Against Relativism: Cultural Diversity and the Search for Ethical Universals in Medicine, by Ruth Macklin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 304 pp.

Abstract

Ruth Macklin's new book, Against Relativism, says in its subtitle that it intends to address cultural diversity and the search for ethical universals in medicine. This it does very well. Every chapter includes some discussion of cultural relativism, cultural anthropology, or postmodernism, and her analyses are acute and scathing. Macklin is unabashed in her defense of the principles of medical ethics, and she gives a strong argument that principles are essential elements of any ethical system that is to successfully survive the skeptical doubts of relativism.