Is There Ethicist in the House ?

In this timely book, Jonathan D. Moreno takes up some of the most important questions in clinical ethics today. Moreno's view is that moral values emerge out of human experience, a view that creates a compelling conceptual framework for bioethics. To begin, Moreno recalls his experience as a hospital ethicist and how that shaped his understanding of what bioethics is about, both as theory and practice. His focus then turns to a difficult moral paradox: the need to advance medical knowledge by using human beings in research. His account of the way American medicine has reached a strong protectionist approach to managing this paradox leads to discussions of vulnerable groups whose circumstances demand that we reflect on the way this issue should be approached in the future. Moreno then takes up the historical and ethical role of the national security dimensions of human experimentation. His account casts a drastically different light on the origins of modern bioethics, especially on the central document of modern human experimentation, the Nuremberg Code. In the last section, Moreno pushes the bioethics envelope in a naturalistic examination of emerging values concerning the neurosciences and bioterrorism. Is There an Ethicist in the House? tackles difficult issues with clarity and insight. The book will be welcomed not only by medical professionals but also by lay readers who seek to understand the philosophical foundations of contemporary medical ethics. Jonathan D. Moreno is Kornfeld Professor and Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the Center for American Progress. He has been a senior staff member for two presidential commissions and an advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.