Arthur L. Caplan
Autor von The Sociobiology Debate
Über den Autor
Arthur L. Caplan is Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics, and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania
Reihen
Werke von Arthur L. Caplan
When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust (Contemporary Issues in Biomedicine, Ethics, and Society) (1992) 34 Exemplare
Am I My Brother's Keeper?: The Ethical Frontiers of Biomedicine (Medical Ethics) (1997) 10 Exemplare
If I Were a Rich Man Could I Buy a Pancreas?: And Other Essays on the Ethics of Health Care (Medical Ethics) (1992) 10 Exemplare
Darwin, Marx and Freud: Their Influence on Moral Theory (The Hastings Center Series in Ethics) (1984) 9 Exemplare
Compelled Compassion: Government Intervention in the Treatment of Critically Ill Newborns (Contemporary Issues in… (1992) 2 Exemplare
Compelled compassion : government intervention in the treatment of citically ill newborns (1992) 1 Exemplar
Which babies shall live? : humanistic dimensions of the care of imperiled newborns (2012) 1 Exemplar
The Sociobiology Debate 1 Exemplar
Zugehörige Werke
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Geburtstag
- 1950
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- USA
- Geburtsort
- Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Wohnorte
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
New York, New York, USA
Waltham, Massachusetts, USA - Ausbildung
- Brandeis University (B.A.)
Columibia University (Ph.D., Philosophy) - Berufe
- bioethicist
university professor - Organisationen
- University of Pennsylvania
New York University - Preise und Auszeichnungen
- Person of the Year, USA Today (2001)
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Rezensionen
Smart Mice, Not So Smart People: An Interesting and… von Arthur L. Caplan
Perhaps I liked this book because I agreed with the author so much. I found myself agreeing out loud with the book. It was written during the previous presidential administration which declared many thing forbidden. I've always been interested in bioethics. I'd like to see what new topics would be chosen for a current book. I know I would like to see a mental healthcare reform.
Perhaps I liked this book because I agreed with the author so much. I found myself agreeing out loud with the book. It was written during the previous presidential administration which declared many thing forbidden. I've always been interested in bioethics. I'd like to see what new topics would be chosen for a current book. I know I would like to see a mental healthcare reform.
This is a collection of interesting essays on various topics relating to biological social issues, especially ethics. They are grouped by topic, and undated, but it becomes obvious that they are written over a spread of time when an essay discussing the first cloning of a cat comes before an essay noting that cats, dogs, and primates have never been cloned. Oops, but none-the-less, his points about cloning are still well-taken. Just as identical twins raised in the same household are two different people, so a clone of Fido, Fluffy, or a deceased relative still wouldn't be the original.
Fans of George W. Bush will not be happy, because Caplan clearly has a low opinion of his leadership in this area. He regards some of it as wrong headed, and some of it as mere grandstanding. So-called “embryo adoption” is an example of both. Bush hails the Snowflakes program which seeks to have excess embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) implanted to help other childless couples. That program regards all embryos as person, hence the rhetoric of “adoption.” Great when it works, but this is not a novel idea, couple undergoing IVF have always had the option of donating them, and the leftover embryos may not have been implanted in the original couple because they were of poor quality.
I particularly liked the points that Caplan made in his introduction. He remarks that teaching ethics alone is insufficient: “If parents or society expect perfection from those they teach ethics to, they will be disappointed. If instead they create the basis for remorse, self-correction, and a striving to do better, then they will have done a good job transmitting the tools of ethical conduct and character.” Sometimes, after a difficult situation blows up, we can extend some compassion to a person who has done violence, or made a difficult choice when there was no perfect answer, but it freezes my soul that they so often feels not only no remorse, but not even any regret that that someone else got hurt.
I also strongly applaud Caplan's indignation at the erratic nature of health care in the United States. While we debate the question of letting seriously ill people die, even if they don't want to live, or if they require very expensive but rather futile care, we let millions of people go without basic health care that would be relatively cheap and effective.
I do have some questions about Caplan's ability to empathize with women about things that concern only them. I was indignant about his essay “Seasonale: Medicine for the Sake of Convenience?” Seasonale is a medication intended to limit women's menstural periods to four time a year. Caplan acknowledges that many women would be very happy with this, but he is skeptical. Perhaps realizing that he is on shaky ground, he throws in the issue of elective c-sections, a completely different and irrelevant subject. When speaking of brain engineering, Caplan disposes of the argument that it is unnatural: “The main flaw with this argument is that it is made by folks who wear eyeglasses, use insulin, have artificial hips or heart valves, benefit from transplants, ride on planes, dye their hair, talk on phones, sit under electric lights, and swallow vitamins.” Caplan also has no problem with genetically modified organisms or cosmetic surgery. When talking about women limiting their menstrual periods, however, he says: “Is there anything about the human body that medicine should not try to alter? When it comes to women's bodies, the answer is apparently no. Medicine is more than willing to fool with Mother Nature.”
He even has the gall to ask: “[...S]hould it be part of medicine's job […] to get rid of a messy and sometimes painful monthly experience?” Those two only begin the list of issues with menstruation. Since when is pain not a legitimate concern of medicine? Apparently when only women are suffering. Speaking of messy experiences, does Caplan also disapprove of treating bladder incontinence, or is that legitimate since men also have problems? Are the various and sundry complications and inconveniences of menstruation really so much less important than forehead wrinkles, which Caplan has no problem with using Botox or cosmetic surgery to treat? Well of course, after all, he might get wrinkles. As someone who has experienced both menstruation and wrinkles, I think his priorities are backwards.
In sum, interesting if sometimes dated essays. I'd be happy to read more by Caplan, but not if he is discussing women's issues, at which point his ethics and empathy seem to fail him.… (mehr)
Fans of George W. Bush will not be happy, because Caplan clearly has a low opinion of his leadership in this area. He regards some of it as wrong headed, and some of it as mere grandstanding. So-called “embryo adoption” is an example of both. Bush hails the Snowflakes program which seeks to have excess embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) implanted to help other childless couples. That program regards all embryos as person, hence the rhetoric of “adoption.” Great when it works, but this is not a novel idea, couple undergoing IVF have always had the option of donating them, and the leftover embryos may not have been implanted in the original couple because they were of poor quality.
I particularly liked the points that Caplan made in his introduction. He remarks that teaching ethics alone is insufficient: “If parents or society expect perfection from those they teach ethics to, they will be disappointed. If instead they create the basis for remorse, self-correction, and a striving to do better, then they will have done a good job transmitting the tools of ethical conduct and character.” Sometimes, after a difficult situation blows up, we can extend some compassion to a person who has done violence, or made a difficult choice when there was no perfect answer, but it freezes my soul that they so often feels not only no remorse, but not even any regret that that someone else got hurt.
I also strongly applaud Caplan's indignation at the erratic nature of health care in the United States. While we debate the question of letting seriously ill people die, even if they don't want to live, or if they require very expensive but rather futile care, we let millions of people go without basic health care that would be relatively cheap and effective.
I do have some questions about Caplan's ability to empathize with women about things that concern only them. I was indignant about his essay “Seasonale: Medicine for the Sake of Convenience?” Seasonale is a medication intended to limit women's menstural periods to four time a year. Caplan acknowledges that many women would be very happy with this, but he is skeptical. Perhaps realizing that he is on shaky ground, he throws in the issue of elective c-sections, a completely different and irrelevant subject. When speaking of brain engineering, Caplan disposes of the argument that it is unnatural: “The main flaw with this argument is that it is made by folks who wear eyeglasses, use insulin, have artificial hips or heart valves, benefit from transplants, ride on planes, dye their hair, talk on phones, sit under electric lights, and swallow vitamins.” Caplan also has no problem with genetically modified organisms or cosmetic surgery. When talking about women limiting their menstrual periods, however, he says: “Is there anything about the human body that medicine should not try to alter? When it comes to women's bodies, the answer is apparently no. Medicine is more than willing to fool with Mother Nature.”
He even has the gall to ask: “[...S]hould it be part of medicine's job […] to get rid of a messy and sometimes painful monthly experience?” Those two only begin the list of issues with menstruation. Since when is pain not a legitimate concern of medicine? Apparently when only women are suffering. Speaking of messy experiences, does Caplan also disapprove of treating bladder incontinence, or is that legitimate since men also have problems? Are the various and sundry complications and inconveniences of menstruation really so much less important than forehead wrinkles, which Caplan has no problem with using Botox or cosmetic surgery to treat? Well of course, after all, he might get wrinkles. As someone who has experienced both menstruation and wrinkles, I think his priorities are backwards.
In sum, interesting if sometimes dated essays. I'd be happy to read more by Caplan, but not if he is discussing women's issues, at which point his ethics and empathy seem to fail him.… (mehr)
Repeatedly, the developed world has realized that we Westerners live 'in hard times' and has needed a philosophy for all challenges, old and new. However, the developing world ALSO faces existential challenges that the developed world had hoped to escape through technological innovation and social implementation. At every level of social, economic, and technological development these perennial questions about ethics are shown to pertain to core questions about how one lives and ought to live.
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