The Internal Morality of Medicine in the Contexts of Implicit Religion and Spirituality

Abstract

The internal morality of medicine is the moral framework that entails the duties and virtues of physicians in their curing, healing and caring for the sick. It is claimed in this essay that when medicine is practiced as a secular vocation, as opposed to that of a business or a job, it meets the criteria of implicit religion and spirituality. Specifically, it is argued that spirituality is evident, relevant and important as an ingredient of the internal morality of medicine when the latter is practiced as a vocation. Spirituality may manifest in the committed professional activities and attitudes of physicians on behalf of the health of patients and of the larger community, and particularly in the process of discerning what is the best interest of patients in the context of a holistic healing approach to their clinical condition. It may also lessen the likelihood of erroneous overvaluation of patients’ self-determination, as if it were equivalent to dignity, while facilitating the consideration of patients’ communal connectedness. Therefore spirituality in medicine may enhance the quality of health care, and thereby benefit both the patients and those who affect, and who are affected by, their lives, health, dying and death.