Medical Research and the Golden Rule

Abstract

Recentnovations and discoveries in medical science have prompted reexamination of ethical standards in experimentation. In the ensuing discussions and controversies, medical ethics has been defined in moral, legal, sociologic, theologic, and many other terms, and its limitations, flexibility, and function have been widely articulated and debated. But the essence of medical ethics, the golden rule, has been largely overlooked or undervalued: Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them (Matthew 7:12). If man lived alone, a code of ethics would be superfluous; only in society does it become requisite and intelligible. Society, in fact, regulates human ethics. The canon of ethics of all communal living— regarding material possessions, etiquette, family or international relations, and other forms of social behavior—emanated from the golden rule. In medical science, the myriad considerations that affect the behavior of the physician toward his patient require some elaboration of