Redescribing Bioethics - (Revolutionary Bioethics) by Tod S Chambers (Hardcover)

About the Book

Tod S. Chambers argues that the descriptions bioethicists present of moral problems serve as rhetorical support for the solutions they propose and examines seven rhetorical strategies to reveal how the various choices in descriptions are driven by the theoretical perspective of the bioethicist.

Book Synopsis

Choice 2025 Outstanding Academic Title

It has traditionally been accepted that one cannot derive how the world ought to be from the way the world is. The discipline of bioethics endeavors to respond to ethical issues as they arise in the world. For these issues to be analyzed, they must first be described. Redescribing Bioethics: How the Field Constructs Its Argument argues the descriptions bioethicists provide of the moral problems anticipate the proposed solution to these problems. To understand the rhetorical power of bioethics arguments, we need to reverse the structure of the argument, seeing the anticipated solution as driving the presentation of the problem.

Arguing the story of bioethics is as much one of powerful redescriptions as of proposed solutions, Tod S. Chambers examines seven rhetorical strategies in how bioethics texts have steered readers toward a particular moral vision of the world: retrodiction, anagnorisis, imbalance, dissociation, metaphor, sources, and hypertextuality. Through these techniques, bioethicists construct a world in which their particular moral theory thrives, and alternative theories will struggle.

Review Quotes

""In this long-awaited sequel to The Fiction of Bioethics, Tod S. Chambers invites readers to explore how bioethicists 'construct a world for their theories and then invite us in.' This engaging account of the 'rhetorical mechanics' that drive bioethical arguments is also a deeply learned tour of 'bioethical fights' across the decades. Redescribing Bioethics will be of interest to bioethics and humanities scholars and of use in critical reflection on the field's canonical texts and future directions."" --Nancy Berlinger, The Hastings Center

""Tod S. Chambers excavates the constructed, 'redescriptive' nature of American bioethics' leading foundational arguments. His adroit analysis discovers and deciphers the rhetorical mechanisms by which the authors of major bioethics texts seek to persuade us of their positions. A deeply informed, illuminating volume for students, scholars, and practitioners of bioethics alike."" --Marcia Day Childress, University of Virginia

"A fascinating, highly intelligent, and beautifully written book. Essential reading for everyone who wants to understand the rhetorical strategies academic writers use in the discipline of bioethics. In a series of remarkable essays, Chambers pulls aside the curtain to reveal how major battles over key moral issues gain their power to persuade us of what is right and true." --Martha Montello, Harvard Medical School

"Occasionally you run into a book that changes not only how you think about the world, but also how you think about yourself. This is one of those books. In accessible and lively prose, Chambers articulates the structure, form, and motivations that animate the canonical texts of so-called Western Bioethics. Chapter 4, which discusses the strategy of "dissociation" (a rhetorical scheme in which elements thought to be a single entity are redescribed as fundamentally distinct) in bioethical argumentation, is worth the cost of the book alone. I will not be the same kind of writer after reading this book." --Tyler Tate, Stanford University School of Medicine

About the Author

Tod S. Chambers is associate professor of medical education at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.