Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: diverse ethics
- 2 Darwinism and ethics
- 3 Creation and relation
- 4 Embryo experimentation: public policy in a pluralist society
- 5 Ethical considerations in genetic testing: an empirical study of presymptomatic diagnosis of Huntington's disease
- 6 Identity matters
- 7 The virtues in a professional setting
- 8 Medical ethics, moral philosophy and moral tradition
- 9 Roman suicide
- 10 Women and children first
- 11 Moral uncertainty and human embryo experimentation
- 12 Morality: invention or discovery?
- 13 Quality of life and health care
- 14 Dependency: the foundational value in medical ethics
- 15 Not more medical ethics
- Index
8 - Medical ethics, moral philosophy and moral tradition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 April 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: diverse ethics
- 2 Darwinism and ethics
- 3 Creation and relation
- 4 Embryo experimentation: public policy in a pluralist society
- 5 Ethical considerations in genetic testing: an empirical study of presymptomatic diagnosis of Huntington's disease
- 6 Identity matters
- 7 The virtues in a professional setting
- 8 Medical ethics, moral philosophy and moral tradition
- 9 Roman suicide
- 10 Women and children first
- 11 Moral uncertainty and human embryo experimentation
- 12 Morality: invention or discovery?
- 13 Quality of life and health care
- 14 Dependency: the foundational value in medical ethics
- 15 Not more medical ethics
- Index
Summary
The task originally given to me was to discuss ‘the philosophical basis of medical ethics’. Without wanting to seem ungracious, I want to argue that medical ethics does indeed have a ‘philosophical basis’, although not exclusively or even primarily in moral theory. Medical ethics has a basis in philosophy's long and (mostly) honourable tradition of practical ethics – of attempting to think systematically about the moral problems that people actually face. Whether it also has a basis in moral theory is a more perplexing question.
In an effort to understand the relationship between medical ethics and moral philosophy, I will need to explore several issues. The first problem is to describe the currently dominant model of that relationship, deductivism and to examine its shortcomings. Then I will explore the recent resurgence of attention to the tradition of practical reasoning about cases of conscience commonly called casuistry. ‘Casuistry’, as a concept, has multiple meanings and even more connotations and historical associations. I hope to add some clarity to discussions of casuistry and deductivism by distinguishing between two core meanings of casuistry:
(1) as immersion in the particularity of specific cases or problems coupled with the inescapable need for interpretation; and
(2) as a claim about the relation between moral judgement and moral theory as sources of moral knowledge.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Medicine and Moral Reasoning , pp. 91 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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