TY - JOUR T1 - Internal morality of medicine and physician autonomy JF - Journal of Medical Ethics JO - J Med Ethics SP - 198 LP - 203 DO - 10.1136/medethics-2018-105069 VL - 45 IS - 3 AU - Stephen McAndrew Y1 - 2019/03/01 UR - http://jme.bmj.com/content/45/3/198.abstract N2 - Robert Veatch and others have questioned whether there are internal moral rules of medicine. This paper examines the legal regulatory model for governing professions as the autonomous exercise of professional skills and asks whether there is a theoretical basis for this model. Taking John Rawls’s distinction between the justification of a practice and justification of the rules internal to the practice, this paper argues that the autonomous exercise of professional skills is justified so long as it benefits society. In opposition to Christopher Boorse, it is argued that medicine is pathocentric and that physicians exercise skills in treating pathologies. The autonomous treatment of pathologies is justified because non-interference with physicians will lead to greater treatment of pathologies and so benefit society. Finally, the analysis of medicine as the autonomous exercise of skills in treating pathologies yields the rule that physicians not be forced to cause pathologies. ER -