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The conscience debate: resources for rapprochement from the problem's perceived source.

¹Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, 2160 S. First Ave, Building 120, Suite 280, Maywood, IL, 60153, USA. jhardt@lumc.edu

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics

|August 30, 2008

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This article proposes a Catholic moral tradition-rooted view of conscience to resolve conflicts between physician conscience rights and patient rights. This richer conception ensures conscience judgments are rational, open to critique, and not biased.

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Area of Science:

Bioethics
Medical Ethics
Philosophy of Medicine

Background:

The debate on conscience in clinical encounters often centers on conflicting rights: physicians' conscience rights versus patients' rights to medical interventions.
Contemporary formulations of conscience may be inadequate for navigating complex ethical dilemmas in healthcare.

Purpose of the Study:

To critically evaluate the current understanding of conscience in clinical ethics.
To propose a conception of conscience rooted in the Catholic moral tradition as a resource for resolving ethical conflicts.
To reframe conscience as accountable to reason and open to critique, preventing its misuse.

Main Methods:

Critical evaluation of existing literature on conscience in clinical ethics.
Analysis of the Catholic moral tradition's perspective on conscience.
Philosophical argumentation to support a revised conception of conscience.

Main Results:

A conception of conscience grounded in the Catholic moral tradition offers a framework to move beyond unproductive assertions of conflicting rights.
Conscience is presented as essential for moral life and maintaining moral agency.
An intellectually richer, historical conception of conscience is accountable to reason, open to critique, and guards against bias.

Conclusions:

Recovering a robust, tradition-informed view of conscience can enrich ethical decision-making in clinical settings.
Conscience, when properly understood, supports rather than hinders ethical medical practice.
This approach promotes reasoned ethical deliberation and protects against the misuse of conscience claims.