This book is a philosophically-oriented introduction to bioethics. It offers the reader an overview of key debates in bioethics relevant to various areas including; organ retrieval, stem cell research, justice in healthcare and issues in environmental ethics, including issues surrounding food and agriculture. The book also seeks to go beyond simply describing the issues in order to provide the reader with the methodological and theoretical tools for a more comprehensive understanding of current bioethical debates. The aim of the book is to present bioethics as an interdisciplinary field, to explore its close relation to other disciplines (such as law, life sciences, theology and philosophy), and to discuss the conditions under which bioethics can serve as an academically legitimate discipline that is at the same time relevant to society.

As a systematic and methodologically rigorous overview, Bioethics: Methods, Theories and Principles will be of particular interest to academics and students in the disciplines of Law, Medicine, Ethics and Philosophy.

'This is a book that embraces neither a single ethical theory nor a pragmatic melange of just-so-principles. It is a thoughtful and engaging analysis of diverse theoretical foundations in Bioethics. It is also an enormous step towards conceptual and philosophical clarity in this fascinating area.' - Professor Christian Illies, Chair for Practical Philosophy at the Otto-Friedrich University Bamberg, Germany

Marcus Düwell is Professor of Philosophical Ethics at Utrecht University, research director of the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University and director of the Netherlands Research School for Practical Philosophy. His research concentrates on questions concerning the foundation of morality and on applied ethics in its relation to ethical theory and political philosophy.