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Complicity

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics

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Abstract

Complicity occurs widely across different cultures and nations as a moral problem in healthcare. The problem of moral complicity arises as much for individual professionals as for organizations. From the perspective of individuals, there can be many different forms of complicity related to conflicts of interest or commitment and to conflicts of conscience. From the perspective of organizations, different forms of complicity arise from partnership relations between organizations or from government policies that impose services with which organizations have value conflicts. Over centuries of discourse on this topic, a moral principle was developed specifically to address problems of complicity – the principle of cooperation. By considering the different components of this principle, a variety of solutions emerge to resolve situations of moral complicity, whether for individuals or for organizations globally in healthcare.

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Further Readings

  • Institute of Medicine (IOM). (2014). Conflict of interest and medical innovation: Ensuring integrity while facilitating innovation in medical research. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Magill, G. (2016). Complicity of catholic healthcare institutions with immoral laws. In J. T. Eberl (Ed.), Contemporary controversies in catholic bioethics. Springer, Section VII: Healthcare Law and Policy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, A., & Handschin, L. (2012). Conflict of interest in global, public and corporate governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watt, H. (2006). Cooperation, complicity & conscience: Problems in healthcare, science, law and public policy. London: The Linacre Centre.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Healthcare Ethics, Duquesne University, 600 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15282, USA

    Gerard Magill

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  1. Gerard Magill
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Correspondence to Gerard Magill .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University Center for Healthcare Ethics, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Henk ten Have

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Magill, G. (2015). Complicity. In: ten Have, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_114-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05544-2_114-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-05544-2

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