Virtue is the most perdurable concept in the history of ethics, which is understandable given the ineradicability of the moral agent in the events of the moral life. Historically, virtue enjoyed normative force as long as the philosophical anthropology and the metaphysics of the good that grounded virtue were viable. That grounding has eroded in both general and medical ethics. If virtue is to be restored to a normative status, its philosophical underpinnings must be reconstructed. Such reconstruction seems unlikely in (...) general ethics, where the possibility of agreement on the good for humans is remote. However, it is a realistic possibility in the professional ethics of the health professions where agreement on the telos of the healing relationship is more likely to arise. Nevertheless, virtue-based ethics must be related conceptually and normatively to other ethical theories in a comprehensive moral philosophy of the health professions. (shrink)

The revival of virtue ethics over the last thirty‐five years has produced a bewildering diversity of theories, which on the face of it seem united only by their opposition to various features of more familiar Kantian and Utilitarian ethical theories. In this paper I present a systematic account of the main positive features of virtue ethics, by articulating the common ground shared by its different varieties. I do so not to offer a fresh defence of virtue ethics, but rather to (...) provide a conceptual map that locates its main claims and arguments in relation to those of rival theories, and identifies its distinctive contribution to contemporary ethics. I set out six specific claims which are made by all forms of virtue ethics, and I explain how these claims distinguish the theory from recent character‐based forms of Kantian ethics and Utilitarianism. I then use this framework to briefly survey two main strands of virtue ethics which have been developed in the literature.1. (shrink)

Physicians in rural settings confront many of the same ethical dilemmas as their urban counterparts: confidentiality, quality‐of‐life decisions, resource allocation, and their moral responsibility for bettering the life of the community. However, the courses of action they choose as morally justifiable are influenced by distance from other professional facilities, the interrelationship of private and professional roles in a small community, and the non‐specialized orientation of their practices.