Ethicist Murray leaves the rarefied air of abstract moral philosophy in order to reflect on the moral perplexities of ordinary life and ordinary people. Observing that abstract moral terms such as altruism and selfishness can be buried in the everyday doings of families, he maintains that...

"The volume deserves our serious attention. The authors have provided us an invaluable primer about the HGP and its implications for the future of American health care." --Jurimetrics

"This book does make a real contribution... in explaining why the genetics
revolution holds so much promise and why it is so difficult to bring that promise to fruition." --The Journal of Legal Medicine

..". marked by a forward-looking, analytically and empirically grounded thematic coherence. The editors' carefully crafted template and contributions successfully focus and organize the...

Synthetic biology, which aims to design and build organisms that serve human needs, has potential applications that range from producing biofuels to programming human behavior. The emergence of this new form of biotechnology, however, raises a variety of ethical questions -- first and foremost, whether synthetic biology is intrinsically troubling in moral terms. Is it an egregious example of scientists "playing God"? Synthetic Biology and Morality takes on this threshold ethical question, as well as others that follow, offering a range of philosophical and political perspectives on...