Book Reviews

Bioethics—An Anthology (2nd Edition)

Helga Kuhse & Peter Singer (eds) Oxford, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. 738 pp. ISBN 1405129476 9 (paperback)

This book is a companion volume to A Companion to Bioethics (Singer & Kuhse, 1998), which is edited by the same editors and also published by Blackwell. The two books cover broadly the same topic areas, but whereas the Companion has substantial chapters on each topic, the present book has an introduction and one to four previously published papers. The intention of the book is to cover the whole range of bioethics topics, from abortion to animal ethics, and to provide enough papers on each topic to show what the main arguments and the main conflicts are. The book has been expanded from the first edition published in 1999 with sections on genetic screening and genetic enhancement and on stem cells, and some newer material has also been added to some of the sections. It now includes 81 papers.

Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer are both well-known preference consequentialists and as such on the liberal wing of modern bioethics. That would, however, be difficult to deduce from the introductions to the topic or from the papers chosen for the anthology. The introductions to each topic are crisp, informative and even handed, and there is absolutely no bias in the selection of papers (except perhaps in the section on stem cells where there is a lack of a philosophically sophisticated criticism of stem cell research). In general, all points of view are represented and the classics of the field are all there.

The anthology is, however, very clearly put together by what we might, for lack of a better term, call ‘philosophical bioethicists’. Almost all of the papers are written by philosophers and those who are not are nevertheless firmly within a philosophical mode of discourse. If the book had been entitled ‘Philosophical Bioethics’, this would not have been a problem, but as a representation of the field of bioethics as a whole it leaves out the very significant contributions by social scientists to the development of the field. Apart from its direct effect of exclusion of the social sciences, the focus on philosophical bioethics also indirectly perpetuates a conception of the social sciences as mere providers of ‘evidence’ or ‘data’ for philosophical reflection.

The lack of serious engagement with the social science side of bioethics is most acutely felt in the sections on reproductive issues where some papers on kinship or the changing nature of parenthood would have enriched the anthology considerably.

Any section in this anthology can function as a good introduction to the philosophical discussion of the topic within bioethics, and the book is therefore of significant value to anyone who gives advice to students beginning research on a bioethical topic at masters or doctoral level. As with many anthologies, it is, however, difficult to conceive of anyone who would read the whole book (except book reviewers, of course). This last problem is significantly mitigated by the fact that the book is very, very reasonably priced at around 25 pence a paper, and I can therefore wholeheartedly recommend anyone interested in (philosophical) bioethics to buy it.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Søren Holm

© Søran Holm