RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Doctors should be morally common: a reply to Rosamond Rhodes
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 784
OP 785
DO 10.1136/medethics-2019-105878
VO 45
IS 12
A1 Charles Foster
YR 2019
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/45/12/784.abstract
AB ​Rosamond Rhodes contends, by reference to seven examples, that medical ethics is distinctly different from non-medical ethics. Each of those examples, on proper examination, illustrates precisely the opposite contention. It is clear not only that medical ethics relies on the same principles as non-medical (and indeed non-professional) ethics, but that it should so rely. A distinctively medical ethics would be dangerous: it would divorce ethical medical decision-making from the patients whom medicine exists to serve.