Bioethics cannot be thought of as a primarily North American and Western European academic discipline. Bioethics has become a truly international phenomenon, moving beyond academic discussions into politics, social policy, and law. Religious Perspectives in Bioethics illustrates the diverse and wide ranging moral intuitions, premises, evaluations, and commitments of many of the world's religions. As such, it explores, documents and critically assesses the moral and cultural assumptions, central beliefs and values, epistemological and metaphysical understandings that underlie the bioethics of a wide range religions, from Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, to Islam and Judaism, to the various Christian religions, including Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Southern Baptist, and Reformed Protestant. Religious Perspectives in Bioethics portrays the often widely divergent bioethical perspectives reflected throughout the international community's religions and cultures.
Here one appreciates the significant plurality of fundamentally different, incompatible, and often mutually antagonistic moral visions and moral rationalities, within which complex bioethical issues are addressed. Religious Perspectives in Bioethics is the second of three foundational volumes, including Regional Perspectives in Bioethics and Legal Perspectives in Bioethics, which serve as precursors to the Annals of Bioethics Serial.