We’ve collected a number of interviews conducted by historians of bioethics that touch on the founding and development of the KIE, many from the Project on Bioethics in American Society, a multi-year ethnological study of the field of bioethics conducted by sociologist Renée C. Fox and historian Judith P. Swazey. (The project culminated in a book, Observing Bioethics; see below.)
By arrangement with the KIE’s director at the time, LeRoy Walters, transcripts of the interviews were archived at Georgetown’s Bioethics Research Library, accessible below.
This collection houses the publications from current and former Kennedy Institute of Ethics scholars for which the publisher allows archiving of post-prints. These publications are now openly available online at the Georgetown University Institutional Repository. The Bioethics Research Library is collaborating with Georgetown’s University Library to digitize, preserve and extend the history of bioethics. There are many historical gems buried in the Bioethics Research Library’s collections, in an ongoing state of digitization and development online.
The following books deal, in whole or in part, with the founding of the KIE and its role in the development of the field of bioethics itself.
The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal has also been home to a smattering of articles through the years about the history of the KIE, including several penned by former senior research scholar Warren Reich.
Beauchamp, Tom L. “The Origins, Goals, and Core Commitments of The Belmont Report and Principles of Biomedical Ethics,” in The Story of Bioethics, ed. Jennifer K. Walter and Eran P. Klein (Georgetown University Press: 2003): pp. 17-46.
Childress, James F. “Principles of Biomedical Ethics: Reflections on a Work in Progress,” in The Story of Bioethics, ed. Jennifer K. Walter and Eran P. Klein (Georgetown University Press: 2003): pp. 47-66.
Reich, Warren Thomas. “Shaping and Mirroring the Field: The Encyclopedia of Bioethics,” in The Story of Bioethics, ed. Jennifer K. Walter and Eran P. Klein (Georgetown University Press: 2003): pp. 165-196.
Veatch, Robert M. “Revisiting A Theory of Medical Ethics: Main Themes and Anticipated Changes,” in TThe Story of Bioethics, ed. Jennifer K. Walter and Eran P. Klein (Georgetown University Press: 2003): pp. 67-91.
Walters, LeRoy. “The Birth and Youth of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics,” in The Story of Bioethics, ed. Jennifer K. Walter and Eran P. Klein (Georgetown University Press: 2003): pp. 215-231.
Reich, Warren Thomas, “The Word “Bioethics”: Its Birth and the Legacies of Those Who Shaped It,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1994 December; 4(4): 319-336;
Reich, Warren Thomas, “The Word “Bioethics”: The Struggle Over Its Earliest Meanings,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1995 March; 5(1): 19-34;
Rosner, Fred and Reich, Warren Thomas, “Bioethics Is More than 30 years Old” [letter and reply], Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1995 March; 5(1): 85-86;
Reich, Warren Thomas, “Revisiting the Launching of the Kennedy Institute: Re-visioning the Origins of Bioethics,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1996 December; 6(4): 323-327;
Reich, Warren Thomas, “”The Wider View”: Andre Hellegers’s Passionate, Integrating Intellect and the Creation of Bioethics,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 1999 March; 9(1): 25-51.
Harvey, John Collins, “Andre Hellegers and the Carroll House: Architect and Blueprint for the Kennedy Institute of Ethics,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 2004 June; 14(2): 199-206.
