The cultural and philosophical foundations of normative medical ethics

Thirty years ago, the idea that culture and philosophy could provide a foundation for normative medical ethics was more easily entertained than it is today when the very notion of a norm, whether culturally, philosophically or ethically derived, is in itself a problem. In large measure this comes from our contemporary embrace of cultural and philosophical pluralism and an increasing tendency to exchange the difficult belief in abstract and universally applicable norms for the more accessible notion that ethical values are cultural and relative derivatives. Despite this, in the face of the unprecedented ethical dilemmas presented by modern medicine, we have attempted to apply traditional ethical norms and analysis to modern medicine to establish a consensus for its right practice. Unfortunately, the attempt has not been successful, so that wherever we turn we find that ethical problems in medicine remain intractable and unresolved. That, in turn, has prompted a certain scepticism about the efficacy of ethics in medicine. In order to understand why we have reached this impasse, it is essential to realize that we have seriously underestimated the way science and technology have informed and, as a consequence, transformed the practice of medicine. Contributing to this, our tendency to think of technology simply as a way of doing things has blinded us to the fact that it is more fundamentally a way of thinking, knowing and valuing.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)