Bioethics: A memoir

July 8, 2013

Review of In Search of the Good: A Life in Bioethics by Callahan Daniel

Moral philosopher and bioethicist Daniel Callahan begins his part autobiography, part history of American bioethics, and part summary of his own writings, by noting that bioethics is a “peculiar trade”. Many physicians would agree. Callahan is less interested in traditional medical ethics than in “the nature, scope, and validity of ethics as a part of human life, and…the ways that the technologies of medicine influence how we think about our health and mortality and shape the ways we live our lives”. (The Lancet)