[The structure of meta-ethical reasoning and "paradigmatic instability" of medicine]

Meta-ethics is such a philosophical discipline that it analyses meaning and logical status of moral conceptions and arguments. Its scope of interest is focused on such problems, among others, as to what extent are moral values the intrinsic part of our reality and, on the other hand, to what extent are they merely the expression or certain conventions, emotions or directives. Codes of medical ethics and other legal acts concerning ethical commitments, both domestic and international (as, for example, Declaration of Helsinki), are based on a certain hidden meta-ethical presumption that morality is a human creation, and thus it belongs to a certain so-called "social realm". As such, medical ethics undergoes continuous transformations with regard to technological progress, which creates new moral challenges. This frequently leads to conflicts between moral, legal and praxiological norms under the absence of consensual conformity of utilitarian and deontological ways of moral reasoning. It may be useful for medical ethics to differentiate between axiological and thetic norms that are present in codes of medical ethics and in various international bioethical declarations and conventions.