Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a professor who teaches Bioethics, primarily to college nursing students. I have used many textbooks over the years and have reviewed dozens. I have used Munson's text for the last 3 years. This particular edition is his strongest yet. Potential readers should be aware that Munson takes an encylopedic approach to the field. Each chapter includes a focus case, additional cases, ethical analysis, survey of the context, and a selection of articles written by bioethicists that cover a variety of opionions on the issue. This approach has both its strengths and its drawbacks. On the positive side, Munson's text is an excellent resource for faculty who wish to reduce the course to a single text. There is very little need to supplement the text in any way.
But the encylopedic approach has its drawbacks. First, each chapter is very long and slow to read. I have found resistance from students to read entire chapters. The next time I use the text I will direct the students to particular sections within the chapters. Second, and more problematic, the text is rather undeveloped in its moral theory. Munson confines his explict moral reasoning to a specific section in each chapter, often devoting no more than a short paragraph to each school of thought. In addition, Munson only rarely takes a position on these issues himself. Without a central guiding moral vision or approach, students are often left bewildered and perplexed about what to think of these issues themselves.
In the end, I believe that the strengths of Munson's text outweigh its shortcomings, though professors who are considering this volume should be aware that they will need to do a lot of focusing of class discussions.

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