Ethics in Psychiatry

Abstract

My justification for having the temerity to discuss matters of ethics in the absence of any formal training in moral or philosophical enquiry derives from two sources. There is Hippocrates who insists that ‘every physician should be a philosopher’ in the sense that every doctor should not shirk from the ever-present necessity to assess and reappraise the values and attitudes on which his practice of medicine is founded. There is also the more contemporary view, expounded by, among others, Paul Ramsey, to the effect that in order to become an ethicist the physician has only to quit resisting being one. Neither of these positions should be taken as suggesting that ethical questions are easily defined and mastered. But both lend substance to the conviction that ethics are concerned with the actual moral judgements of practical men and with the formulation of relevant general principles, values and criteria to support the value judgements and moral decisions made daily in the clinical practice of medicine.