Playing God. Essays on Bioethics

Abstract

Doctors, nurses and scientists have often been accused of ‘playing God’ in life-and-death decisions, reproductive medicine and genetics. The tenor of this book is that the same accusation can be extended to ethicists and public decision-makers who refuse to examine the is­ sues analytically before they pass their judgements. In many cases, they are the jealous gods who obstruct the voyage of honest philoso­phers and bioethicists who desperately try to find their home island of intellectual zeal and emotional security in the stormy sea of high feeling and firmly held prejudice.