Consensus is an important topic in bioethics. Approaches to consensus formation developed over the last decade to establish standards of clinical practice are now extended to moral issues. Healthcare ethics committees, ethics advisory boards, and national ethics committees aim at creating and formulating consensus. The essays in this volume analyse the various dimensions of consensus formation. They demonstrate the clinical, institutional and political context of consensus regarding ethical issues. Consensus formation as a dialogic and discursive activity is also deeply influenced by the socio-cultural context, as examples from Europe, Japan and the U.S. illustrate. Specific problems in consensus formation are discussed in regard to genetic counseling, psychiatry, treatment decisions in family medicine, futility, and reproductive technology. The essays in the volume explore the potentials and problems of forming consensus at various levels of health care in modern pluralist societies.
