"Dan Brock is one of the brightest scholars in the whole field of biomedical ethics, and this collection of essays serves as proof of why he deserves such praise. He is provocative even when writing about topics that seem mundane, and persuasive even when one ultimately disagrees with him. His writing style is crisp and generally quite clear. What Brock has to say about bioethics is always important....if one is interested in contemporary bioethics, reading Dan Brock's work is a must, whether one agrees with him or not." Academic Medicine

• Part I. Physicians and Patients Making Treatment Decisions: 1. Informed consent; 2. The ideal of shared decision making between physicians and patients; 3. When competent patients make irrational choices (co-authored by Steven A. Wartman); Part II. Life-and-Death Decisions in the Clinic: 4. Moral rights and permissible killing; 5. Taking human life; 6. Death and dying; 7. Forgoing life-sustaining food and water: Is it killing?; 8. Voluntary active euthanasia; Part III. Life-and-Death Decisions in Health Policy: 9. The value of prolonging human life; 10. Quality of life measures in health care and medical ethics; 11. The problem of low benefit/high cost health care; 12. Justice and the severely demented elderly; 13. Justice, health care, and the elderly; 14. Truth or consequences: the role of philosophers in policy-making; Index.

"Dan Brock is one of the brightest scholars in the whole field of biomedical ethics, and this collection of essays serves as proof of why he deserves such praise. He is provocative even when writing about topics that seem mundane, and persuasive even when one ultimately disagrees with him. His writing style is crisp and generally quite clear. What Brock has to say about bioethics is always important....if one is interested in contemporary bioethics, reading Dan Brock's work is a must, whether one agrees with him or not." Academic Medicine

• Part I. Physicians and Patients Making Treatment Decisions: 1. Informed consent; 2. The ideal of shared decision making between physicians and patients; 3. When competent patients make irrational choices (co-authored by Steven A. Wartman); Part II. Life-and-Death Decisions in the Clinic: 4. Moral rights and permissible killing; 5. Taking human life; 6. Death and dying; 7. Forgoing life-sustaining food and water: Is it killing?; 8. Voluntary active euthanasia; Part III. Life-and-Death Decisions in Health Policy: 9. The value of prolonging human life; 10. Quality of life measures in health care and medical ethics; 11. The problem of low benefit/high cost health care; 12. Justice and the severely demented elderly; 13. Justice, health care, and the elderly; 14. Truth or consequences: the role of philosophers in policy-making; Index.

"Dan Brock is one of the brightest scholars in the whole field of biomedical ethics, and this collection of essays serves as proof of why he deserves such praise. He is provocative even when writing about topics that seem mundane, and persuasive even when one ultimately disagrees with him. His writing style is crisp and generally quite clear. What Brock has to say about bioethics is always important....if one is interested in contemporary bioethics, reading Dan Brock's work is a must, whether one agrees with him or not." Academic Medicine

• Part I. Physicians and Patients Making Treatment Decisions: 1. Informed consent; 2. The ideal of shared decision making between physicians and patients; 3. When competent patients make irrational choices (co-authored by Steven A. Wartman); Part II. Life-and-Death Decisions in the Clinic: 4. Moral rights and permissible killing; 5. Taking human life; 6. Death and dying; 7. Forgoing life-sustaining food and water: Is it killing?; 8. Voluntary active euthanasia; Part III. Life-and-Death Decisions in Health Policy: 9. The value of prolonging human life; 10. Quality of life measures in health care and medical ethics; 11. The problem of low benefit/high cost health care; 12. Justice and the severely demented elderly; 13. Justice, health care, and the elderly; 14. Truth or consequences: the role of philosophers in policy-making; Index.