If I Were a Rich Man Could I Buy a Pancreas?:
Koller, Christopher F.
cated along a range of better and...
...and of tele- Enshrining reason and autonomy rehelp people make tough decisions...
...El for political outcomes...
...With experience and reflection, tradition him or herself among an array of possi- and reason, a sense of the good can emerge ble goods, and reason is the primary tool ical importance...
...perspective of the health-care practition- teen-age mechanic who is considerably er for whom moral conflicts are too press- more proficient in taking things apart than Christopher F. Koller ing to wait upon elegant ethical arguments...
...cated along a range of better and worse choices...
...AN ONTOLOGY Caplan risks missing the port altogether, for nothing he writes about leaves the reader any better equipped to address ethical conflicts...
...ethics industry spends a lot of time try- be of real value...
...But in spite of lucid and Caplan inches toward this notion of reing to construct an elaborate groundwork accessible writing and some provocative lationality when he tries to set a value on that will logically prove the superiority thinking, the book is something less than wisdom-the collected, reflective experience of one principle over another...
...No doubt, he has a limited value-what Caplan values-and those an admission that historical contingencies, bag of principles that describe most human beliefs encompass much more than rea- not human nature, are largely responsible conditions and values...
...But his "just do it" methodology ethical fires that rage in a health-care to negotiate among the shoals of "engi- leads him to adopt and then discard such valsystem fueled by a consumer-oriented, in- neering ethics" (in which moral plumbers ues in an ad hoc manner: autonomy here, dividualistic, technologically driven cul- apply their analytical tools to the problem wisdom there, and a preference in the exture...
...As a ture, religious pluralism, Enlightenment physician carefully works with patients to values, and an anti-authoritarian ethos allow them to choose their care, so must have enshrined reason and individual au- "Oh, stop griping-we were lucky to find an ethicist step gingerly with patients...
...of the older person-in ethical decision gruel for those who have to control the Through all of the essays, Caplan tries making...
...tonomy...
...At in evaluating those goods...
...There ethics involves come...
...In our cul- ess with a collection of resources...
...Is it simply that democracy has had its prejudices too, and can be DEMOCRACY all focus...
...The only overt, if apologetic, engagement of the fundamental excellences and inadequacies of democracy occurs in SuAT PLAY IN PUBLIC SPACES san Mendus's chapter on feminism...
...This is thin the sum of its parts...
...Notably absent is any sustained fixed with relative ease by adding women The Unfinished Journey: 508 B.C...
...Given this scenario, can ethics really for unifying ethical theories...
...the Ten Commandments and the many health-care practitioners, but he ofmagisterium are mum about who should fers nothing in their stead...
...the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the ticulated and ordered set of principles, ethiArthur L. Caplan University of Minnesota, writes from the cists doing applied work are much like the Indiana University Press, $29.95, 348 pp...
...Richard Fragomeni Christians Examine the New Age For well-conceived panoramics there is Creation Theology: Isaiah Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP Charles S. Maier's essay on democracy Children, Teachers and Parents Susan Johnson, since the French Revolution and Neil Herbert Anderson Harding's trenchant indictment of Marxist- Session Il, June 21-25 Leninism...
...Absent an arCREAS...
...Among adherents of foundationalism...
...Moral down the hall...
...population lacks tient care and they can have a central eth- suffering hold little sway in a tertiary any form of health insurance...
...Paradoxically, a wholly proPatrick J. Deneen ical stance on democracy itself...
...When these con- son...
...An astute and relentless from these discussions and relations...
...It is the reader's loss that cation as historians...
...of foundationalism (the search treme for the quotidian...
...Neither these receive a bone marrow transplant...
...As I suggested at the beginning, Caplan IF I WERE A RICH MAN COULD I BUY A PAN- Caplan, a philosopher and director of is not alone in this problem...
...face the same problem: reasoning based alive by all possible means at the same time Mundane decisions are the stuff of pa- on the Imago Dei and Christ's redemptive as 15 percent of the U.S...
...Caplan implicitly flict he has a reasonable suspicion about lying assumptions of their common voforsakes these criteria when he forsakes which to honor...
...putting them back together...
...But navigating among them, WANTED FOR TRANSPLANT...
...Ethicists participate in this procupon if they are to be applied...
...Contact: Director of Continuing Education Yet, the collection also suffers from that Catholic Theological Union at Chicago - COM usual disadvantage of multiple author- 5401 South Cornell • Chicago, IL 60615 ship: because each essayist is immersed (312) 324-8000 • (FAX) 324-4360 in his or her topic, the book lacks an overCommonweal 9 April 1993: 35...
...intrinsic goods and evils that can be lo- consistency the evaluative criteria in eth34: 9 April 1993 Commonweal ical decision making...
...at hand...
...But there has to be a mid- he cannot present them even in a frag- this school there is an admitted reluctance dle ground between his "just do it" spir- mentary fashion, because at least part of to draw any broader lessons from historit and more philosophically systematic what informs ethics is what individuals ical knowledge, and this is tantamount to approaches...
...The dilemma And in this collection of nineteen essays they face-along with all medical decihe takes up a variety of moral conflicts- sion makers-is all too real: How can ethNewborn intensive care from human and animal experimentation, ics be made accessible and applicable in units struggle to keep pre- reproduction and genetics, transplants and a culture where we cannot assume a commature, drug-ravaged ba- rehabilitation, to money and medicine- mon understanding of a moral order and bies alive while healthy trying to justify the usefulness of applied where reason-based ethical theory falls fetuses are being aborted bioethics against critics who argue that apart once it leaves the classroom...
...Each person is free to choose for any donor at all...
...Given the ul- observer of the quotidian in health care, the collective level that dialog is called poltimately subjective nature of this view, the Caplan rightly asserts that here ethics can itics and policy making...
...groups of people trying to discover the right But basic principles must be agreed thing to do...
...attempt to define those essential aspects (or blacks or the poor) to the mixture...
...Unarguably a timely work, Celebrating 25 years of Theological Education presents Summer Institute 1993 Democracy benefits from the advantage Session 1, June 14-18 of being a collaborative volume in which Biblical Models for Church Barbara Bowe, RSCJ each author brings an impressive exper- To Care for the Earth (part 1) Paul Wadell, CP The Church: New Testament and Today John Linnan, CSV tise to his or her historical purview...
...Morality-normative codes of moral be- Caplan's frustration with foundationhavior-is of little use in these circum- alism and engineering ethics is shared by stances...
...Democracy will serve ad- Ezekiel: Prophetic Voices of Ancient Israel Leslie Hoppe, OFM mirably as a departure for anyone wishing Understanding Ethnic Diversity in the Church Sheila Adams Religious Life: Gift and Challenge Helen Cahill, OP, to learn more of these eruptions of popuAnita Beskar, FSPA lar rule throughout history...
...while shorter versions of earlier and Ministry as a Call to Transformation Anthony Gittins, CSSp monumental books by Quentin Skinner and Session Ill, June 28-July 2 Gordon S. Wood appear on the Italian city Sermon on the Mount Donald Senior, CP Hispanic Practices/Leadership Development Edmundo Rodrigues, SJ republics and the American Revolution re- Vatican I1 and the Future of the Church John Linnan, CSV spectively...
...Does modern Oxford University Press, $25, 290 pp...
...takes, to measure temporal vagaries against democracy assume a corporeal equality that a higher standard, even to assume a crit- cannot exist...
...medical-care center...
...Or 1993 of democracy outside the particular his- are there fundamental flaws in the very conEdited by John Dunn torical moments that each chapter under- cept of modem equality...
...to A.D...
...Arthur ological ethics (which holds that there are sults in making comprehensiveness and Caplan says yes...
...Doctors and nurses labor without a foundational theory, applied theologians and other teleological ethicists to honor a dying man's request to keep him ethics is all leaves and no roots...
...While the cedural equality that neglects natural inneglect of democratic theory is not sur- equalities-such as our "equal" right to prising, its source is less the varying po- family leave that almost invariably disrupts Liberal democracy has won litical viewpoints of the authors-although only women's career paths-may result the cold war, and John Dunn certainly contributory-than the under- in an exacerbation of those existing inand his colleagues have taken the occasion to write a collection of essays accounting CATHOLIC for democracy's unlikely yet undeniable TFIEOLOGICAL UNION success...
...in Biancamaria Fontana's treat- To Care for the Earth (part 2) Paul Wadell, CP 1 Corinthians Margaret Mitchell ment of the French Revolution we may Ministry, Leadership and Authority John Linnan, CSV have among the first fair and balanced ac- God Images in Mexican Popular Religiosity Gary Riebe-Estrella, SVD counts of that ambiguous and disputed Jeremiah: Poetry and Theology Pauline Viviano event...
...The reigning question for Mendus is, what is it about democracy that precludes female participation...
...In this paradigms nor Caplan's own effort truly situation, caregivers turn to applied ethics recognize the relational and fragmentary in order to analyze which principles are nature of applied ethics, especially in a at stake and which should govern the out- medical-care setting...
Vol. 120 • April 1993 • No. 7
