The government, the media, HMOs, and individual Americans have all embraced programs to promote disease prevention. Yet obesity is up, exercise is down, teenagers continue to smoke, and sexually transmitted disease is rampant. Why? These intriguing essays examine the ethical and social problems that create subtle obstacles to changing Americans' unhealthy behavior.
The contributors raise profound questions about the role of the state or employers in trying to change health-related behavior, about the actual health and economic benefits of even trying, and about the freedom and...
The government, the media, HMOs, and individual Americans have all embraced programs to promote disease prevention. Yet obesity is up, exercise is ...
In the early 1970s, well before the field ofbioethics had established itself in medicine or anywhere else, the Hastings Center organized a small meeting of law school professors. The question we put to them was: what could or should be done to stimulate legal interest in the field? The answer we got was a wise one. We should do nothing to forcefeed the interest. It should simply be allowed to develop on its own, by the ordinary route of attracting a following because of its inherent importance. That is just what happened, and one of the first young legal scholars drawn to what remains (oddly...
In the early 1970s, well before the field ofbioethics had established itself in medicine or anywhere else, the Hastings Center organized a small meeti...
At the center of the debate over complementary and alternative medicine--from acupuncture and chiropractic treatments to homeopathy and nutritional supplements--is how to scientifically measure the effectiveness of a particular treatment. Fourteen scholars from the fields of medicine, philosophy, sociology, and cultural and folklore studies examine that debate, and the clash between growing public support and the often hostile stance of clinicians and medical researchers.
Proponents and critics have different methodologies and standards of evidence--raising the question of how much...
At the center of the debate over complementary and alternative medicine--from acupuncture and chiropractic treatments to homeopathy and nutritional...
Daniel Callahan---whose cofounding of The Hastings Center in 1969 was one of the most important milestones in the history of bioethics--has written on an uncommonly wide range of issues over a long career. They have moved back and forth between clinical care of individual patients and the ethical problems of health care research and delivery. Through his many writings, four core problems have recurred in all of his work, and influence each of the others. What is health and how has its understanding been shaped by medical progress and the culture of medicine and society? What is progress, a...
Daniel Callahan---whose cofounding of The Hastings Center in 1969 was one of the most important milestones in the history of bioethics--has written on...
SIDNEY CALLAHAN AND DANIEL CALLAHAN This book, like many other things to do with abortion, is a product of long controversy. Though carried out with cooperation, it was conceived in conflict. The conflict between the coeditors has per sisted for years-in fact, for at least half of their thirty-year marriage. One, Sidney, is prolife; the other, Daniel, is prochoice. Ever since the topic of abortion became of professional interest to us, in the 1960s, we have disagreed. At one time, while Daniel was writing a book on the subject, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (1970), we talked about the...
SIDNEY CALLAHAN AND DANIEL CALLAHAN This book, like many other things to do with abortion, is a product of long controversy. Though carried out with c...
A concern for the ethical instruction and formation of students has always been a part of American higher education. Yet that concern has by no means been uniform or free from controversy. The centrality of moral philosophy in the undergraduate curriculum during the mid-19th Century gave way later during that era to the first signs of increasing specialization of the disciplines. By the middle of the 20th Century, instruction in ethics had, by and large, become confined almost exclusively to departments of philosophy and religion. Efforts to introduce ethics teaching in the professional...
A concern for the ethical instruction and formation of students has always been a part of American higher education. Yet that concern has by no means ...
The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the...
The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in t...
In recent decades, we have seen five perilous and interlocking trends dominate global discourse: irreversible climate change, extreme food and water shortages, rising chronic illnesses, and rampant obesity. Why can't we make any progress in counteracting these problems despite vast expenditures of intellectual, institutional, and social capital? What makes these global emergencies the "wicked problems" that resist our best efforts and only grow more daunting? Daniel Callahan, noted author and the nation's preeminent scholar in bioethics, examines these global problems and shines a light...
In recent decades, we have seen five perilous and interlocking trends dominate global discourse: irreversible climate change, extreme food and water s...
