Challenges to Moral Judgement in Medical Ethics

From Utilitarianism and Deontology to Patient Autonomy

Abstract

Due to advances in biology and medicine the medical profession is being faced with new challenges. To take a clinical case oriented approach to issues at hand is to correctly grasp the patient's clinical situation. Since medical decisions are determined by circumstances surrounding his clinical situation and are therefore heteronomous, and since ethical decisions on the other hand must be autonomous in order to be correct, it is possible that medical routine will conflict with the patient's actual needs. Values are an aspect of truth and are therefore not relative. A distinction is to be made between the question of values and questions concerning issues of a factual nature since the values element demonstrates the extent to which various aspects of humaneness, interpersonal relationships and empathy in medicine contribute to the patient's well-being. They reveal how vital it is to the individual that he be approached deontologically rather than from a utilitarian point of view. Morality is not rooted in cause only, but rather in moral cause, therefore it is important to gain a complete understanding of how the social factors of responsibility, duty and obligation affect those who no longer wish to comply with the role of passive beneficiary of routine care.