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"Carl Elliott always writes intriguing essays at the intersection between ethics, medicine, and general philosophy, so it is a real pleasure to have a new installment in his continuing reflections on the fascinating problems that arise in this territory. Aside from anything else, he writes well for the general reader, who can enjoy and learn from his work."--Stephen Toulmin, University of Southern California
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. Introduction: Treating Bioethics / Carl Elliott
2. Religion, Superstition, and Medicine / James C. Edwards
3. Patient Multiplicity, Medical Rituals, and Good Dying: Some Wittgensteinian Observations / Larry Churchill
4. “Unlike Calculating Rules?”: Clinical Judgment, Formalized Decision Making, and Wittgenstein / James Lindemann Nelson
5. Wittgenstein’s Startling Claim: Consciousness and the Persistent Vegetative State / Grant Gillett
6. Attitudes, Souls, and Persons: Children with Severe Neurological Impairment / Carl Elliott
7. Why Wittgenstein’s Philosophy Should Not Prevent Us From Taking Animals Seriously / David DeGrazia
8. Injustice and Animals / Cora Diamond
9. Bioethics, Wisdom, and Expertise / Paul Johnston
10. Wittgensteinian Lessons on Moral Particularism / Margaret Olivia Little
11. Wittgenstein: Personality, Philosophy, Ethics / Knut Erik Tranöy
Notes on Contributors
Index
About the author
Carl Elliott is Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Philosophy at the Center for Bioethics, the University of Minnesota. He is the author of A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture, and Identity and The Rules of Insanity: Moral Responsibility and Mental Illness, and coeditor of The Last Physician: Walker Percy and the Moral Life of Medicine, also published by Duke University Press.
Summary
Uses insights from the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein to rethink bioethics. While Wittgenstein produced little formal writing on ethics, this volume shows that, in fact, ethical issues permeate the entirety of his work. It brings startling insights and clarifications to contemporary ethical problems posed by the realities of modern medicine.
