Abstract
The last part of the book, Part III focuses on ethical assessment. In this chapter we look at the major ethical theories and how they can help provide a framework for assessing doctors’ involvement in torture. This survey and application includes Teleological Ethics (which prioritizes end goals and consequences), Deontological Ethics (which prioritizes moral duty and obligations), Virtue Ethics (which prioritizes a life of virtue and the development of moral character), and Feminist Ethics (which prioritizes relationships and moral agency).
“The cell had no ceiling. It was raining. At midnight they threw something at my sister’s feet. It was my brother Ayad. He was bleeding from his legs, knees and forehead. … The next day they took away his body.” The US military later issued a death certificate, seen by the Guardian, citing the cause of death as “cardiac arrest of unknown etiology”. The American doctor who signed the certificate did not sprint his name, and his signature is illegible.
—Luke Harding, The Guardian (U.K.), 20 Sep 2004.
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Teays, W. (2019). Ethical Theory. In: Doctors and Torture. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 80. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22517-9_8
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