PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - D F Tsai
TI  - Ancient Chinese medical ethics and the four principles of biomedical ethics.
AID  - 10.1136/jme.25.4.315
DP  - 1999 Aug 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 315--321
VI  - 25
IP  - 4
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/25/4/315.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/25/4/315.full
SO  - J Med Ethics1999 Aug 01; 25
AB  - The four principles approach to biomedical ethics (4PBE) has, since the 1970s, been increasingly developed as a universal bioethics method. Despite its wide acceptance and popularity, the 4PBE has received many challenges to its cross-cultural plausibility. This paper first specifies the principles and characteristics of ancient Chinese medical ethics (ACME), then makes a comparison between ACME and the 4PBE with a view to testing out the 4PBE's cross-cultural plausibility when applied to one particular but very extensive and prominent cultural context. The result shows that the concepts of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice are clearly identifiable in ACME. Yet, being influenced by certain socio-cultural factors, those applying the 4PBE in Chinese society may tend to adopt a "beneficence-oriented", rather than an "autonomy-oriented" approach, which, in general, is dissimilar to the practice of contemporary Western bioethics, where "autonomy often triumphs".