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Biomedical subjects

K D Clouser

Publications and source records attributed to K D Clouser.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1977

Allowing or causing: another look.

If "allowing to die" is really different from "causing to die," it is so on a much more subtle level than is generally thought. Efforts to compare the two by locating "cause" have been mistaken. What is really at issue is the location of moral responsibility. The physician has an obligation to save and is remiss if he does not try. The layman does not and is not. But as saving turns into pointless torture, the physician's obligation recedes, and he (ethically) becomes a layman. There is a range within which this turning point would take place for each of us, and the value of a "living will" can be seen as a means for each of us to specify that point for himself.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1975

Medical ethics: some uses, abuses, and limitations.

A backlash against medical ethics may be developing because of a misunderstanding of its purpose and limitation. A primary role of medical ethics is to "structure" the disputed issues--i.e., by detailing the relevant principles and implications, analyzing the pivotal concepts, and focusing on the relevant facts. Medical ethics is limited by being unable to discriminate finely, so that a single line of action can seldom be determined by moral criteria alone. Underlying many criticisms of medical ethics is the failure to realize that medical ethics as such is not a reform movement or an effort to inspire moral behavior, that it is not and cannot be a specialist's body of esoteric knowledge, that it requires facts and conceptual analyses from other fields to do its work, and that value arguments can be carried farther than one generally expects.

Abortion, Legal↗