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How Abstract Is My Thinking as an Ethicist in Clinical Settings?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Edmund L. Erde
Edmund L. Erde
Affiliation:
Department of Family Practice at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Osteopathic Medicine
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Extract

Philosophy is generally considered to be very abstract. How philosophical and abstract Is ethical thinking In clinical situations? This paper sketches an answer In the form of a case study (I am the case) and offers me the chance for some self-reflection and readers the chance to eavesdrop on that self-reflection. Aside from any Intrinsic worth of the questions and answers, they also have Implications for how clinical ethicists should be educated or trained, i.e., how abstract should one's work in moral philosophy be?

Type
The Philosopher's Corner
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Spring 1994 , pp. 281 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

Notes

1. Davis, DS. Rich cases. Hie ethics of thick description. Hastings Center Report 1991;21 (07/08):12–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Examples include 1) whether Louise Brown would feel so unusual as the world's first test tube baby that it would be better for her had she not been conceived, 2) whether “we” should feed anencephalic babies, and 3) whether the ruins and grave sites of tribes that have been disbanded or extinct for centuries should not be explored.

3. Perhaps this explains what Dan Clouser means in advising us not to do philosophy until we have to.

4. Hanson, NR. Patterns of Discovery. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1965.Google Scholar

5. Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

6. Jonsen, A. Of baloons and bicycles: Or, the relationship between ethical theory and practical judgment. Hastings Center Report 1991;2 (09/10):14–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar