A Life-Centered Approach to Bioethics: Biocentric Ethics

Approaches bioethics on the basis of a conception of life and what is needed for the affirmation of its quality in the most encompassing sense. Johnson applies this conception to discussions of controversial issues in bioethics including euthanasia, abortion, cloning and genetic engineering. His emphasis is not on providing definitive solutions to all bioethical issues but on developing an approach to coping with them that can also help us deal with new issues as they emerge. The foundation of this discussion is an extensive examination of the nature of the self and its good and of various approaches to ethics. His bioethic is integrally related to his well-known work on environmental philosophy. The book also applies these principles on an individual level, offering a user-friendly discussion of how to deal with ethical slippery slopes and how and where to draw the line when dealing with difficult questions of bioethics.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; Part I. Backgrounds: 2. Some background: self and reason; 3. Some background: approaches to ethics; 4. Some background: our good; 5. Elusive lines, slippery slopes, and moral principles; Part II. Life, Death, and Bioethics: 6. Being alive; 7. Being healthy; 8. Health and virtue; 9. Death and life; 10. Drawing lines with death; 11. Double effect: euthanasia, and proportionality; 12. Abortion; 13. The gene I: the mystique; 14. The gene II: manipulation; 15. Ethics and biomedical research; 16. Bioethics seen in an eastern light; 17. Toward a wider view.

About the Author :
Lawrence E. Johnson is an affiliate research fellow in the humanities at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. He has also taught at West Virginia University and Flinders University. His articles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including International Logic Review, the Review of Metaphysics, Environmental Ethics, the Monash Bioethics Review and the Journal of Natural History, and he has also contributed to several literary journals.

Review :
'By conceptualizing life as a process rather than a substance, and by identifying selves as life-processes, Johnson provides us with an innovative approach to the perennial question of how we ought to live our lives. Our good is our health, and our health is an activity whose trajectory changes over the course of our lives. The effects of this sensible thesis ramify throughout a host of urgent contemporary moral issues. I strongly recommend Johnson's accessible work.' Mark H. Bernstein, Joyce and Edward E. Brewer Chair in Applied Ethics, Purdue University 'Lawrence Johnson's A Life-Centered Approach to Bioethics is a timely and engaging work, addressing challenging contemporary issues in bioethics, ranging from genetic manipulation to euthanasia and abortion. Johnson succeeds in providing a compelling text for students in bioethics courses, while also presenting provocative positions that will be of interest to professional philosophers and bioethicists. His distinctive biocentric approach to human well-being is a natural extension of his highly regarded work in environmental ethics, and should garner a wide audience.' Jason Kavall, Colgate University 'This is biocentric bioethics. The novelty in Johnson's approach is his provocative insight that those who affirm all life come to different perspectives and conclusions about human life than do those who start assuming that only human or sentient life is of moral concern. That deepens bioethics and results, surprisingly, in a more humane caring for persons. Read it to enrich both your life and your bioethics.' Holmes Rolston, III, Colorado State University