TY - JOUR T1 - Ancient Chinese medical ethics and the four principles of biomedical ethics. JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics SP - 315 LP - 321 DO - 10.1136/jme.25.4.315 VL - 25 IS - 4 AU - D F Tsai Y1 - 1999/08/01 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/25/4/315.abstract N2 - 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". ER -