Analysing ethics

Conclusion

I cannot be certain what people have in mind when they wish to expose medical students to ethics, but if what I have said so far is sound, then they ought not to mean moral philosophy alone. The moral life of medicine and the moral life in general have certainly given rise to rules of thumb, guidelines and principles which summarise our sentiments about interactions within that life. However, the substance of that life is human vulnerability and our responses to it. This is not to say that the theories found in moral philosophy are not a rich terrain for intellectual ingenuity, they are, but there is no reason whatever to believe that their study sharpens moral sensitivity.

Sensitivity to human vulnerability is the dimension which medical ethics education should seek to explore. One reason is that medical practice is at the hard edge of moral practice, and the character of the practitioners is one of our major concerns as consumers of health care.

My conclusion is easy enough to state. Many have started the business of medical ethics on the assumption that moral philosophy has an applied correlate. This has proven to be a chimera. Let's have the courage to admit that a promising research project has petered out and start to look for a more plausible one. Perhaps we could start by looking for good narratives of suffering, of living under adversity, and of caring for the suffering.