Debating health care ethics: Canadian contexts

"In this updated second edition, Debating Health Care Ethics explores contemporary moral challenges in health care, providing students with the essential tools to understand and critically evaluate the leading arguments in the field and to develop their own arguments on important moral problems in health care. Written in a clear and concise way, the textbook’s first three chapters explore the nature of arguments and ethical theories, while the remaining chapters introduce students to moral problems in health care through case studies and dramas that feature complex scenarios involving patients, family members, and health care providers. Each case study and drama is followed by a lively debate where the authors defend their unique approaches to the dilemma. This new edition now includes more gender inclusive dramas, an expanded discussion of feminist ethics, a case study on euthanasia that highlights changes to Canadian law, and an update on fetal consciousness that informs the debate on abortion. Emphasizing critical issues in health care from a Canadian perspective, this essential textbook will benefit students in philosophy, nursing, and health studies."--

Revision of: Smolkin, Doran, 1963-. Debating health care ethics.

Includes glossary: pages 339-358.

Chapter 1. Arguments and methodology. Introduction ; Arguments ; Philosophical methodology: counterexamples and thought experiments ; Common fallacies ; Conclusion -- Chapter 2. Philosophical ethics: an introduction. Introduction. Three types of ethical inquiry ; Skeptical concerns: Ethical relativism ; Normative ethical theory ; Classical act utilitarianism ; Rule utilitarianism ; Non-consequentialism and deontology ; Kant's ethics ; Pluralistic deontology ; Social contract theory ; Hobbes's social contract theory ; Rawls's social contract theory: Justice as fairness ; Aristotle's virtue theory ; Feminist ethics ; The ethics of care ; Conclusion -- Chapter 3. Our philosophical approaches. Introduction ; Doran's pluralistic approach to ethics ; Patrick's virtue-based approach to ethics ; Warren's approach to ethics: practical social contract theory ; Conclusion -- Chapter 4. Autonomy and the right to refuse treatment. Introduction ; Drama ; Debate ; Moral issues raised by the case ; An argument for the right to ignore experts ; Objections to premise (5) ; Objections to premise (7); Summary -- Chapter 5. Euthanasia. Introduction ; Case Description ; Deciding which issues to debate …