Clinical Ethics and History The word "ethics" - or "bioethics" when it comes to health and life sciences - is one of those that make it flee, because some assault it like a blow of a club or an argument of authority, or 'invoke on the assumption that everyone knows what it is and suggests that those who do not know it are uneducated, even contemptible. Now, it is not a dirty word, contemptuous or haughty, but an estimable word. And what he designates is no less so. Moreover, what he evokes in the first place is precisely the esteem that everyone should manifest - in his words or actions - towards everyone. This article is intended to clarify what is meant by the term "bioethics" in the context of this blog and the texts that will be published and it will also define what is called “clinical ethics " and describe its most important principles. Ethics, in the broad sense, is the sum of the principles that one means to respect what is "right" (or "good"). For some, ethics is synonymous with morality. Schematically, one can define three great "forms" of ethics, three ways of understanding what is "good." -
the ethics of virtue that the actions performed by a good (virtuous) person are good, ethical ethics, which means that actions that comply with a code, a list of ethical rules (ethics)
- Consequentialist ethics, which seeks to achieve good results. The Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism that wants to be "good" act which produces the most happiness or well-being to the greatest number of people. (It is on this principle, for example, that the vaccination campaigns are based.) (There are other approaches, such as feminist ethics or ethics of care, but they complement and do not exclude the broad areas of ethics.) Bioethics is the set of principles deriving from these three main areas and intended to serve as moral standards in the field of living; we talk about biomedical ethics when it comes to health. However, bioethics is also a major concern for human activities and behavior towards animals and the biosphere as a whole. These standards were not born overnight. Until 1945, the moral and behavioral rules that physicians were supposed to respect were necessarily based on religious concepts and ethics (a code of conduct) issued by the doctors themselves. As the behavior of the Nazi doctors showed (although they were far from being the only ones), these rules were by no means sufficient to protect non-doctors from the actions of doctors in extermination camps as elsewhere Historically, doctors have practiced gestures on the sick (and often also on the unhealthy) which it was sometimes difficult to say whether it was care, cruelty, punishment or, quite simply, experimental activities. Medical law and bioethics courses are being taught at specialized learning centers to facilitate the learning and understanding of these topics.