Abstract
Contemporary bioethics begins with the perception that medical values are a matter of public, rather than merely professional, interest. Such was the message of delegates in Helsinki and of the New Jersey court that decided for Quinlan. It is a theme that lurks within almost every major bioethical treatise since the first edition of PrinciplesofBioethics. This perception also undergirds the increasingly popular suggestion that moral authority in the patient-physician relationship resides neither in the medical profession, nor in the singular will of the patient, but in moral communities that link both parties with higher social orders