Principles of Biomedical Ethics

Tom L. Beaucamp & James F. Childress, 2009, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 6th edition.

Yes, my copy is copyrighted 2009! Does this mean it is not protected until next year? *evil grin*

Tom Beaucamp is from the Kennedy of Ethics and Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. and James Childress, Department of religious Studies of the University of Virginia.

This book is essential reading for students of bioethics in many universities. It is 'supposedly secular' in that it draws its foundational principles of moral norms from the philosphies of utilitarianism, Kantianism, rights theory and communitarianism. The principles of biomedical ethics is distilled into four prinicples:
(1) Respect for Autonomy
(2) Nonmaleficence
(3) Beneficence
(4) Justice.

They recognised that there are two way to do biomedical ethics. One is using top-down models (theory and application) and the other is bottom-up models (cases and analogy). They suggests an integrated model using reflective equilibrium.

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