Bioethics, Public Moral Argument, and Social Responsibility

Bioethics, Public Moral Argument, and Social Responsibility explores the role of democratically oriented argument in promoting public understanding and discussion of the benefits and burdens of biotechnological progress.

The contributors examine moral and policy controversies surrounding biomedical technologies and their place in American society, beginning with an examination of discourse and moral authority in democracy, and addressing a set of issues that include: dignity in health care; the social responsibilities of scientists, journalists, and scholars; and the language of genetics and moral responsibility.

Nancy M. P. King, JD, is Professor, Social Sciences and Health Policy and Internal Medicine, School of Medicine and Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and Co-Director of the Center for Bioethics, Health, and Society and the Master of Arts in Bioethics Program at Wake Forest University. Her scholarship addresses a range of bioethics issues, including: informed consent in health care and research; medical decisions at the beginning and end of life; the development and use of experimental technologies; preclinical and animal research; international and cross-cultural questions in human subjects research; benefit and uncertainty in human subjects research; and ethical issues in large-scale genetic research and biobanking, gene transfer research, and regenerative medicine. She is co-editor of The Social Medicine Reader (2nd ed., Duke University Press, 2005) and Beyond Regulations: Ethics in Human Subjects Research (UNC Press 1999). She has served on hospital ethics committees, IRBs, and DSMBs, and has taught research ethics in national and international settings. Professor King was a member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of NIH from 1998-2002.

Michael J. Hyde (Ph.D., Purdue University) is The University Distinguished Professor of Communication Ethics, Department of Communication, Wake Forest University and holds a joint appointment in the Program in Bioethics, Health, and Society, School of Medicine, Wake Forest University. He is the author of numerous articles and critical reviews appearing in various scholarly journals and texts and has published six books including: The Call of Conscience: Heidegger and Levinas, Rhetoric and the Euthanasia Debate (Univ. of South Carolina Press, awarded the National Communication Association’s [NCA’s] 2001 Diamond Anniversary Book Award and the Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award for Outstanding Research in Public Address), The Life-Giving Gift of Acknowledgment (Purdue Univ. Press), and Perfection: Coming to Terms with Being Human (Baylor University Press, awarded The Best Book Award, NCA, Communication Ethics Division, 2010). He is a Fellow of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.