The foundation of medical ethics

Abstract

Thomasma and Pellegrino's [3] focus on the healing relationship as the way to give medical ethics a philosophical foundation contains a number of difficulties. Most importantly, their approach focuses philosophical analysis on an idealized view of the healing relationship in which the ideal of health is seen as an uncontroversial norm in the individual case. medical ethics is then characterized as ‘an intrinsic part of the medical act itself’. Philosophical inquiry seems limited to a description of the practice of medicine in which ethical norms are embodied. Insufficient attention to methodology leaves unclear how this vision is to be achieved in philosophical reflection.