Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

In her provocative discussion of the challenge posed to the traditional impartialist, justice-focused conception of morality by the new-wave care perspective in ethics, Annette Baier calls for ‘a “marriage” of the old male and newly articulated female... moral wisdom,’ to produce a new ‘cooperative’ moral theory that ‘harmonize[s] justice and care.’ I want in this paper to play matchmaker, proposing one possible conjugal bonding: a union of two apparently dissimilar modes of what Nel Noddings calls ‘meeting the other morally,’ a (...) wedding of respect and care. (shrink)

Knowledge needed for ethical care must be constructed in the relationship between professional and patient who strive together to understand what meaning the disease factors have within the experience of the individual patient. Three kinds of knowledge are described. The first two, descriptive knowledge and abstract knowledge, are part of the more comprehensive and complex inherent knowledge. The reality of human experience and meaning is profoundly more complex than the scientific approach of fragmentation for purposes of dissection and diagnosis. In (...) order to develop descriptive, abstract and inherent knowledge as outlined here, three moves need to be made: the move from dominance to collaboration, the move from abstraction to context, and the move from beneficence to nurturance. (shrink)