E-Book Overview
This book deals with the <EM>essential philosophical/ethical dimension that concerns the ends and goods entrusted to medicine. It shows that medicine cannot be reduced to its scientific and technical aspects and that the constitutive philosophical aspects of medicine presently are in a state of crisis.
Medicine, besides being a scientifically based art of diagnosing and curing infirmities of many kinds, also possesses an essential philosophical and ethical dimension. It turns into anti-medicine if it no longer stands in the service of those goods and ends that are entrusted to it. Their nature is in no way known by natural science but can be clarified by philosophy. Consequently, medicine suffers from philosophical diseases of different degrees of gravity if its theory and practice are based on errors about its proper ends. The cure from the life-threatening philosophical diseases of medicine lies in a critique of philosophical mistakes that influence the theory and practice of medicine and in an understanding and practical implementation of those ethically relevant goods that constitute its true ends. At a time when these goods are by no means universally recognized or embodied in laws of medicine, some basic philosophical understanding of them and of the foundations of medical ethics is urgently required. The purpose of this volume is to provide this largely neglected part of general and medical education.
E-Book Content
THE PHILOSOPHICAL DISEASES OF MEDICINE AND THEIR CURE
Philosophy and Medicine VOLUME 82
Founding Co-Editor Stuart F. Spieker
Editor
H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., Department of Philosophy, Rice University, and Baylor College ofMedicine, Houston, Texas
Associate Editor
Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J., Department of Philosophy and Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington, D. C.
Editorial Board
George J. Agieh, Department of Bioethics, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio Nicholas Capaldi, Department of Philosophy, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma Edmund Erde, University ofMedicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Stratford, New Jersey Eric T. Juengst, Center for Biomedical Ethics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio Christopher Tollefsen, Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina Becky White, Department of Philosophy, California State University, Chico, California
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume
THE PHILOSOPHICAL DISEASES OF MEDICINE AND THEIR CURE PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS OF MEDICINE, VOL. 1: FOUNDATIONS
by
JOSEF SEIFERT International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein (lAP) and Chile (lAP-PUC) and Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica de Chile, Santiago
~ Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-6736-4 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-2871-7
ISBN 978-1-4020-2871-7 (eBook)
Printed on acid-free paper
springeronline.com All Rights Reserved © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2004 Originally published by Springer Netherlands Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 2004
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Dedicated to My beloved children
Maria Michaela Seifert, who is dedicating her life to philosophy