Edited by Kenneth Kearon and Fergus O'Ferrall, Dublin, Ireland, Columba Press, 2000, 168 pages, £7.99.

Public lecture series do not always, unfortunately, result in a published volume of interdisciplinary, informed and well argued papers. Medical Ethics and the Future of Health Care has succeeded, however, in doing just this. A public lecture series was organised by the Adelaide Hospital Society, Dublin, Ireland in 1999 to facilitate better public understanding of complex issues in health care confronting citizens and carers. The book assumes correctly that the Republic of Ireland is now indisputably a pluralist society, discomforting to some readers who might look to the book for absolute answers and certainties. They would be disappointed because the essays show rather that it will be public debate and reasoned, imaginative approaches to decision making in health care that will replace the comforts of traditional certainties.

Coming from the internationally recognised philosopher of principlism, James Childress, the nurse ethicist, Verena Tschudin and representatives from …