You have lied! You are a liar! This is one of the most serious moral offences one can be blamed for. Augustine even regards lying as the fundamental moral offence and identifies it with sin and evil in general. For Augustine and Kant, lying is in itself morally reprehensible and not justifiable at all.

In biomedical ethics the principle of autonomy is closely connected with the moral and legal claim to informed consent. After World War II and the dramatic misuse of medicine in Nazi Germany, informed consent regulations were expected to help avoid similar misuse in the future, to help overcome the traditional medical paternalism, and to advance the liberty rights of patients and human subjects of research. With the rise of the new field of bioethics in the 1970s, the traditional beneficence-based model (...) of medical ethics shifted in the direction of an individual autonomy model. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: Is respect for autonomy in medicine synonymous with respect for autonomous choices? Does it depend on the competency of patients? Arguments: The article criticizes this opinion, which is widely held in the field of medical ethics. This position does not recognize the problem of paternalism in its full import in modern medicine. It misunderstands the moral meaning of autonomy in its primacy over the psychological meaning, as well as the close ties between autonomy and beneficence. These (...) ties are made evident by reflection on basic anthropological conditions of ethics. Conclusion: Proceeding from this reflection I outline consequences for the praxis of non- paternalistic care that also respects the will of non-competent patients. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungIst Achtung der Autonomie in der Medizin gleichbedeutend mit der Achtung autonomer Entscheidungen? Ist sie nur gegenüber entscheidungsfähigen Patienten möglich? Der Artikel kritisiert diese in der Medizinethik verbreitete Meinung. Sie wird der Problematik des Paternalismus in der modernen Medizin nicht voll gerecht und verkennt den Primat der moralischen gegenüber der psychologischen Bedeutung des Autonomiebegriffs sowie den engen Zusammenhang zwischen Autonomie und Fürsorge. Durch eine Reflexion anthropologischer Grundbedingungen der Moral zeige ich diesen Zusammenhang auf und skizziere Konsequenzen für die Praxis nicht-paternalistischer (...) Fürsorge, die den Willen auch nicht-kompetenter Patienten achtet. (shrink)

The article starts from the observation that lying or rather the absence of truth- ful communication is still a common practice within modern medicine, and that medical ethics lacks moral arguments sufficient to serve as an efficient therapy of this illness. With regard to the problem of paternalistic justifications of emergency lies, I defend the classical definition and position regarding lying of Augustine and Kant, along with an uncommon interpretation of it. Thus, their aim is not to inhumanely condemn every (...) single merciful lie but to make clear that every attempt to justify lies based on beneficence or »Menschenliebe« (Kant) has to be rejected, because it gives rise to a general praxis of untruthful behaviour. In order avoid this consequence, one must be aware of what makes lying as such morally wrong. This has to be clarified by referring to the ethical-existential Sinnhorizont of truth and truthfulness within the entire context of personal human existence. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 1 Seiten: 144-162.

The paper tries to defend the Augustinian and Kantian position on the moral problem of lying against the popular opinion that this position must be rejected as an inhuman rigorism. The first part argues that Augustine and Kant do not intend to condemn entirely any kind of lying in any single case, which would be the task of judgment . Rather, they strive for a clarification of lying as a fundamental moral concept of language. Those concepts are not morally neutral, (...) as consequentialist positions hold, but function rather as a kind of conceptual measure or compass for moral judgment. That means that single lies can be excusable or an inevitable evil. But under no circumstance do we have a right or even an obligation to lie. The second part shows how the moral prohibition against lying as a linguistic act can be argued for – as Augustine and Kant do – by reflection on the anthropological meaning of language for human existence. For this purpose, following the phenomenological tradition three meanings of language are distinguished: 1. language as object, 2. language as practice, 3. language as “Sinnhorizont”. (shrink)

Am Beispiel der ethischen Hirntoddiskussion wird die Notwendigkeit einer philosophischen Reflexion und Kritik der Medizin und der Medizinethik aufgezeigt, wodurch die anthropologischen Bedingungen medizinischen Handelns und ethischer Theorie expliziert werden. Ohne eine solche kritische Reflexion bleiben sowohl naturwissenschaftliche Aussagen als auch ethische Prinzipien zu abstrakt und realitätsfern, die ethischen Probleme bleiben so unlösbar. Nur im personalen Sinnhorizont menschlicher Lebenspraxis, so die These, lassen sich physiologische Befunde wie die Hirntodfeststellung und ethische Prinzipien wie Autonomie und Würde angemessen verstehen und anwenden. Für (...) die Situation des Todes und des Hirntodes bedeutet das, dass auch hirntote wie tote Menschen als Person mit dem Anspruch auf Achtung ihrer Autonomie und Würde zu betrachten sind. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungAm Beispiel der ethischen Hirntoddiskussion wird die Notwendigkeit einer philosophischen Reflexion und Kritik der Medizin und der Medizinethik aufgezeigt, wodurch die anthropologischen Bedingungen medizinischen Handelns und ethischer Theorie expliziert werden. Ohne eine solche kritische Reflexion bleiben sowohl naturwissenschaftliche Aussagen als auch ethische Prinzipien zu abstrakt und realitätsfern, die ethischen Probleme bleiben so unlösbar. Nur im personalen Sinnhorizont menschlicher Lebenspraxis, so die These, lassen sich physiologische Befunde wie die Hirntodfeststellung und ethische Prinzipien wie Autonomie und Würde angemessen verstehen und anwenden. Für (...) die Situation des Todes und des Hirntodes bedeutet das, dass auch hirntote wie tote Menschen als Person mit dem Anspruch auf Achtung ihrer Autonomie und Würde zu betrachten sind. (shrink)

Dealing with the reform of the Transplantation Law, the first issue of the new rubric “Philosophie aktuell” met with strong and lively interest from our readers. Subsequent to this discussion a growing number of reports were published dealing with violations of mandatory rules of conduct in transplantation medicine. Therefore the topic is revisited here from the slightly different vantage point “organ transplantation II: elucidation and confidence”.

The fiftieth anniversary of the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt arrived only months after the 1994 U.S. elections brought to power conservative Republican congressional majorities determined to reverse key legacies of Roosevelt's New Deal. At this juncture of special poignancy for many of those assembled at the “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12, 1995, President Bill Clinton offered remarks on “Remembering Franklin D. Roosevelt.” “Like our greatest presidents,” Clinton eulogized, Roosevelt “showed us how to be (...) a nation in time of great stress” and “taught us again and again that our government could be an instrument of democratic destiny.”. (shrink)

The fiftieth anniversary of the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt arrived only months after the 1994 U.S. elections brought to power conservative Republican congressional majorities determined to reverse key legacies of Roosevelt's New Deal. At this juncture of special poignancy for many of those assembled at the “Little White House” in Warm Springs, Georgia on April 12, 1995, President Bill Clinton offered remarks on “Remembering Franklin D. Roosevelt.” “Like our greatest presidents,” Clinton eulogized, Roosevelt “showed us how to be (...) a nation in time of great stress” and “taught us again and again that our government could be an instrument of democratic destiny.”. (shrink)

Despite efforts to foster gender equality in academia, women are vastly under-represented in tenured professorships, specifically in STEM disciplines. While previous research investigated structural and organizational barriers for women in academia, we explored professors’ subjective view on attributes required before and after reaching tenure. The perspective of professors is needed as they are gatekeepers when it comes to the career advancement of junior researchers. Hence, we interviewed 25 tenured STEM professors in Germany about which attributes they personally consider to be (...) required pre- versus post-tenure and analyzed whether these attributes are associated with gender stereotypes. We found that different attributes are mentioned in the pre- versus the post-tenure career stage and that the required attributes can be associated with gender stereotypes: While agentic–stereotypically male–attributes were mentioned more frequently than communal attributes in the pre-tenure career stage, communal–stereotypically female–attributes were reported slightly more often than agentic attributes after reaching tenure. Based on these novel findings, we discuss important implications for gender research and practice to contribute to more diversity and transparency in academic career advancement. (shrink)