Issues in Bioethics and the Concept of Scale arose from the author’s deep and committed interest in ecology, moral philosophy, and medicine, and how they are interrelated. William A. Cook expands on the recognition that spatial and temporal scale characteristics are factors in the understanding and modeling of ecological systems and in decision-making around ecological and environmental issues, and introduces this dynamic to the field of bioethics. The concept of scale, from hierarchy theory as it is used in ecology to deal with the complexity and interrelationships of systems, is explored and identified as a factor and potential source of conflict in the field of bioethics. This notion of scale is conceptually useful for considering the complexity of some bioethical issues.

The Author: William A. Cook graduated from Queen’s University Medical School, Kingston, Ontario, and completed his training in plastic surgery at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Subsequently, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. Dr. Cook’s interest in bioethics resulted in the development of a bioethics service at River Valley Health in New Brunswick where he practices and in the completion of a Ph.D. in bioethics from the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. He continues to be active in this bioethics service and in his current mind-body medicine practice with a central focus on mindfulness and conscious living.