[Ethics, culture and psychiatry: the ethics of Mediterranean Europe]

The defence of the rights of the person, in Mediterranean ethics, is based on a synthesis of civic humanism and liberalism, derived from the spirit of Greek democracy and Enlightenment, and including the achievements of the XIX and XX centuries. It tempers liberalism with the principles of social welfare. Present bioethics, specialy in European countries, try to integrate both the mediterranean ethics of virtues and the anglosaxon ethics of principles, further adding and integrating a social element, the principle of solidarity and distributive justice (equity). Therefore, European ethics do not proclaim the autonomy of persons and the independence of the individual from society, but the interdependency of persons and nations. They advocate a greater equity and a better management of resources in health care.