Science and ethics : can science help us make wise moral judgments? / edited by Paul Kurtz with the assistance of David Koepsell.

Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2007.

359 pages ; 23 cm

1. What is the relationship among science, reason, and ethics? / Paul Kurtz -- 2. The ethics of science and the science of ethics / Mario Bunge -- I. Bioethics and stem cell research -- 3. Stem cell research : an approach to bioethics based on scientific naturalism / Ronald A. Lindsay -- 4. Attack of the anti-cloners : biogenetic engineering and self-improvement / Arthur Caplan -- 5. Freedom of scientific research / Paul Kurtz -- 6. Stem cell research : the failure of bioethics / Don Marquis -- 7. Everybody must get cloned : ideological objections do not hold up / David J. Triggle -- II. The embryo in stem cell research and abortion -- 8. The moral status of the human embryo : the twinning argument / Berit Brogaard -- 9. Toward resolving the abortion and embryonic stem cell debates : a scientific and philosophical update / Richard T. Hull, Elaine M. Hull -- 10. Parallels between the ethics of embryonic stem cell research and abortion / Marin Gillis --

III. Euthanasia and assisted suicide -- 11. The right to privacy / Paul Kurtz -- 12. Euthanasia, unnecessary suffering, and the proper aims of medicine / John Shook -- IV. Organ transplants, sexuality, and human enhancement -- 13. Personal autonomy, organ sales, and the arguments from market coercion / James Stacey Taylor -- 14. Sex, medicine, and ethics : some quandaries / Vern L. Bullough -- 15. From human-racism to personhood : humanism after human nature / James Hughes -- V. Deterrence and capital punishment -- 16. Getting tough on crime : what does it mean? / Richard Taylor -- 17. Capital punishment and homicide : sociological realities and econometric illusions / Red Goertzel -- VI. Psychiatry and psychotherapy -- 18. Secular humanism and "scientific psychiatry" / Thomas Szasz -- 19. What's the problem? : a response to secular humanism and scientific psychiatry / Derek Bolton -- 20. The assault on scientific mental health : ethical implications / Scott O. Lilienfeld -- 21. Fringe psychotherapies : the public at risk / Barry L. Beyerstein --

VII. Science, religion, and ethics -- 22. Science and religion : no irenics here / Fred Wilson -- 23. Is religion compatible with science and ethics? : a critique of Stephen Jay Gould's Two magisteria / Paul Kurtz -- 24. The science of ethics / Laura Purdy -- 25. Policy, ethics, belief, and morality / Tom Flynn -- VIII. Naturalistic ethics -- 26. Scientific naturalistic ethics : weird science and pseudo-ethics? / William A. Rottschaefer -- 27. On the naturalistic fallacy : a conceptual basis for evolutionary ethics / Christopher diCarlo, John Teehan -- IX. Biology, social science, common sense -- 28. The common ground between science and morality : a biological perspective / Donald B. Calne -- 29. Carl Menger and exact theory in the social sciences / David R. Koepsell -- 30. Defending science, within reason : the critical common-sensist manifesto / Susan Haack.

Includes bibliographical references.