[Download] "Moral Principlism Alone Is Insufficient, And Traditional Moral Theories Remain Important for Practical Ethics (Report)" by South African Journal of Bioethics and Law ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Moral Principlism Alone Is Insufficient, And Traditional Moral Theories Remain Important for Practical Ethics (Report)
- Author : South African Journal of Bioethics and Law
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 280 KB
Description
Bioethics is a relatively new discipline. It arose in direct response to the moral and ethical questions raised by the events of the Holocaust during World War II and by the rapid expansion of scientific knowledge in medicine. (1-3) Modern bioethics takes as a starting point the traditional canons and teaching about the morality of medicine that are found in all the ancient civilisations of the world. However, bioethics cannot rely on the old adages and codes because the ethical dilemmas created by new technology and knowledge in medicine are unique in human existence. The coming together of moral philosophers, theologians, lawyers, activists and clinicians has created a new field that has impacted on both moral philosophy and clinical practice. This cross-fertilisation has encouraged debate about ethical and moral epistemology in clinical practice. The most prominent current approach to medical ethics is known as the four principles approach and has been championed by Beauchamp and Childress in the USA and Gillon in the UK. (2-6) The rise of the four principles has tended to cast the relevance of moral theories and epistemology into doubt. The prominence of the four principles has resulted in an emerging critique of the approach. This article will examine the problems with the four principles and review the major competing ethical theories in an attempt to identify ways to integrate the classic moral theories and the four principles. The four principles and their opponents