A Philosophical Rethinking of Medical Ethics

Abstract

A rethinking of ethics, whether applied to medical space, requires a distraction from the abstract words, grouped together in the so-called system of correlated notions, encompassing the concept of human ethics, and in particular of medical ethics. The first example of such a semiotic distance is offered by Jean Pierre Clero with reference to the concept of autonomy, a concept derived from Kantian philosophy, and almost fetishized in the medical ethics of recent years. However, Cleo argues, this term is not operationalized, nor clearly defined semantically, so that reference to it remains often in the space of a sterile philosophical debate, being less operable in the framework of a utilitarianist ethics based on moral, such as the one derived from Game Theory. Another concept taken from Immanuel Kant's (2010) ethical thinking is that of person, but remains suspended somewhere between legal thinking and moral philosophy, but little operative for practitioners of moral ethics.