Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot....

Readers interested in the theoretical development of bioethics and, at the same time, in its application to the solution of moral conflicts will certainly find material of great value in this book. Each chapter places bioethics in a different context: in clinical, genomics and biosafety. In the first essay, the possibilities of this 'toolbox' called bioethics are discussed to understand and try to resolve conflicts of interests and values ​​in...

"Richer nations are happier, yet economic growth doesn't increase happiness. This paradox is explained by the 'hidden wealth of nations'--the extent to which citizens get along with others independently drives both economic growth and well-being. Much of this hidden wealth is expressed in everyday ways, such as our common values, the way we look after our children and elderly, or whether we trust and help strangers. It is a hidden dimension of inequality,...