Philosophical Perspectives on Medical Ethics and Research

Medical ethics, which is expanding in scope, now includes public health ethics, bioethics, and biomedical or health care ethics. Though it started as a form of professional ethics, medical ethics is one of the most important fields of practical ethics, a branch of philosophy. According to Rawls, much of moral theory is independent from the other parts of philosophy. That is, the study of moral concepts and their relation to our moral sensibility has its own distinctive problems and subject matter, requiring unique forms of study. But what is the relation between ethics and medical ethics? In this article we argue that moral theory and medical ethics are necessarily interconnected and that they support each other. Professional duties are influenced by health care systems and policies, and public health ethics is influenced by ethical and political theory. Therefore, we argue that problems in medical ethics should be addressed from a meta-viewpoint that takes other disciplines into consideration.