Compassion as the reunion of feminine and masculine virtues in medicine
Abstract
The central role of the virtue of compassion in the shaping of the professional character of healthcare providers is a well-emphasized fact. On the other hand, the utmost obligation of physicians is to alleviate or eliminate human suffering. Traditionally, according to the Aristotelian understanding of virtues and virtue ethics, human virtues have been associated with masculinity. In recent decades, the founders of the ethics of care have introduced a set of virtues with feminine nature. This paper analyzes the notion of compassion as a common virtue between the traditional/masculine and care/feminine sets of virtues and shows that compassion is a reunion and merging point of both sets of human virtues. This role can be actualized through the development and promotion of compassion as an important part of the character of an ideal physician/healthcare provider. In addition, this paper argues that the notion of compassion can shed light on some important aspects of the contemporary debates on healthcare provider-patient relationship and medical futility. Despite the recent technological and scientific transformations in medicine, the interpersonal relationship between healthcare providers and patients still plays a vital role in pursuing the goals of healthcare. The virtue of compassion plays a central role in the establishment of a trust-based physician-patient relationship. This central role is discernible in the debate of medical futility in which making difficult decisions, depends largely on trust and rapport which are achievable by compassion in the physician and the recognition of this compassion by the patients and their surrogate decision makers.
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2. Larkin GL, Iserson K, Kassutto Z, et al. Virtue in emergency medicine. Acad Emerg Med 1996; 3(10): 961-6.
3. Cassell E.J. The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine, 2ed. UK: Oxford University Press; 2004, p. 1-30.
4. Callahan D. The Troubled Dream of Life. USA: Georgetown University Press; 2000, p. 94, 95.
5. Willows A. Aristotle’s virtue theory. Challenging Religious Issues. 2013; 3:7-12.
6. Comte-Sponville A. In A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life.USA: Picador; 2002, p. 103-17.
7. Held V. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. UK: Oxford University Press; 2006, p. 3.
8. Nortvedt P, Hem MH, Skirbekk H. The ethics of care: role obligations and moderate partiality in health care. Nurs Ethics. 2011; 18(2): 192-200.
9. Tong R. The ethics of care: a feminist virtue ethics of care for healthcare practitioners. J Med Philos. 1998; 23(2): 131-52.
10. Callahan D. The goals of medicine-setting new priorities. Hastings Center Report. 1996; 26(6).
11. Kelly DF, Magill G, Ten Have H. Contemporary Catholic Health Care Ethics, 2ed. USA: Georgetown University Press; 2013, p. 222, 223.
12. Have HT, Clark D. The Palliative Care. In The Ethics of Palliative Care: European Perspectives.. Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press; 2002, p. 212-32.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 10 (2017) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| Keywords | ||
| Compassion Virtue ethics Futility Doctor-patient relationship End-of-life care | ||
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How to Cite
1.
Aramesh K. Compassion as the reunion of feminine and masculine virtues in medicine. J Med Ethics Hist Med. 2017;10.
