title: [The ambiguity of the bioethics' principles].
abstract: The principles of the bioethics, coined in United States at the end of the seventies and diffused in our social environment one decade later, enclose inside a semantic ambiguity that here it is analyzed in their master lines; this ambiguity oscillates between a relativistic meaning and another agreed with the classic concept of Nature; this ambiguity has been transmitted to who, being part of the field of the Hippocratic medical ethics, have adopted its terminology, and these are the immense majority of the medical class. This phenomenon is easily leading towards the abandonment of the medical ethics based on the natural law (the Hippocratic-Christian tradition), to make it finish in a more or less clear relativism. to avoid this problem, some solutions in the field of the medical ethical terminology are proposed.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Humanidades Biomédicas, Universidad de Navarra, Irunlarrea, Pamplona. apardo@unav.es
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pardo Caballos
mesh_terms: D001675:Bioethics; D028781:Ethical Relativism; D028662:Principle-Based Ethics