Format:
1 Online-Ressource (xi, 317 pages)
,
illustrations
ISBN:
0262355329
,
9780262355322
Series Statement:
Basic bioethics
Content:
"A theoretical account of moral revolutions, illustrated by historical cases that include the criminalization and decriminalization of abortion and the patient rebellion against medical paternalism. We live in an age of moral revolutions in which the once morally outrageous has become morally acceptable, and the formerly acceptable is now regarded as reprehensible. Attitudes toward same-sex love, for example, and the proper role of women, have undergone paradigm shifts over the last several decades. In this book, Robert Baker argues that these inversions are the product of moral revolutions that follow a pattern similar to that of the scientific revolutions analyzed by Thomas Kuhn in his influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. After laying out the theoretical terrain, Baker develops his argument with examples of moral reversals from the recent and distant past. He describes the revolution, led by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, that transformed the postmortem dissection of human bodies from punitive desecration to civic virtue; the criminalization of abortion in the nineteenth century and its decriminalization in the twentieth century; and the invention of a new bioethics paradigm in the 1970s and 1980s, supporting a patient-led rebellion against medical paternalism. Finally, Baker reflects on moral relativism, arguing that the acceptance of "absolute" moral truths denies us the diversity of moral perspectives that permit us to alter our morality in response to changing environments." -- Provided by publisher
Content:
Intro; Contents; Preface; 1. On Scientific and Moral Revolutions; Earlier Conceptions of Scientific Revolutions; Kuhn's Rediscovery of Scientific Revolutions (Plural); On Morality, Ethics, and Law; Normal Moral Change: Drift and Reform; Public Toilets and Duels; Moral Reform (I): Equal Rights to Respectable Peeing; Moral Drift versus Reform (II): Destigmatizing Bastardy in America and Britain; Moral Reform (III): The American Antidueling Reforms; Differentiating Moral Reforms from Moral Revolutions; The Structure of Moral Revolutions; The Structure of the LGBT/Gay Rights Moral Revolution;
Content:
Some Insights about Political Correctness; A Very Brief Overview of the Book; 2. Using the Dead for the Living: The Benthamite Revolution; The Corpse as Sacrosanct; The Role of Philosophers in Moral Revolutions; The Benthamite Transubstantiation of Corpses into Utilitarian Objects; Bentham and Southwood Smith's Utilitarian-Unitarian Alliance; Failed Benthamite Reform Proposals: Abernethy and Mackenzie, 1819-1824; Crisis: The Grave-Robbing and Burking Scandals of the 1830s; 1832: Bentham's Public Dissection Catalyzes a Paradigm Shift; The Anatomy Act of 1832: Consequences of a Paradigm Shift;
Content:
The Past Is Not Even PastReflections on the Benthamite Moral Revolution; 3. Immoralizing and Criminalizing Abortion: The Doctors' Revolution; Abortion: A Textbook Case of an Invisible Moral Revolution; Textbook-Induced Amnesia about the Antiabortion Moral Revolution; European Immoralization and Criminalization of Prequickening Abortion; The American Immoralization of Abortion: A Moral Revolution; The Morally Disruptive Impact of Microscopes and Stethoscopes; Immoralizing Prequickening Abortions: Hodge's Lectures; The Crisis; The Antiabortion Campaign as a Moral Revolution;
Content:
4. Irredentism and Counterrevolutions in Geology and AbortionConsilience and Its Discontents; The Roman Catholic Church's Irredentism against Heliocentrism; Scientific Irredentism: Continental Drift Theory; Female Irredentism during the Century of the Dual Prohibitions; The 1930s: Dr. Taussig's Proposed Abortion Reforms; An Actress's Quandary Triggers an Antiprohibition Counterrevolution; Abortion: Reform versus Counterrevolution; Second-Wave Feminism and Abortion; Why Twentieth-Century Physicians "Had Eyes, but Saw Not"; The Decriminalization of Abortion as a Moral Counterrevolution;
Content:
Antiabortion Irredentism: Organizing a Counter-counterrevolution 5. The American Bioethics Revolution; Was Bioethics a By-Product of Morally Disruptive Technologies?; Creating Bioethicists: Hastings Center, Kennedy Institute, and Camp Sam; Creating Bioethicists: Historical and Personal Observations; Patient Rebellions: Welfare Moms, Dax Cowart, Joseph and Julia Quinlan; A Paradigm Emerges: Principled Antipaternalism; Normalizing Bioethics I: Principles of Biomedical Ethics; Normalizing Bioethics II: The President's Commission on Life-Sustaining Treatment
Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-296) and index
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780262043083
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe Baker, Robert, 1937- Structure of moral revolutions
Language:
English
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