Medical Ethics: Some Uses, Abuses, and Limitations

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Abstract
A backlash against medical ethics may be developing because of a misunderstanding of its purpose and limitations. A primary role of medical ethics is to "structure" the disputed issues — i.e., by detailing the relevant principles and implications, analyzing the pivotal concepts, and focusing on the relevant facts. Medical ethics is limited by being unable to discriminate finely, so that a single line of action can seldom be determined by moral criteria alone. Underlying many criticisms of medical ethics is the failure to realize that medical ethics as such is not a reform movement or an effort to inspire moral behavior, that it is not and cannot be a specialist's body of esoteric knowledge, that it requires facts and conceptual analyses from other fields to do its work, and that value arguments can be carried farther than one generally expects. (N Engl J Med 293:384–387 1975)

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