Cooperation, Complicity & Conscience

Problems in healthcare, science, law and public policy

Edited by Helen Watt

Cooperation in evil or wrongdoing is one of the most perplexing areas in bioethics, both for those working in the field and those seeking their advice.  The papers collected in this book are written by philosophers, theologians and lawyers who have studied these problems and / or by those who have faced these problems in their own work in law, healthcare and research, and political campaigning.  The volume includes both general treatments of the subject of cooperation and conscientious objection, and more specific treatments of topics such as voting to improve unjust laws, research on fetal / embryonic cells, and care of suicidal patients.  The book is offered as a guide to a field which is both of academic interest and of personal concern to those who face cooperation problems in their own life and work.

Contributors include:  Bishop Donal Murray, Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, Jane Adolphe, Mike Delany, John Finnis, Luke Gormally, Colin Harte, Cathleen Kaveny, Richard Myers, Charlie O'Donnell, Alexander Pruss, Neil Scolding and Helen Watt.

Reviews

The quality of the essays is very high, although they also remain very readable...  this book fills a vital niche in addressing thorny issues of a Catholic's involvement in modern medical practice whose mainstream vision, especially in the obstetrics and gynecology areas, is often at odds with Catholic teaching.  Recommended for priests, not just in chaplaincy settings, medical students and students in medical ethics courses, and general readers interested in bioethics.

    -    Dr John M. Grondelski

        Homiletic & Pastoral Review, December 2006

If someone is doing something harmful, when is it right to help him or her to do it?  The obvious answer is 'never'.  Accomplices to crime are rightly punished because they are complicit in wrongdoing.  Yet if we could never cooperate with any wrongdoing then we could never pay tax (because of what some of it is spent on), never pay the television licence fee (because of some of what is broadcast), never drive a bus (because of what some people will be on their way to do), and never work for the post office (because of all the threats, intimidation, blackmail, pornography, and fraudulent offers of easy money etc. delivered by post).

The question of whether, when, how, and to what extent to cooperate in wrongdoing is thus both difficult and important.  This book is a major contribution to a neglected subject......[T]he best general treatment I have come across on the key ethical issue of cooperation.

    -    Professor David Jones

        The Pastoral Review, July 2006

These issues are highly pertinent.... As a junior doctor, the issue of cooperation in evil was an area that troubled me greatly.

Doctor Charlie O'Donnell has written an excellent "how to survive" guide for Pro-life medical students. It is by far the clearest and most practical guide I have read on the subject and it ought to be read by all Pro-life students.

In a similar vein, Doctor Mike Delany has written a useful chapter on the problems of cooperation in evil in General Practice. The questions covered include how one ought to deal with issues of abortion, contraception and infertility problems in unmarried couples.

Professor Luke Gormally and Bishop Anthony Fisher have written helpful chapters on the general philosophical issues involved in the ethics of cooperation. Gormally offers a critique of the Utilitarian argument that it is sometimes right to intentionally cooperate in wrongdoing. Bishop Fisher makes a powerful case against the casuist concerns of Fr. James Keenan and others who accuse "conservatives" of making Catholic moral tradition seem "inhuman, restrictive and useless."

Other chapters are on the ethics of using foetal cells in treatment and research and on cooperation problems in cases of suicidal patients.

Are there problems of principle in voting for unjust legislation when it comes to abortion? Collin Harte and Professor John Finnis put forward their different views on this important matter.

This book will be of great help to priests, to those interested in the field of medical ethics and to clinicians determined to do good and avoid evil.

    -    Dr Pravin Thevathasan                                                                             
www.theotokos.org.uk                                                                           
 

A comprehensive and helpful study of the range of contemporary issues relating to the moral problem of cooperation in evil.  The volume makes an important contribution to an important moral question for theorists and practitioners alike.

    -    Peter J. Cataldo, Ph.D.                                                                            

        The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Winter 2006

To its long list of previous accomplishments, the Linacre Centre can now add this fine volume on one of the perennial problems of practical reasoning. To what extent is it morally legitimate to cooperate with people who are doing what one considers wrong? This volume not only contains some fine theoretical work on the traditional distinction between formal cooperation and material cooperation. It also provides a number of incisive articles on various practical problems that are currently the object of debate in such areas as law, healthcare, and public policy...This volume is a splendid example of interdisciplinary scholarship on contemporary issues of great importance.     

    -    Joseph Koterski

         Life and Learning.

There is...a lot to consider in this collection. Consisting of 15 thought provoking essays, it is nothing if not comprehensive...The arguments put forward in this book offer interesting and often sophisticated insights into the many facets these problems can take.

    -    Sheelagh McGuinness

            Medical Law Review, May 2007

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