The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics

Written by Bonnie Steinbock, ed. Reviewed By David B. Fletcher

After almost forty years of explosive growth and activity, bioethics has become a mature form of interdisciplinary enterprise. Bioethics journals, conferences, academic programs, and centers proliferate, and bioethicists frequently are called to serve on hospital ethics committees and government commissions, to speak to media, and to testify before congresses and parliaments. From its origin in the work of theologians such as Joseph Fletcher and Paul Ramsey, bioethics evolved into an interdisciplinary field. However, the theoretical work that undergirds this endeavor is primarily philosophical.

This volume from Oxford University Press, edited by philosopher Bonnie Steinbock, is an excellent resource for those who want to delve deeper into the philosophical issues raised by the concerns of bioethics. Most of the authors are American and British philosophers well known to those familiar with the field, including Steinbock, Felicia Ackerman, John D. Arras, Allen Buchanan, Gerald Dworkin, John Harris, Ruth Macklin, Don Marquis, and Ronald Munson, joined by a number of other bioethicists, most of whom are well known. They have each contributed an original essay on one of thirty topics. These include standard issues such as the methodology of bioethics, autonomy, justice, death, reproductive technology, abortion, transplantation, human and animal research ethics, and moral status, and such newer topics as human enhancement technologies, biobanking, stem cell research, cloning, pharmacogenomics, and bioterrorism. The first essay, a masterful review of the issue of bioethical method and the fate of the “four principle” approach against a flock of challengers such as virtue ethics and casuistry, is written by James Childress, one of the co-authors of the canonical text of modern bioethics, Principles of Bioethics.

This is an excellent collection of essays demonstrating the state of secular bioethics today. As far as this book is concerned, religious and theological perspectives have little relevance to bioethics and little to contribute to its debates. There are no authors writing from a particular theological perspective, nor do any topics deal substantively with theological or religious concerns. The book, though excellent, would have been stronger with a chapter on theological approaches to bioethics from someone like Allen Verhey or H. Tristam Englehardt Jr. In spite of this glaring omission, it remains a very worthwhile collection of essays for philosophers, theologians, physicians, lawyers, and others interested in bioethics.


David B. Fletcher

David B. Fletcher
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois, USA

Other Articles in this Issue

For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel (Ezra 7:10)...

A fundamental requirement in an inclusivist understanding of the relationship between Christianity and other religions is evidence of God's salvific activity outside of any knowledge of Christ...

Acts 1:1 opens with a reference to what Jesus "began to do and teach"1 recounted in the Gospel of Luke, indicating that this second volume will carry the narrative of Jesus' actions and teachings forward...

It was not too long ago that Kevin Vanhoozer answered the question Is There a Meaning in This Text? by relocating meaning in authorial intention,1 doing so even more robustly (not to mention, evangelically) than E...

The original question I was asked to address was "How does our commitment to the primacy of the gospel tie into our obligation to do good to all, especially those of the household of faith, to serve as salt and light in the world, to do good to the city?" I will divide this question into two parts: (1) If we are committed to the primacy of the gospel, does the gospel itself serve as the basis and motivation for ministry to the poor? (2) If so, how then does that ministry relate to the proclamation of the gospel?