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The Patient in the Family diagnoses the ways in which the worlds of home and hospital misunderstand each other. The authors explore how medicine, through its new reproductive technologies, is altering the structure of families, how families can participate more fully in medical decision-making, and how to understand the impact on families when medical advances extend life but not vitality.

This volume reflects on the effects of recent discoveries in genetics on a broad range of scientific fields. In addition to neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology and medicine, contributors analyze the effects of genetics on theories of health, law, epistemology and philosophy of biology. Social and moral concerns about the relationship between genetics, society and the individual also figure prominently. Genetic discoveries fuel central contemporary public policy debates concerning, for example, human cloning, equitable access to healthcare or the role of genetics in medicine. Perhaps more fundamentally, advances in genetics are altering our perception of human life and death. An interview with François Jacob by Anne Fagot-Largeault opens the volume. In this interview, Jacob, who shared a Nobel Prize with André Lwoff and Jacques Monod for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis, addresses many of the central methodological epistemological and ethical questions covered in the volume. The dynamic interdisciplinary character of this volume makes it relevant to scholars from many disciplines, from biology, philosophy and the social sciences.

Bodies for Sale: Ethics and Exploitation in the Human Body Trade explores the philosophical and practical issues raised by activities such as surrogacy and organ trafficking. Stephen Wilkinson asks what is it that makes some commercial uses of the body controversial, whether the arguments against commercial exploitation stand up, and whether legislation outlawing such practices is really justified.In Part One Wilkinson explains and analyses some of the notoriously slippery concepts used in the body commodification debate, including exploitation, harm and consent. In Part Two he focuses on three controversial issues (the buying and selling of human kidneys, commercial surrogacy, and DNA patenting) outlining contemporary regulation and investigating both the moral issues and the arguments for legal prohibition.