The Research On Edmund Pellegrino’s Medical Ethics

Edmund D. Pellegrino is the famous medical philosopher and medical ethicist in America. The medical ethics based on the philosophy of medicine is content-full, universal and internal to medicine. It is a response to the challenges arising from the erosion of the integrity and wholeness of the medical ethics resulted in its social construction, and the tendency from substantive ethics to procedural ethics, from looking for moral truth to solving problem in the post-modern era.This paper studies Pellegrino’s medical ethics by grounding in and placing it in the history of medical ethics. This paper holds that the philosophy of medicine provides the foundation for medical ethics by two ways. Firstly, the philosophy of medicine illustrates the nature and end of medicine. Secondly, the philosophy of medicine clarifies the basic conceptions in medicine. Both the physician-patient model of beneficence-in-trust and the medical virtue theory are based on the philosophy of medicine. The model of beneficence-in-trust is built on the fiduciary nature between physician and patient, and oriented to patient’s interests. It not only keeps consistent with the Hippocratic tradition,but also keeps responsive to the needs of respecting patients’ rights. The model of beneficence-in-trust requires doctors and patients, especially doctors have virtues. Pellegrino proposes medical virtue ethics for two reasons. On the one hand, the modern principle-based or rule-based ethics especially principlism is faced with the practical difficulties and theoretical flaws. On the other hand, medicine requires virtue ethics inherently. The medical virtue ethics is oriented to the end of medicine, and looks for fulfillment of the end. In this sense, it is a teleological theory. The medical virtue ethics cannot and shouldn’t replace principle-based or rule-based ethics, they connect with each other through prudence.This paper holds that Pellegrino’s paradigm of studying medical ethics is particular. Pellegrino’s medical ethics is built on the philosophy of medicine, which is totally different from socially constructing medical ethics and the procedural ethics. It provides us with the paradigm of studying medical ethics on the level of philosophy of medicine. Pellegrino’s medical ethics is also inclusive. Specifically, the model of beneficence-in-trust reconciles beneficence with autonomy, and the medical virtue ethics connects with the principled-based or rule-based ethics. Pellegrino’s medical ethics is not perfect, the medical virtue ethics demands too much and fails in persuasiveness, for it tends to see altruism as an opposition to self-interest. However, Pellegrino’s medical ethics is coherent and practical. It provides us with thoughtful theoretical guidance about how to understand the patient-doctor relationship, construct harmonious patient-doctor relationship and cultivate virtues.