Abstract
Why do we formulate ethical rules for medical actions? Why are medical ethics necessary? Is it no longer sufficient that the doctor is competent and understands his subject and therefore operates lege artis or according to the state of the art? Clearly technical rules alone are insufficient for the humane exercise of the art of medicine. The business of doctors is more than just the technically effective carrying out of operations. Also pertaining to it are an enquiry into the patient’s suffering, his physical constitution and life situation. Medical activity cannot simply concern itself with technical demands, but must also obey pragmatic imperatives, which require the integration of the business of healing into the situation of the patient’s life, the consideration of the effect of the doctor’s measures on his happiness in life; and must as well follow the moral imperative, which demands recognition of the patient as a person.1
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Cf. also P. Koslowski: Prinzipien der ethischen Ökonomie. Grundlegung der Wirtschaftsethik und der auf die Ökonomie bezogenen Ethik, Tübingen (J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck]) 1988, reprint 1993.
Cf. R.C.O. Matthews: “Morality, Competition and Efficiency”, The Manchester School of Economics and Social Studies (1981), p. 294.
Cf. Leo Koslowski (Ed.): Maximen in der Medizin, Stuttgart/New York (Schattauer) 1992.
Cf., concerning the difference between uncertainty and risk, F. Knight: Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, New York (Houghton Mifflin) 1921.
Thus J. H. Newman: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar Assent (1870).
B. Pascal: Lettres provinciales, lettre 7, in: B. Pascal: Euvres, published by L. Brunschvicg and P. Boutroux, Paris (Hachette) 1908, Reprint Vaduz (Kraus) 1965, Vol. 5, p. 85.
On the paradox of choice, cf. G. L. S. Shackle: Imagination and the Nature of Choice, Edinburgh (Edinburgh University Press) 1979, p. 19.
Cf. H. G. Van Leeuwen: “Certainty in Seventeenth-Century Thought”, in: Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. by PH. P. WIENER, New York (Scribner’s) 1968, Vol. 1, p. 304, S. R. LETWIN: “Certainty since the Seventeenth Century”, ibid, p. 312, and H. Thielicke: Theologische Ethik, Tübingen (J. C. B. Mohr) 1965, p. 88.
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© 1999 Springer-Verlag · Berlin Heidelberg
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Koslowski, P. (1999). Ethics and the Art of Medicine. In: Kuçuradi, I., Yavlal-Gedik, N. (eds) Ethics of the Professions: Medicine, Business, Media, Law. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60153-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60153-8_2
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