Another Outlet for Ethicists

Bioethics. Vol. 1, No. 1. Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer, eds. Basil Blackwell, New York, 1987. Subscription: $80 (L40) for institutions; $37.50 (L19.50) for individuals. Medical ethics is a growth industry. What better evidence than the appearance of yet another journal devoted to it. In addition to such wholly, dedicated publications as the Hastings Center Report, the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and the Journal of Medical Ethics, a number of prestigious general journals frequently address bioethical issues. Innumerable others in law, medicine and various social sciences also provide an outlet for scholars or shouters from almost any background. Why, then, another dedicated journal? The editors of Bioethics believe there is an ecological niche in the field. Their stated goal is to satisfy five criteria: international appeal; interdisciplinary (meaning understood by and of interest to readers from any or no discipline); independent peer review; practical contributions to solutions to real problems; and "above all" devotion to rigorous argument. In addition to original articles, book reviews and review essays, the editors invite discussion of articles in their journal or elsewhere. The first issue is promising. Especially interesting are the lead article by Mary Warnock, "Do Human Cells Have Rights"; an analysis of "AIDS, Gays and State Coercion" by Richard Mohr; and three excellent book reviews, including an extended review essay of Mary Anne Warren's Gendercide: The Implication of Sex Selection. In an introductory piece, the editors assert that no existing journal meets all their criteria. That is true. No journal meets all the criteria for all articles, but neither does the first quarterly issue of Bioethics. More importantly, articles meeting their criteria do get into print elsewhere, and are accessible to interested readers. They are not all in one place, however. There is a need for a single "gold standard" journal for medical ethics, as the New England Journal of Medicine is to medicine. Philosophy and Public Affairs established itself as the Rolls Royce of applied philosophy, but medical ethics is an infrequent topic in those pages. The Hastings Center Report, while pragmatic and interdisciplinary, is not always at the highest level of rigorous argument and peer review. The Journal of Medical Ethics focuses on its British readers. Establishing one journal that offers an exclusive, high-quality commitment to the best thinking and writing in medical ethics is a goal worth striving for. Becoming the preeminent journal in medical ethics may be difficult, in part, because medical ethics, broadly defined, is necessarily such an interdisciplinary field. The editors may succeed in becoming the forum to which philosophers turn first, but they are unlikely to attract those physicians, economists, lawyers, sociologists and political scientists who have become major scholars in medical ethics, but who will want to speak to their peers, not gravitate to one journal. If Bioethics fails to achieve its lofty goals, it could become just another source that must be searched for current articles, an added cost to libraries and scholars. Assuming it does not drive any existing dedicated journals out of business, it could also increase the number of mediocre articles published overall, assuming that high-quality articles do not presently fail to find a publisher. One final note. The journal's name deals another, perhaps final, blow, to the original meaning of the word "bioethics." It was coined by Van Renssalaer Potter, an American biochemist, who intended it to connote a concern for all living things. The term has since come to refer primarily to medical ethics, narrowly defined, rather than Potter's broader concern—which, indeed, the editors explicitly disavow. Fost is director of the Program in Medical Ethics and professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, 53792.

Another Outlet for Ethicists

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