Review by Choice Review
Rapidly advancing medical technology has expanded the scope of bioethics. Racine (Univ. of Montreal/McGill Univ.) explores ways that advances in understanding the brain have led to changing definitions of neuroethics over the last 50 years. While the book uses philosophical and historical insights, it also explores how academic science interfaces with the popular media and how the failure to use accurate, understandable terminology in popular reporting often creates public misperceptions and fears about the critical issues of neuroethics. The author excerpts many headlines to make his points, and discusses media accounts of Terri Schiavo's brain function as one key case. Ultimately, Racine urges a pragmatic form of neuroethics that denies neither the truth that biology shapes personhood nor the fact that ethics is not simply reducible to biology. Racine believes that any responsible bioethics should combine scientific and humanistic knowledge in an effort to create a pragmatic neuroethics. This book is a comprehensive survey of what certain research projects, e.g., the use of brain scans to predict behavior, might mean. It will be valuable for serious scholars of the history of bioethics and the relationships between media and science. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. A. W. Klink Duke University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
