The context as a moral rule in medical ethics.
A purely deductive medical ethics cannot properly account for the varieties of circumstances which arise in medical practice. By contrast, a purely inductive medical ethics lacks sufficient guidance from ethical principles. In resolving ethical dilemmas in medicine, most often an appeal is made to middle-level axioms and methodological rules to mediate between theory and practice. I argue that this appeal must be augmented by considerations of context, such considerations, in effect, constituting a moral rule based on the social structure of medical practice. A contextual grid is proposed which assists the process of weighing values in resolving cases.
D026688:Bioethical Issues; D026689:Ethical Analysis; D028663:Ethical Theory; D026822:Ethicists; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D009014:Morals; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D012945:Social Values; D014481:United States