The Logic and Legitimacy of American Bioethics
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The Logic and Legitimacy of American Bioethics By Mary R. Leinho ...

Chapter 1:  Introduction
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  • An exploration of the liability of institutional review boards (IRBs) and health care ethics consultants provides an understanding of (1) the formal legal authority of IRB expertise, (2) opportunities for bioethics to further legitimate its research ethics expertise in the courtroom and in university research regulatory compliance systems, and (3) the ongoing construction of the accountable expertise of health care ethics consultants.
  • How are the legitimacy and application of bioethics to U.S. public policy coproduced in the activities of the president’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC)? Public bioethics advisory bodies have been a staple of U.S. public policy for addressing such societal disputes, in spite of the limited direct impact these bodies have had on science and technology policy making. Kelly (2003) argued that public bioethics advisory bodies serve an important tacit function as boundary organizations that stabilize the border between science and politics, thus preserving the autonomy of science from incursion by other societal stakeholders. These boundary organizations succeed in bounding and controlling the controversy by constraining the set of issues and viewpoints that are addressed, and by dictating the decision-making strategy in ways that privilege participation of some stakeholders over others, and veil the intensity of the controversy. How do NBAC commissioners socially construct themselves and other stakeholders in the policy arena? How does boundary work performed by the commissioners and their discourse affect the legitimacy and substance of bioethics? In what ways does the NBAC itself constitute a boundary organization, establishing social order in the encompassing cultural milieu? To what extent do the democratic ideals of the original bioethics social movement remain focal?

    • Bioethics and the Challenge of Speaking Truth to Power

    Bioethicists have distinguished their field from its progenitor, medical ethics. The tradition of medical ethics, focusing on the moral obligations of physicians and the appropriate doctor-patient relationship, can be traced back to Ancient Greece (Callahan, 1998; Jonsen, 1998a).