29 - Virtue in the clinic

Summary

Through the efforts of many scholars in moral philosophy, moral psychology and education, the ethics of care has emerged as a legitimate ethical approach capable of standing on its own as an alternative to the more traditional deontological and consequentialist views. At least one construal of the ethics of care casts itself as a form of virtue ethics with the motive of care or concern for others being the primary virtue to serve as the basis of moral judgement. While much of the recent literature has been directed at developing and defending the content of the approach itself, some work has been dedicated to exploring the application of the ethics of care to professional ethical contexts such as medical practice. However, applications of the virtue ethics of care to issues in biomedical ethics remain largely unexplored and it is my intention to ofer some insights into what this perspective might say on a few of the many substantive moral issues in medical practice. Traditionally, the physician-patient relationship itself and most of the main issues surrounding it have been discussed in the context of deontological or consequentialist perspectives. One challenge for any formulation of virtue ethics is to recast the relationship and the issues in aretaic terms.

I will begin by describing the main features of the virtue ethics of care and explain the ways in which they stand out in the health care context.