Abstract
Bioethicists regularly make moral judgments about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of particular actions. They may judge that it is morally appropriate to withhold therapy from a particular patient because that patient has refused to receive that therapy. They may judge that it is morally appropriate to warn a third party about a threat posed by a patient even if the patient demands confidentiality. They may judge that a particular patient in an ICU should be discharged from the ICU to the floor because demands of justice require that a place be made for a patient with a greater need for the ICU bed. That bioethicists make such judgments about particular actions should come as no surprise. One of the major reasons for the emergence of bioethics is just that such judgments regularly need to be made in the world of high technology medicine.
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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Brody, B.A. (1988). Introduction — Moral Theory and Moral Judgments in Biomedical Ethics. In: Brody, B.A. (eds) Moral Theory and Moral Judgments in Medical Ethics. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2715-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2715-5_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7723-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2715-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive