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• Medical ethics for children: the virtues' role
  Maurizio Soldini
  Published on: 13 March 2008

• Published on: 13 March 2008

  Medical ethics for children: the virtues' role

  • Maurizio Soldini, MD, PhD

  I agree with Baines [1] that there are difficulties with the application of the four principles approach to incompetent children. Baines says that the most important principle – respect for autonomy – is not directly applicable to incompetent children and the principle of beneficence is complicated by difficulties in assessing what a child’s interests are. Moreover there are other problems with the four principles appro...

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  I agree with Baines [1] that there are difficulties with the application of the four principles approach to incompetent children. Baines says that the most important principle – respect for autonomy – is not directly applicable to incompetent children and the principle of beneficence is complicated by difficulties in assessing what a child’s interests are. Moreover there are other problems with the four principles approach. Infancy, like adolescence, represents the most delicate season of the existence of every human being, in the measure in which it can be seen like that one critical existential situation of passage from the indefinite contours and the uncertain contents through which it is passed in order to arrive to the adult age. The child and the adolescent in fact have not still caught up that one the psychical maturity and the responsibility that are own of the new condition of adult. In this dimension it makes the process of emancipation from the figures ancestral celebrations explicit, than help from "greater" responsibilities the child, then also he is educated to responsible actions, but like not demanded the adult, than instead he chooses, he judges and he decides in independent way. The separation and the removal from the ancestral figures, that they grow with to the child, then imply inner uncertainty of the own identity, uneasiness and marginalities, conflicts and anxiety. New points of reference are attempted therefore, as an example, in the group and in the friends and to the horizon the acquisition of a new one is outlined ethos. This ethos, often, but not always, is inferior to that enforced one in family. However there is of positive that already in infancy is begun to acquire autonomy and responsibility in active way, or better in first person [ 2 ]. The moral education is called to value these new experiences and to sharpen a critical spirit of verification of the ethos that it comes to it proposed. Then an educational role important is given from ideal models in which the adolescent it tries to identify itself. As ulterior positive data has the tendency to the search of a specific and particular identity. Here the role of the bioethics and the relative theoretical formulation assumes importance for the doctors and for their role. Bioethics, in fact, plays an important role and has remarkable implications on all those who operate in the field of Pediatrics at all levels. The forma mentis and the modus operandi that bioethics offers to each operator and educator will surely bring benefits towards the prevention of illness and the general well-being of children and adolescents, who will be tomorrow’s adults. In another paper[3], I analyzed problems related to adolescence, such as corporeity, sexuality, health and education, underlines the need to consider them from a bioethical perspective. There and here among the various bioethical approaches I support the importance of the Aristotelian-Thomistic virtues theory. This ethical theory is highlighted and should be preferred when dealing with the overall health, both physical and moral, of everyone and especially of every children and adolescent.

  References 1. Baines P, Medical ethics for children: applying the four principles to paediatrics, J Med Ethics 2008; 34: 141-145. doi:10.1136/jme.2006.018747 2. Gatti G., Adolescenza, voce, Dizionario di Bioetica. Leone S, Privitera S (Ed.) Acireale-Bologna: EDB-ISB; 1994 3. Soldini M, [Bioethics and adolescence. Reflections about corporeality, sexuality, health, education], Ann Ist Super Sanita. 2004;40(3):373-7

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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