Analysing the profession of ministers in terms of sociologically and ethically funded profession ethics makes a mode of regulation and control in knowledge-based professional action - profession ethics - describable which is closely linked to trust. To adopt trust as an imperative of figuration however, it must be discussed ethically. A theoretical discourse of implementation in an institutional ethics perspective leads to alternative recommendations for figuration: Trust in the profession of ministers is no longer generated by conscious intransparancy, by smothering (...) up mistakes and fallacies and the concealment of control of ministers but by transparancy, feeling obliged to visions, having clear aims, common identity and cooperation structures between professionals and parishioners. (shrink)

The health care sector is currently in a process of economization which, undoubtedly, has an impact on the relationship of physician and patient. In this article, elements of the new institutional economics are applied to the physician-patient-relationship in the sense of a descriptive heuristics. The authors find out that based on the principal-agent-theory paradoxical action settings ofthe physician can be located. 1t is necessary for policy makers involved in health care to consider these paradoxes. Furthermore, health literacy of lay persans (...) supported by widespread information technology lessens the information gap between physician and patient which changes their interaction with a Iasting effect. Based on this analysis the authors recommend not only to focus on individual ethics of the physician but rather to consider approaches of institutional ethics and incentive systems. (shrink)

In this article, the authors attempt to build a bridge between economic theory and medical ethics to offer a new perspective to tackle ethical challenges in the physician–patient encounter. They apply elements of new institutional economics to the ethically relevant dimensions of the physician–patient relationship in a descriptive heuristic sense. The principal–agent theory can be used to analytically grasp existing action problems in the physician–patient relationship and as a basis for shaping recommendations at the institutional level. Furthermore, the patients’ increased (...) self-determination and modern opportunities for the medical laity to inform themselves lead to a less asymmetrical distribution of information between physician and patient and therefore require new interaction models. Based on the analysis presented here, the authors recommend that, apart from the physician’s necessary individual ethics, greater consideration should be given to approaches of institutional ethics and hence to incentive systems within medical ethics. (shrink)