Philosophical Provocation: The Lifeblood of Clinical Ethics

The daily work of the clinical ethics teacher and clinical ethics consultant falls into the routine of classifying clinical cases by ethical type and proposing ethically justified alternatives for the professionally responsible management of a specific type of case. Settling too far into this routine creates the risk of philosophical inertia, which is not good either for the clinical ethicist or for the field of clinical ethics. The antidote to this philosophical inertia and resultant blinkered vision of clinical ethics is sustained, willing exposure to philosophical provocation. The papers in this clinical ethics issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy provide just such philosophical provocation related to core topics in clinical ethics: the distinction between clinical practice and clinical research; telemedicine, or medicine at a distance; illness narratives; the concept of the placebo effect; and sex reassignment.