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Ethics and Law

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Health Studies

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This chapter explores the central relevance of ethics and law to Health Studies. It exposes a range of dilemmas facing those involved in health care provision. These dilemmas relate to issues such as the nature and value of life (at both its beginning and its end), the rationing of scarce health care resources and the accountability of health professionals to the public they are supposed to serve. Is it possible to justify the actions of health care professionals who assist patients in committing suicide? Should economic priorities determine ability to access treatment? To what extent, if at all, should we allow health care professionals just to ‘get on with their job’ without the application of external monitoring or standards? Ethics and law help us understand and respond thoughtfully to these and other similar questions. The dilemmas that they represent are not confined simply to ‘life and death’ situations, but they cover the whole span of health care activity from prevention and health promotion through treatment to rehabilitation. In the first part of the chapter, ethical theory is discussed and related to practical health and health care examples; then law, its nature and application to health and health care is explored. The chapter moves on to expose and investigate difficulties in the relationship between ethics and law and asks the question that should be at the heart of health care practice: is what we must do (our legal obligation) always the same as what we ought to do (our ethical or moral duty)? The chapter closes with an extended example of the dilemma posed by policymakers’ attempts to intervene in individual food choices, and in doing so, it draws out both the problems and possibilities attached to thinking about health care policy and practice through the lenses of law and, especially, ethics.

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Further Reading

  • Beauchamp, T., & Childress, J. (2019). Principles of Biomedical Ethics (8th ed.). Oxford University Press.

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  • Beauchamp and Childress developed the idea of the ‘Famous Four’ principles of health care ethics, and this is the book in which their ideas are most completely expressed. It is detailed and technical but offers many helpful points of reference, including extensive signposts to further literature. It has been updated multiple times since its first appearance in 1979 and now has much more to say, for example, on Aristotelian (virtue) ethics, an area that has gradually assumed relatively greater importance in the field of health care ethics.

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  • Duncan, P. (2010). Values, Ethics and Health Care. SAGE.

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  • This book explores many of the issues raised in this chapter in more detail, concentrating especially on problems of ethics confronted by those engage in everyday (‘ordinary’) health care.

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  • Glover, J. (2008). Choosing Children: Genes, Disability and Design. Oxford University Press.

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  • This is a beautifully written book by a leading moral philosopher and based on a series of lectures in which he explores the dilemmas faced by a society in which genetic and reproductive technology is radically changing the nature of life’s beginnings.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. London, UK

    Peter Duncan

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  1. Peter Duncan
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Health, Community & Policy Studies, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Jennie Naidoo

  2. London South Bank University, London, UK

    Jane Wills

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© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Duncan, P. (2022). Ethics and Law. In: Naidoo, J., Wills, J. (eds) Health Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2149-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2149-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-16-2148-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-16-2149-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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