1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910811191803321

Autore

Sprinkle Robert Hunt

Titolo

Profession of conscience : the making and meaning of life-sciences liberalism / / Robert Hunt Sprinkle

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, N.J., : Princeton University Press, c1994

ISBN

1-282-75215-4

9786612752155

1-4008-2158-4

1-4008-1348-4

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (268 p.)

Disciplina

174/.957

Soggetti

Life sciences - Social aspects

Life sciences - Political aspects

Bioethics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-245) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- I. A History of Convictions -- II. From First Problems to the Edge of Modernity -- III. From the Scientific Attitude to the Universalist Sentiment -- IV. From the Scientific Revolution to the Liberal Expectation -- V. From Nonliberal Alternatives to the Liberal Reestablishment -- VI. From Altruismto Activism -- VII. Life-Sciences Liberalismin Abstract and Competition -- VIII. Protecting the State -- IX. Pursuing the National Political Advantage -- X. Aggrandizing the Corporation -- XI. Privatizing the Common Inheritance of Humankind -- XII. Advancing the Public Health -- XIII. Groping in the Light -- NOTES -- INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

What happens to a profession that loses the memory of its moral independence? And what happens then to those reliant on its honor, its advocacy, its initiative? In an era of biotechnological adventure, medical audacity, ecological disruption, fiscal strain, and financial temptation, these are urgent questions for all life scientists and for all they serve .Profession of Conscience is an exposition, analysis, and application of a political-ethical tradition in, of, and for the life sciences, from molecular genetics to clinical medicine to environmental biology. The



goal is avoidance of the fate of physics--the previous "super science"--whose technological transformations several generations ago so enhanced its political and economic value to governments, societies, and corporations that it lost control of its own conduct. Profession of Conscience discovers within the life sciences a long-evolving profession-specific standard for political action and activism, tracing it from conception in Hellenic and Roman imperial times, through birth and baptism in the Scientific Revolution, then through a naïvely optimistic adolescence in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and finally into a self-conscious maturity, solemnized at the Nuremberg Trials but tested ever more subtly since, even down to the present day. The protagonist is a set of ideas. The product is "life-sciences liberalism."