Virtue Ethics and Mandatory Birth Control

Abstract

What does moral philosophy have to offer medical practitioners, patients, and policy makers? The list is not very long. It offers a style of analysis, a handful of moral concepts, and two moral theories. Conceptual analysis is its strongest suit. In the last twenty years moral philosophers have offered clear and trenchant analysis of abortion, euthanasia, paternalism, coercion, the concept of a person, and a host of other medical issues. One is immediately reminded of the work of Judith Jarvis Thompson, Joel Feinberg, Philippa Foot, and Daniel Callahan, to name a few. Moral philosophy likewise provides three central moral concepts in which to frame medical issues: beneficence, autonomy, and justice. Though the concepts themselves do not rate as pivotal philosophical contributions, the work moral philosophers have done in these areas is significant. There is finally the two moral theories, formalism and utilitarianism, and their many variations.1 Even the casual student of philosophy would ask why these are the only two. What about virtue ethics, Hellenistic ethics, the moral sentiment school, Hegel, Nietzsche, the pragmatists, contractarianism, decision theory, or even egoism? It is as if the proponents of formalism and utilitarianism have cornered the market; a kind of philosophical monopoly. But neither of these two theories is particularly well-suited for the kind of hands-on, close work that is required in medical ethics. There is the occasional embarrassment when the medical/moral question is asked “What should we do here?” and the moral philosopher hears herself saying “Let’s turn to the felecific calculus” or “Put that in the form of the categorical imperative.” Modern moral philosophy generally has not been much help in terms of putting its theoretical contributions to work on practical matters.