Alex John London defends a conception of the common good that grounds a moral imperative with two requirements. The first is to promote research that enables key social institutions to effectively, efficiently and equitably safeguard the basic interests of individuals. The second is to ensure that research is organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects its various contributors' moral claim to be treated as free and equal. Connecting research to the goals of a just social order grounds a framework for assessing and managing research risk that reconciles these requirements and justifies key oversight practices in non-paternalistic terms. The result is a new understanding of research ethics that resolves coordination problems that threaten these goals and provides credible assurance that the requirements of this imperative are being met.--

Asks whether personalised medicine is superior to 'one-size-fits-all' treatment. Does it elevate individual choice above the common good?

One of the founding fathers of bioethics describes the development of the field and his thinking on some of the crucial issues of our time. Daniel Callahan helped invent the field of bioethics more than forty years ago when he decided to use his training in philosophy to grapple with ethical problems in biology and medicine. Disenchanted with academic philosophy because of its analytical bent and distance from the concerns of real life, Callahan found the ethical issues raised by the rapid medical advances of the 1960s—which included the birth control pill, heart transplants, and new capacities to keep very sick people alive—to be philosophical questions with immediate real-world relevance. In this memoir, Callahan describes his part in the founding of bioethics and traces his thinking on critical issues including embryonic stem cell research, market-driven health care, and medical rationing. He identifies the major challenges facing bioethics today and ruminates on its future. Callahan writes about founding the Hastings Center—the first bioethics research institution—with the author and psychiatrist Willard Gaylin in 1969, and recounts the challenges of running a think tank while keeping up a prolific flow of influential books and articles. Editor of the famous liberal Catholic magazine Commonweal in the 1960s, Callahan describes his now-secular approach to issues of illness and mortality. He questions the idea of endless medical “progress” and interventionist end-of-life care that seems to blur the boundary between living and dying. It is the role of bioethics, he argues, to be a loyal dissenter in the onward march of medical progress. The most important challenge for bioethics now is to help rethink the very goals of medicine.

American law assumes that individuals are autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose, and not obligated to each other. But our bodies make us vulnerable and dependent, and the law leaves the weakest on their own. O. Carter Snead argues for a paradigm that recognizes embodiment, enabling law and policy to provide for the care that people need.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This timely book addresses the conflict between globalism and nationalism. It provides a liberal communitarian response to the rise of populism occurring in many democracies. The book highlights the role of communities next to that of the state and the market. It spells out the policy implications of liberal communitarianism for privacy, freedom of the press, and much else. In a persuasive argument that speaks to politics today from Europe to the United States to Australia, the author offers a compelling vision of hope. Above all, the book offers a framework for dealing with moral challenges people face as they seek happiness but also to live up to their responsibilities to others and the common good. At a time when even our most basic values are up for question in policy debates riddled with populist manipulation, Amitai Etzioni’s bold book creates a new frame which introduces morals and values back into applied policy questions. These questions span the challenges of jobless growth to the unanswered questions posed by the role of artificial intelligence in a wide range of daily life tasks and decisions. While not all readers will agree with the communitarian solutions that he proposes, many will welcome an approach that is, at its core, inclusive and accepting of the increasingly global nature of all societies at the same time. It is a must read for all readers concerned about the future of Western liberal democracy. Carol Graham, Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution and College Park Professor/University of Maryland In characteristically lively, engaging, and provocative style Etzioni tackles many of the great public policy dilemmas that afflict us today. Arguing that we are trapped into a spiral of slavish consumerism, he proposes a form of liberal communitarian that, he suggests, will allow human beings to flourish in changing circumstances. Jonathan Wolff, Blavatnik Chair of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

The Common Good and Christian Ethics rethinks the ancient tradition of the common good in a way that addresses contemporary social divisions, both urban and global. David Hollenbach draws on social analysis, moral philosophy, and theological ethics to chart new directions in both urban life and global society. He argues that the division between the middle class and the poor in major cities and the challenges of globalisation require a new commitment to the common good and that both believers and secular people must move towards new forms of solidarity.