Ownership of the Human Body: Philosophical Considerations On The Use Of The Human Body And Its Parts In Healthcare (Philosophy And Medicine / European Studies In Philosophy Of Medicine)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9048150590 ISBN 13: 9789048150595

Publisher: Springer, 2010

This is the first book in healthcare ethics addressing the moral issues regarding ownership of the human body. Modern medicine increasingly transforms the body and makes use of body parts for diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive purposes. The book analyzes the concept of body ownership. It also reviews the ownership issues arising in clinical care (for example, donation policies, autopsy) and biomedical research. Societies and legal systems also have to deal with issues of body ownership. A comparison is made between specific legal arrangements in The Netherlands and France, as examples of legal approaches. In the final section of the book, different theoretical perspectives on the human body are analyzed: libertarian, personalist, deontological and utilitarian theories of body ownership.

Review:

`This work is another excellent publication from the collection PHILOSOPHY AND MEDICINE... Ownership iof the Human Body is an excellent work for a systematized, wide and deep study of a theme of great impact for the domain of health care, and clearly decisive for the contemporary concept of person and society that we are building for ourselves.' Ethical Perspectives, 6:3/4 (1999)