The Hippocratic thorn in bioethics' hide: cults, sects, and strangeness

Bioethicists have typically disdained where they did not simply ignore the Hippocratic tradition in medicine. Its exclusivity--an oath of and for physicians--seemed contrary to the perspective that bioethicists have attempted to invoke. Robert M. Veatch recently articulated this rejection of the Hippocratic tradition, and of a professional ethic of medicine in general, in a volume based on his Gifford lectures. Here that argument is critiqued. The strengths of the Hippocratic tradition as a flexible and ethical social doctrine are offered in its stead.