Encyclopedia of Bioethics Prospectus

Abstract

Some of the recent advances in biomedical technology have created specific ethical dilemmas, such as those related to the prolongation of life and the allocation of scarce medical resources. Other developments have raised more fundamental moral questions, such as whether man should do all that the biomedical sciences enable him to do. However, many of the fundamental moral problems concerning health and disease, quality of life, human reproduction, death, etc.—the ethical questions surrounding medicine and the life sciences—have been part of the human condition for a very long time and have been discussed by many of the world’s great philosophers, religious teachers, scientists, and physicians.