The art of medicine-Putting dignity to work

摘要

A profoundly brain-damaged teenage girl is brought to hospital. The nurses undress her and leave her, uncovered, on a trolley in front of some lascivious youths who are waiting in the Accident and Emergency Department. She seems to enjoy receiving their attention; they enjoy giving it. Is this wrong? Yes it is. But what language describes the wrongness? Certainly the four principles laid out by Tom Beauchampand James Childress in their classic Principles of Biomedical Ethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice) can't really help, or can't help without straining uncomfortably. Autonomy isn't offended. Insofar as the girl is capable of exercising autonomous thought, she's all for it, and so are the boys. And there's no real harm here, as harm would conventionally be described. One might say that the maxim "Do good" has been violated, but what does "good" mean?