Moral Theory And Medical Practice

In this unique study Fulford combines the disciplines of rigorous philosophy with an intimate knowledge of psychopathology to overturn traditional hegemonies. The patient replaces the doctor at the heart of medicine. Moral theory and the logic of evaluation replace epistemology as the focus of philosophical enquiry. Ever controversial, mental illness is at the interface of philosophy and medicine. Mad or bad? Dissident or diseased? Dr Fulford shows that it is possible to achieve new insights into these traditional dilemmas, insights at once practically relevant and philosophically significant.

Philosphical medical ethics forms the basis of the codes of conduct and legal constraints involved in doctors' professional lives. This series of articles presents a British approach to the concepts, assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, and arguments underlying medico-moral decision-making in the context of medical practice. The book serves as an introduction whose aim is to encourage more rigorous analysis of the moral dilemmas confronting all physicians and to contribute to a comprehensive and coherent moral theory for medical practice.

This book discusses medicine from an ethical perspective, whereas books on medical ethics more commonly present ethics from a bio-medical standpoint. The book is divided into 23 chapters. The introductory chapters present some basic concepts of medical ethics, such as the relation between the legal system and ethics, ethical documents, ethical theories, and ethical analysis. The following chapters address issues of importance in all fields of medicine: respecting autonomy, communication, relations within a healthcare team, professional malpractice, limited resources, and the portrait of a physician. In turn, the third part of the book focuses on ethical aspects in a broad range of medical activities – preventive medicine, human reproduction, genetics, pediatrics, intensive care, palliative medicine, clinical research, unproven methods in diagnostics and treatment, and the role of physicians who aren’t directly responsible for patient care. The last part presents students’ seminars with case stories. The book offers a valuable resource for physicians of all specialties, students of medicine, professionals, and students from other fields devoted to human health, journalists, and general readers with an interest in medicine.

In recent years, virtue theories have enjoyed a renaissance of interest among general and medical ethicists. This book offers a virtue-based ethic for medicine, the health professions, and health care. Beginning with a historical account of the concept of virtue, the authors construct a theory of the place of the virtues in medical practice. Their theory is grounded in the nature and ends of medicine as a special kind of human activity. The concepts of virtue, the virtues, and the virtuous physician are examined along with the place of the virtues of trust, compassion, prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and effacement of self-interest in medicine. The authors discuss the relationship between and among principles, rules, virtues, and the philosophy of medicine. They also address the difference virtue-based ethics makes in confronting such practical problems as care of the poor, research with human subjects, and the conduct of the healing relationship. This book with the author's previous volumes, A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice and For the Patient's Good, are part of their continuing project of developing a coherent moral philosophy of medicine.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book examines the concept of care and care practices in healthcare from the interdisciplinary perspectives of continental philosophy, care ethics, the social sciences, and anthropology. Areas addressed include dementia care, midwifery, diabetes care, psychiatry, and reproductive medicine. Special attention is paid to ambivalences and tensions within both the concept of care and care practices. Contributions in the first section of the book explore phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches to care and reveal historical precursors to care ethics. Empirical case studies and reflections on care in institutionalised and standardised settings form the second section of the book. The concluding chapter, jointly written by many of the contributors, points at recurring challenges of understanding and practicing care that open up the field for further research and discussion. This collection will be of great value to scholars and practitioners of medicine, ethics, philosophy, social science and history.

Increasingly, medical students are required to face up to ethical issues in their training and practice. At the same time, there is growing interest in philosophy courses in the ethical issues raised by medical practice. This textbook, designed primarily for students of medicine, develops the issues to a philosophical level complex enough to be satisfying to students of philosophy as well as MA students on applied ethics courses. The author advocates an approach to medical ethics which breaks out of the straitjacket of the narrow choice between utilitarian or deontological theory, and contains a valuable discussion of practical wisdom. It maintains a balance between case studies and philosophical arguments - which are developed in a historical context, and will be of interest at all levels of the medical profession.

Dealing with some of the thorniest problems in medicine, from euthanasia to the distribution of health care resources, this book introduces the reasoning we can use to approach medical ethics. Exploring how medical ethics supports health professionals' work, it also considers the impact of the media, pressure groups, and legal judgments.

Christian health care professionals in our secular and pluralistic society often face uncertainty about the place religious faith holds in today's medical practice. Through an examination of a virtue-based ethics, this book proposes a theological view of medical ethics that helps the Christian physician reconcile faith, reason, and professional duty. Edmund D. Pellegrino and David C. Thomasma trace the history of virtue in moral thought, and they examine current debate about a virtue ethic's place in contemporary bioethics. Their proposal balances theological ethics, based on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, with contemporary medical ethics, based on the principles of beneficence, justice, and autonomy. The result is a theory of clinical ethics that centers on the virtue of charity and is manifest in practical moral decisions. Using Christian bioethical principles, the authors address today's divisive issues in medicine. For health care providers and all those involved in the fields of ethics and religion, this volume shows how faith and reason can combine to create the best possible healing relationship between health care professional and patient.