In Search of the Good: A Life in Bioethics

In Search of the Good A Life in Bioethics One of the founding fathers of bioethics describes the development of the field and his thinking on some of the crucial issues of our time Daniel Callahan helped invent the field of bioethics than for

One of the founding fathers of bioethics describes the development of the field and his thinking on some of the crucial issues of our time Daniel Callahan helped invent the field of bioethics than forty years ago when he decided to use his training in philosophy to grapple with ethical problems in biology and medicine Disenchanted with academic philosophy because ofOne of the founding fathers of bioethics describes the development of the field and his thinking on some of the crucial issues of our time Daniel Callahan helped invent the field of bioethics than forty years ago when he decided to use his training in philosophy to grapple with ethical problems in biology and medicine Disenchanted with academic philosophy because of its analytical bent and distance from the concerns of real life, Callahan found the ethical issues raised by the rapid medical advances of the 1960s which included the birth control pill, heart transplants, and new capacities to keep very sick people alive to be philosophical questions with immediate real world relevance In this memoir, Callahan describes his part in the founding of bioethics and traces his thinking on critical issues including embryonic stem cell research, market driven health care, and medical rationing He identifies the major challenges facing bioethics today and ruminates on its future.Callahan writes about founding the Hastings Center the first bioethics research institution with the author and psychiatrist Willard Gaylin in 1969, and recounts the challenges of running a think tank while keeping up a prolific flow of influential books and articles Editor of the famous liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal in the 1960s, Callahan describes his now secular approach to issues of illness and mortality He questions the idea of endle