Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. From now until the launch of Oxford Events, new events cannot be published or edited on OxTalks while all existing records are migrated to the new platform. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period.
From 16th, Oxford Events will launch on a new website: events.ox.ac.uk, and event submissions will resume. You will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
This seminar will be held by Bluejeans videoconferencing, please email admin@ethox.ox.ac.uk to register and the link will be sent to you in the morning of the seminar.
Common morality has been the touchstone for addressing issues of medical ethics since the publication of Beauchamp and Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics in 1979. I challenge that reigning view by demonstrating why the standard common morality accounts of medical ethics are unsuitable for the profession and inadequate for responding to the distinctive issues that arise in medical practice.
By presenting vivid examples, I demonstrate that (1) some actions required or permitted by common morality, are prohibited for medical professionals; (2) some actions required or permitted by medical ethics, are prohibited by common morality; (3) some optional actions for people outside of medicine, are strict duties for medical professionals. I go on to distinguish social roles from professions and use that distinction to explain why medicine requires a distinctive ethics.
In sum, I argue that medical ethics is an autonomous field because the duties of doctors cannot be deduced from the precepts of common morality. I therefore conclude that as an independent domain of ethics, the specific requirements of medical ethics have to be defined, explained, and inculcated.
