ABSTRACT
From the time of Hippocrates until the 1960s medical ethics (or health-care ethics or bioethics) were seen in terms of doctors’ duties to patients. These duties have traditionally been condensed into that of furthering the patient’s best interests, or alternatively as those of not harming the patient (non-maleficence) and of helping the patient (beneficence). Codes of medical ethics and philosophical discussion from the 1970s increasingly added ‘respect for the patient’s autonomous decisions’ to the duties of non-maleficence and beneficence. In Chapter 2 we have indicated reservations about these principles, and the methodology they suggest. In this chapter we shall examine other limitations they have in the political philosophy of public health.
