The role of conscience in medical ethics

Philosophical Reflections on Medical Ethics

Volumn , Issue , 2005, Pages 160-179

  Benn, Piers ^a  

^a IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 72449210378     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1057/9780230273931     Document Type: Chapter

References (13)

1. Aquinas's view on this is well summed up in Anthony Kenny (1987) 'The Conscience of Sir Thomas More', in Anthony Kenny, The Heritage of Wisdom: Essays in the History of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell).
2. Kenny, The Heritage of Wisdom, p. 110.
3. R. M. Hare (1963) Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press), ch. 5.
4. R. M. Hare (1981) Moral Thinking (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 53ff.
5. Jonathan Bennett (1994) 'The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn', in Peter Singer (ed.) Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 294-305.
6. Bennett, 'The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn', p. 297.
7. A soldier once told me in casual conversation that most members of the British Army were opposed to the venture in Iraq. Yet they still fought there.
8. I do not use the terms 'to wrong' and 'to harm' to mean the same thing. It is possible to wrong someone without harming them (e.g. tell them a benevolent lie) and also to harm someone without wronging them (e.g. inflict a just punishment).
9. This occurs in William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice, later made into a film.
10. I owe this example to Eve Garrard.
11. Bennett, 'The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn'.
12. Mark R. Wicclair (2000) 'Conscientious Objection in Medicine', Bioethics, 14(3) (July), pp. 205-27.
13. See in particular Raanan Gillon (1985) Philosophical Medical Ethics (New York: John Wiley & Sons).