Judith Areen, Warren Reich, Cecil Sheps, and Robert Veatch consider some of the ethical traditions–religious and secular–that underlie bioethical issues in the 1980s. They discuss the participation of lay people in medical decision-making, professional views about patients’ autonomy, and the possibility of social and professional consensus with regard to ethical standards.
At the time of this discussion, Areen was professor of law at Georgetown University. Reich, a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1982-83), was professor of bioethics in the School of Medicine at Georgetown University. Sheps was professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Veatch was professor at the Center for Bioethics at Georgetown University.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
