Do No Evil: Unnoticed Assumptions in Accounts of Conscience Protection

HEC Forum : an Interdisciplinary Journal on Hospitals' Ethical and Legal Issues
Bryan C Pilkington

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that distinctions between traditional and contemporary accounts of conscience protections, such as the account offered by Aulisio and Arora, fail. These accounts fail because they require an impoverished conception of our moral lives. This failure is due to unnoticed assumptions about the distinction between the traditional and contemporary articulations of conscience protection. My argument proceeds as follows: First, I highlight crucial assumptions in Aulisio and Arora's argument. Next, I argue that respecting maximal play in values, though a fine goal in our liberal democratic society, raises a key issue in exactly the situations that matter in these cases. Finally, I argue that too much weight is given to a too narrow conception of values. There are differences between appeals to conscience that are appropriately categorized as traditional or contemporary, and a way to make sense of conscience in the contemporary medical landscape is needed. However, the normative implications drawn by Aulisio and Arora do not follow from this distinction without much further argument. I conclude that their paper is a helpful illustration the complexity of this issue and of a common view about conscience, but insofar ...Continue Reading

References

Jul 6, 2014·HEC Forum : an Interdisciplinary Journal on Hospitals' Ethical and Legal Issues·Mark P Aulisio, Kavita Shah Arora

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Citations

Dec 4, 2019·Journal of Bioethical Inquiry·Bryan C Pilkington
Jan 17, 2020·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·Tsung-Ting KuoRodney A Gabriel
May 5, 2020·Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·Tsung-Ting KuoLucila Ohno-Machado
Jan 6, 2021·Journal of Bioethical Inquiry·Jake Greenblum, T J Kasperbauer

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