Philosophical Medical Ethics

2. Medical codes and oaths.

3. Deontology.

4. Consequentialism.

5. Virtue and good character, integrity and conscience.

6. “It’s all too subjective!”: scepticism about the possibility or use of philosophical medical ethics.

7. The scope of our moral obligations.

8. Rights, including human rights, and healthcare.

9. Respect for autonomy.

10. Paternalism and medical ethics.

11. Beneficence, non-maleficence and the ‘Hippocratic commitment’.

12. Understanding “Primum non nocere” and the principle of non-maleficence.

13. Justice and medical ethics.

14. The allocation of medical resources- distributive justice.

15. Truth-telling in medicine.

16. Keeping secrets: confidentiality in medicine.

17. Consent.

18. The limits of respect for autonomy.

19. Acts and omissions, killing and letting die.

20. Double effect in medicine.

21. Ordinary and extraordinary means.

22. Do ‘the patient’s interests always come first’?.

23. The ethics of medical research.

24. Doing medical ethics at the bedside.

25. Moral judgements and moral action.

26. Conclusion