Mary Midgley sees philosophy as plumbing, something that nobody notices until it goes wrong. “Then suddenly we become aware of some bad smells, and we have to take up the floorboards and look at the concepts of even the most ordinary piece of thinking

The annual cost of healthcare in the United States reached $2.5 trillion in 2009 (about 17.6% of GDP) with projections to 2019 of about $4.5 trillion (about 20% of likely GDP).

Knowledge is generally a good thing. People who know lots of bits of information are generally admired. Some of them win prizes in TV competitions. If you were offered the gift of having an entire encyclopedia wired into your brain, you would probably accept, without thinking. But we should be wary of assuming that all knowledge is good. Too much knowledge can inhibit rather than enable thought.

Until quite recently bioethicists have had little of depth and probity to say about the duty of healthcare professionals in general and physicians in particular to relieve pain and suffering associated with disease and/or its treatment.

Proper procedures for informed consent are widely recognized as an ethical requirement for biomedical research involving human beings, in particular as a means to respect the autonomy and personal integrity of potential and actual research participants.

One of the most fundamental tenets of medical research, enshrined in the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, is that scientific investigation involving human beings requires the informed consent of the subjects.

Innovations in science and technology are often the source of public concern, but few have generated debates as intense and at the same time with such a popular fascination as those surrounding genetic technologies. Unequal access to preimplantation diagnosis could give some individuals the opportunity to select children with more advantageous predispositions.

The term “ectogenesis” has been around for about a century now, and it is generally understood as the development of embryos and fetuses outside a uterus. In this sense, all in vitro fertilization (IVF) is ectogenesis, but in vitro development can only proceed to a certain point, at which time human embryos are then either implanted in the attempt to achieve a pregnancy, frozen for that use in the future, used in research, or discarded.

In his article “Research Priorities and the Future of Pregnancy” in this issue of CQ, Timothy Murphy evaluates some of the arguments I advanced in an earlier publication, “The Moral Imperative for Ectogenesis.

Bioethics has made remarkable progress as a scholarly and applied field. A mere fledgling in the 1960s, it is now firmly established in hospitals, medical schools, and government agencies and boasts a number of professional associations and a handsome collection of journals.

The patient, an 89-year-old man—let’s call him Mr. Smith—had no known relatives, friends, or advance directives. He was a bright man and served as a scientist in the Reagan administration.

I remember applying for the master’s in bioethics program at the University of Pennsylvania and thinking very carefully about what I wanted any reader to know about my childhood and its impact on shaping my career path to this point.

Not to brag, but I am a hit at parties. I tend to shine in the company of new faces, oftentimes scientists who work with my spouse.

Lying in bed, the shriveled 86-year-old Australian woman appeared almost bionic. Congestive heart failure had rendered Mrs. A unable to breathe without a ventilator, and her failing kidneys kept her tethered to a dialysis machine 24 hours per day.

My path to bioethics was a long and uncharted one. My journey, through a rich and varied career and three postgraduate degrees, reflects the evolving narrative of both my own life and the field of bioethics.

My heart was removed and replaced on May 17, 2006. No melodrama is intended here, just an unadorned factual statement. Transplants are transformative. In my case, that transformation led to bioethics.