Values-based practice: Fulford's dangerous idea

摘要

I am grateful to the editors of JECP for the opportunity to respond to the commentaries on my target paper on values-based practice in an earlier edition of the journal [1]. I am also grateful to the commentators in that same edition for the many positive things they have to say about values-based practice, but also for highlighting a number of key issues: these include, Thornton [2] on particularism and the writ of values-based practice (why anyone should feel bound by it); Gupta [3] on the extent of overlap between values-based practice and other approaches to working with values in health care (notably, the emerging field of clinical ethics); Brecher [4] on the two closely related questions of the definition of ‘value’ and precisely ‘whose values?’ values-based practice is all about; and Hutchinson [5] on philosophical foundations.