Solidarity in Biomedicine and Beyond

Barbara Prainsack is a Professor at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London. Her work looks at social, ethical and regulatory aspects of bioscience and biomedicine, often giving a voice to alternative or marginalised perspectives. She is a member of the National Bioethics Council in Austria, and the Ethics Group at the UK National DNA Database. Alena Buyx is Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Co-Director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany. She works in biomedical, research and public health ethics, directing several bioethics research projects, and providing local, national and international research and clinical ethics advice. Dr Buyx is a member of the German Ethics Council.

'At a challenging political moment, Barbara Prainsack and Alena Buyx offer an approach to bioethics based on an appeal to solidarity as a core guiding concept. Their account is both descriptive and prescriptive, grounded firmly in practice. Moving beyond an unproductive dichotomy between personal and common benefit, their book promises an alternative to the impoverished accounts of human connectedness informed only by the logic of the market. The authors reveal the limits of an exclusive, ritualistic focus on autonomy-based health policies, offering a productive way forward.' Barbara Koenig, Director of Bioethics, University of California, San Francisco

• 1. Solidarity. A brief history of a concept, and a project; Part I. Theorising Solidarity: 2. Solidarity - intellectual background and important themes; 3. What is solidarity?; 4. Solidarity - normative approaches; Part II. Solidarity in Practice: 5. Solidarity in practice I: governing health databases; 6. Solidarity in practice II: personalised medicine and health care; 7. Solidarity and organ donation; Part III. Conclusions: 8. Solidarity with whom? Conclusions and ways forward.