About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 Med., Health Care & Phil. 1 (1998)

handle is hein.journals/medhcph1 and id is 1 raw text is: 6. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 1: 1-3, 1998. Editorial Philosophy of medicine and health care - European perspectives It is a commonplace that interest in the philosophical problems of medicine and health care has burgeoned over the last three decades, in the U.S. as well as in the majority of European countries. It is also obvious that this interest is mainly focused on moral questions and dilemmas. In the past decades a new profes- sional has entered the stage: the health care ethicist or 'bioethicist' who possesses a specific body of knowl- edge and particular cognitive skills; who publishes in specialized journals, participates in newly-formed societies, and teaches in newly-established centers, institutes, and departments. The number of new jour- nals in bioethics and medical ethics is increasing every year. Recently, this burgeoning of bioethics as a new dis- cipline is criticized from various perspectives. Alterna- tive approaches, such as care ethics and hermeneutical ethics have been developed. It is argued that medical ethics is presently dominated by a limited concep- tion of ethics - the application of moral theories and principles to cases. This conception depreciates the fundamental internal morality of the professional prac- tice of medicine by stressing external morality. This conception also reveals a lack of interest in the empir- ical realities of clinical medicine and neglects the socio-cultural value-contexts in which medical care is provided. In short, a broader philosophical framework for a practicable medical ethics is needed. Precisely this last critique is worthwhile since it points to the fact that health care ethics used to be part of a wider critical reflection on medicine and health care. Ethics is one way to address the philosophical aspects of modern medicine. From a European perspective, bioethics is a com- ponent of a larger movement of critical reflection on health care. This movement has other components, such as medical epistemology, medical anthropology, social philosophy and cultural philosophy of health care. In many European countries, ethics is very much under the influence of philosophical and theological traditions, and not dominated by analytical philosophy. Only in a few countries, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, medical ethics in particular is the specialized enterprise of a new profession; most often it is the recognized busi- ness of medical practitioners, who therefore dominate public debate. This is, presumably, also one of the rea- sons why the term bioethics is not as frequently used as medical ethics or health care ethics. However, another reason is that bioethics often is identified not with a discipline of moral philosophy, but with a specific approach of moral problems. Some- times, such identification leads to negative responses, accusing bioethicists (not medical ethicists) of being facilitators of medical technologies attempting to soften moral resistance against innovations. For example, it has been argued that moral intuitions about the intrinsic dignity of human embryos do not in general favour the instrumental use of embryos for research; in order to undermine intuitive opposi- tion to embryo research, bioethicists have introduced, according to this argumentation, the new terminology of pre-embryo and new conceptions of personhood, thus connecting moral status and human development. These kind of arguments must be evaluated against the background of events in Germany. In 1988 and 1989, Peter Singer was invited to lecture on the subject of euthanasia for severely disabled newborn infants in Germany. However, the invitation was canceled. When trying to lecture at another university, protesters made it for him impossible to speak. A broad coali- tion of left- and right wing groups did not want issues such as euthanasia and the right to life of handi- capped people to be discussed in Germany. Since then, other activities against bioethics have taken place, for example the canceling of the annual conference of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care in Bochum in 1990, of the International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg in 1991, and the disruption of courses on practical ethics in several German universities. For the protesters, bioethics is an import-product supporting the U.S. medical-industrial complex. In most European countries there is not such a radical opposition against bioethics. But, what is noticeable, is a growing awareness that the dominant

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most