Books and Book Chapters

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  We are the Ethics Police

  Abram L. Brummett

  Publication Date: 7-2025

  When speaking colloquially about the role of the clinical ethicist, many ethicists declare, “We are not the ethics police.” However, I argue that if not being the “ethics police” means the ethicist should not give moral recommendations when consulted, then the phrase should be retired because it reflects a confused sense of professional identity. If the ethical watchdogs of the hospital are muzzled in the name of a misguided respect for value pluralism, good medical care will be hindered, and egregiously unethical consequences will result. In this chapter, I argue against this confused colloquialism and instead assert, with important qualifications, that we are the ethics police.

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  Reflexive Modernity and the Sociology of Health

  Jason Adam Wasserman and Brian P. Hinote

  Publication Date: 6-2025

  The analysis and explanation of increasingly complex social phenomena represents one of the foremost challenges of sociological theory. This is particularly important in the sociology of health because definitions of health, mechanisms of disease, the nature of clinical medicine, and the structure of health care delivery are all undergoing fundamental transformations in late modernity. In this chapter, we draw upon the insights of Ulrich Beck (1992, 1994, 1999) to demonstrate the requisite elements of a health sociology “on the move” that can engage the multidimensional and dynamic health-related phenomena of late modernity. We employ Beck’s conceptualization of reflexive modernization to analyze critical developments in the relationship between sociological theory, medicine, and the contemporary landscape of health and illness. Connecting these various developments helps us make sense of a contemporary health landscape that can often feel fractured and chaotic, but which is systematically curated by fundamental social forces

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  Should We Change? The Ethics of Human Enhancement

  Jason Adam Wasserman, Parker Crutchfield, and Abram Brummett

  Publication Date: 6-28-2024

  This book is the first edited volume to present multidisciplinary perspectives on various aspects of changes that humans experience. Relevant for empirical and theoretical work, the handbook will be of great interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students across psychology, behavioral sciences and social sciences.