Philosophy of medicine and bioethics

Thomas Schramme

pp. 3-15

in: Thomas Schramme, Steven D. Edwards (eds), Handbook of the philosophy of medicine, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

The chapter discusses ways to understand the notion of philosophy of medicine, with a special focus on the relation between philosophy of medicine and bioethics. Philosophy of medicine has been distinguished from other associations between philosophy and medicine. These conceptual distinctions lead to an account that delineates bioethics from the realm of philosophy of medicine. It has often been argued that medicine itself is a normative practice in that it aims at the good of patients. This undermines a simple account of medicine as a purely empirical, natural science. Yet such a normative account of medicine does not show that philosophy of medicine needs to aim at normative guidance like bioethics.