audience, the authors go beyond dry theory to explore some of the difficult moral questions that face scientists and policy-makers every day. The introduction presents a theoretical framework for the book, defining the term "bioethics" as extending well beyond human well-being to wider relations between humans, nonhuman animals, the environment, and biotechnologies. Three sections then explore the complex relationship between moral value, scientific knowledge, and policy making. The first section starts with thoughts on nonhuman animal pain and moves to a discussion of animal understanding. The second section explores climate change and the impact of "green" nanotechnology on environmental concerns. The final section begins with dialog about ethical issues in nanotechnology, moves to an exploration of bio-banks (a technology with broad potential medical and environmental impact), and ends with a survey of the impact of biotechnologies on (synthetic) life itself. Contents: Part 1: Animals: Moral agency, moral considerability, and consciousness (Daniel Kelly) and From minds to minding (Mark Bernstein); Animal Pain: What is it and why does it matter? (Bernard Rollin). Part 2: Environment: The future of environmental ethics (Holmes Rolston III); Climate change, human rights, and the trillionth ton of carbon (Henry Shue); Ethics, environment, and nanotechnology (Barbara Karn). Part 3: Biotechnologies: Nanotechnologies: Science and society (James Leary); Ethical issues in constructing and using bio-banks (Eric Meslin); Synthetic life: A new industrial revolution (Gregory Kaebnick).

The contributions to this volume grew out of papers presented at an international conference Individual, Community & Society: Bioethics in the Third Millennium, held in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, between 25-28 May 1999. The conference was organized by the Centre for Comparative Public Management and Social Policy, and Ethics in Contemporary China Research Group, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong. The conference brought together scholars from east and west to investigate the challenges to caring and to traditional moral authorities that would confront bioethics in the third millennium. They explored the implications of moral loss and moral diversity in post-traditional and post-modern societies, and how these would shape the character of medical care and bioethics discourse in the new era. A proceedings volume under the same title of Individual, Community & Society: Bioethics in the Third Millennium, was published in May 1999 for the conference meeting.

Faith and Health examines controversial issues in medical ethics such as embryo stem cell research, the face transplant, cyborgs and the human and physician assisted suicide. Those struggling with such confusing and controversial subjects will appreciate the insights from ethics, theology, and law the author brings together. Here is guidance for personal or social responses to questions in medicine that affect us all.

Leading scholars debate politically progressive perspectives on bioethics and the implications for society, politics, and science in the twenty-first century.

Prominent bioethicists whose work is rooted in philosophy, religion, medicine, nursing, literature, history, and policy analysis join together to discuss their methods and professional insights, as well as to better define the field and its future development. Writing from the perspective of their own specialties, the authors: review just how their personal disciplines have contributed to bioethics, debate the current and future bioethical issues they face, and identify the most significant strengths and weaknesses in the current practice of bioethics. Seeking a sound foundation for the discipline, they also consider what basic knowledge and skills are necessary to be competent in bioethics, what methods and theoretical approaches are most promising for its future development, and what issues or perspectives have been neglected.