Buddhism and Bioethics by Damien Keown

Buddhism and Bioethics Reviews

• 
  Catherine

  Covered this book in a Bioethics class.
  
  Keown's approach is very helpful where it differentiates between care and treatment.
  
  His further breakdown of treatment into ordinary and extraordinary measures is less helpful. Keown runs into some problems in the withholding treatment chapters when he classifies vinnana as consciousness, against his own advice from an earlier chapter, and he seems to substitute prana for vinnana. Additionally, the abortion chapter stunningly fails to even mention common feminist issues. I'm not talking obscure feminist theory. He does not mention rape, incest, abusive relationships, or the historical oppression of women by valuing them solely as baby-making vessels. These are all issues pertinent to the abortion debate.
  
  Also, I would like to hear Keown's view of drunk driving. His decision to focus on intent separate from foresight does allow certain medical decisions to be viewed as moral, but conflicts with society's treatment of drunk driving. No drunk driver intends to kill someone but society still holds him/her negligent for failing to exercise sufficient foresight to stay off the road. Saying a doctor who prescribes extreme doses of morphine merely intends to lessen a patient's suffering but somehow remains clear of the moral weight of the corresponding hastening of the patient's death because foresight is different from intent is magical thinking.
  
  Still, with the Buddhist perspective underrepresented in the bioethical scholarship available, this book is important.