While the consequences of mathematically-based software, algorithms and strategies have become ever wider and better appreciated, ethical reflection on mathematics has remained primitive. We review the somewhat disconnected suggestions of commentators in recent decades with a view to piecing together a coherent approach to ethics in mathematics. Calls for a Hippocratic Oath for mathematicians are examined and it is concluded that while lessons can be learned from the medical profession, the relation of mathematicians to those affected by their (...) work is significantly different. There is something to be learned also from the codes of conduct of cognate but professionalised quantitative disciplines such as engineering and accountancy, as well as from legal principles bearing on professional work. We conclude with recommendations that professional societies in mathematics should sponsor an (international) code of ethics, institutional mission statements for mathematicians and syllabuses of ethics courses for incorporation into mathematics degrees. (shrink)

This short work examines what the Hippocratic Oath said to Greek physicians 2400 years ago and reflects on its relevance to medical ethics today. Drawing on the writings of ancient physicians, Greek playwrights, and modern scholars, each chapter explores one passage of the Oath and concludes with a modern case discussion. This book is for anyone who loves medicine and is concerned about the ethics and history of the profession.

This short work examines what the Hippocratic Oath said to Greek physicians 2400 years ago and reflects on its relevance to medical ethics today. Drawing on the writings of ancient physicians, Greek playwrights, and modern scholars, each chapter explores one passage of the Oath and concludes with a modern case discussion. This book is for anyone who loves medicine and is concerned about the ethics and history of the profession.

As an example of Aristotle's genre of epideictic, or ceremonial rhetoric, the Hippocratic Oath has the capacity to persuade its self-addressing audience to appreciate the value of the medical profession by lending an element of stability to the shifting ethos of health care. However, the values it celebrates do not accurately capture communally shared norms about contemporary medical practice. Its multiple and sometimes conflicting versions, anachronistic references, and injunctions that resist translation into specific conduct diminish its longer-term persuasive (...) force. Only when expunged of these elements and reconstructed using values over which there is widespread agreement can the Oath succeed in moving its audience from core values located in past discussions to principled action in the future. (shrink)

The Hippocratic Oath and the Declaration of Geneva of the World Medical Association are compared in terms of content and origin. Their relevance for current medical practice is investigated. The status which is ascribed to these documents will be shown and the status which they can reasonably claim to have will be explored. Arguments in favor of the Hippocratic Oath that rely on historical stability or historical origin are being examined. It is demonstrated that they get (...) caught up in paradoxes. Should doctors swear the Hippocratic Oath or the Declaration of Geneva? The Hippocratic Oath is a remarkable historic document, which contains important elements still relevant for medical ethics today. Its interpretation as a timeless, still valid medical code is unfounded. The historical arguments, that should justify its validity, are untenable. The Declaration of Geneva, and not the Hippocratic Oath, can legitimately claim to come close to representing the most important principles of professional medical conduct in today’s globalised world. (shrink)

Medicine was until recently a greatly respected profession supported by trust and faith on one side and compassion and care on the other. However, over the years, the relationship between doctors and patients has suffered. Doctors now find themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons. Labelled as 'murderers', 'knife happy', 'organ stealing thieves' or touts of pharmaceutical giants, they have now lost respect in the eyes of society. When and how did this happen? When did doctors go from (...) being 'Next to God' to maut ke saudagar, as the media is so fond of labelling them? Hippocratic Oath or Hypocrisy?: Doctors at Crossroads is the author's journey as a doctor over three decades, from a young medical student to an experienced paediatrician. She has used her experience to highlight serious issues--demanding patients, prescribing of unnecessary investigations, hospitals run like business houses, the role of big pharmaceutical industries and so on from the point of view of both doctors and patients. (shrink)

The Hippocratic Oath, the Hippocratic tradition, and Hippocratic ethics are widely invoked in the popular medical culture as conveying a direction to medical practice and the medical profession. This study critically addresses these invocations of Hippocratic guideposts, noting that reliance on the Hippocratic ethos and the Oath requires establishingwhat the Oath meant to its author, its original community of reception, and generally for ancient medicine what relationships contemporary invocations of the Oath (...) and the tradition have to the original meaning of the Oath and its original reception what continuity exists and under what circumstances over the last two-and-a-half millenniums of medical-moral reflections what continuity there is in the meaning of professionalism from the time of Hippocrates to the 21st century, and what social factors in particular have transformed the medical profession in particular countries. This article argues that the resources for a better understanding of medical professionalism lie not in the Hippocratic Oath, tradition, or ethos in and of themselves. Rather, it must be found in a philosophy of medicine that explores the values internal to medicine, thus providing a medical-moral philosophy so as to be able to resist the deformation of medical professionalism by bioethics, biopolitics, and governmental regulation. The Oath, as well as Stephen H. Miles' recent monograph, The Hippocratic Oath and the Ethics of Medicine, are employed as heuristics, so as to throw into better light the extent to which the Hippocratic Oath, tradition, and ethics can provide guidance and direction, as well as to show the necessity of taking seriously the need for a substantive philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

In this paper I ask whether mathematicians should swear an oath similar to the Hippocratic oath sworn by some medical professionals as a means to foster morally praiseworthy engagement with the ethical dimensions of mathematics. I individuate four dimensions in which mathematics is ethically charged: (1) applying mathematical knowledge to the world can cause harm, (2) participation of mathematicians in morally contentious practices is an ethical issue, (3) mathematics as a social activity faces relevant ethical concerns, (4) (...) mathematical knowledge itself may be ethically charged. I present a conceptual framework for oaths and discuss some empirical results on the effectiveness of oath-taking to foster morally praiseworthy behaviour. My findings suggest that enforcing oath-taking practices in mathematics is not currently a suitable means to foster ethically praiseworthy behaviour amongst mathematicians. Oaths can, however, provide needed edifying narratives about how to act ethically when acting as a mathematician. (shrink)

This article specifies the place of the Hippocratic Oath in the programme of bioethical education on graduate schools where future medical and healthcare workers are being educated. The presented conceptualization of contents and described methodology of work show how the curriculum contents, dominated by historical facts, are being actualized by the use of knowledge students have acquired earlier, and problematized by an active inclusion of students in collecting new information relevant for the content, and then using the acquired (...) knowledge to solve a concrete bioethical issue or problem. The offered activity of students and teacher has the purpose to demonstrate a collaborative relationship between students and teacher and a communication in which students and teacher mutually takeover tasks for the realisation of the curriculum content. (shrink)

In this paper, I supplement T. A. Cavanaugh’s arguments against physician-assisted suicide in his book, Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake, by focusing more specifically on the dangers of the misuse of physician power and on the virtues essential to restrain such power. Since Cavanaugh’s starting point is similar to Edmund Pellegrino’s views on the fundamental ends of medicine, I start with the question of the proper ends of medicine. Cavanaugh’s interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath as the limitation (...) of physician power to heal and to kill raises the issue of the proper use of physician power over the patient. In order to support and strengthen Cavanaugh’s case, I use Richard Zaner’s discussion of physician power over the patient and the attendant duty to use such power in a responsible way. Finally, I supplement Cavanaugh’s discussion with a fuller account of physician virtues as they relate to physician-assisted suicide. I first discuss the ends of medicine, medical power, and physician-assisted suicide. Second, I discuss the relationship between virtue and physician-assisted suicide. Third, I draw some final conclusions. (shrink)

At least from the standpoint of contemporary cultural and ethical resources, physicians have argued eloquently and exhaustively both for and against physician-assisted suicide. If one avoids the temptation to ruthlessly simplify either position to immorality or error, then a strange dilemma arises. How is it that well educated and intelligent physicians, committed strongly and compassionately to the care of their patients, argue adamantly for opposing positions? Thus rather than simply rehashing old arguments, this essay attempts to rethink the nature of (...) human morality as both a source and a fracturing of human rationality – and with morality, the question of human nature in the context of violence, oppression, service, and obligation. This interpretation of moral life is laid out roughly along the lines of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and further clarified through a discussion of the Hippocratic Oath. These resources are then brought to bear on the specific arguments and recommendations concerning physician-assisted suicide. (shrink)

At least from the standpoint of contemporary cultural and ethical resources, physicians have argued eloquently and exhaustively both for and against physician-assisted suicide. If one avoids the temptation to ruthlessly simplify either position to immorality or error, then a strange dilemma arises. How is it that well educated and intelligent physicians, committed strongly and compassionately to the care of their patients, argue adamantly for opposing positions? Thus rather than simply rehashing old arguments, this essay attempts to rethink the nature of (...) human morality as both a source and a fracturing of human rationality – and with morality, the question of human nature in the context of violence, oppression, service, and obligation. This interpretation of moral life is laid out roughly along the lines of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and further clarified through a discussion of the Hippocratic Oath. These resources are then brought to bear on the specific arguments and recommendations concerning physician-assisted suicide. (shrink)

Smith, Wesley J The growth in policies that force healthcare workers to participate in activities that are deemed both immoral and unprofessional as against the sanctity of human life has given rise to the need for bringing about conscience in health care. The need for fashioning proper conscience clauses and challenges faced in its implementation are highlighted.

I graduated from, medical school in 1972. According to orders signed at the Kremlin by the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, I was obliged, along with every graduating medical student, to swear to a new professional code, “The Oath of the Soviet Physicians.” This was the second year the oath was used. Incorporated in the oath were promises to “conduct all my actions according to the principles of the Communist morality, to always keep in (...) mind … the high responsibility I have to my people and to the Soviet government” I felt no discomfort joining with my friends in repeating words about the communist morality which by that time had already become a ritualized and meaningless official decoration of our life. The text of this oath fit into the political and medical ideology of that time. Not surprisingly, “The Oath of the Soviet Physicians” died along with the Soviet Union. (shrink)

This article views the Hippocratic Oath from a new perspective and draws consequences for modern health care. The Oath consists of two parts, a family-like alliance where the teacher of the “art” is equal to a father and a set of maxims how the “art” is to be practiced. Self-commitments stated before the gods tie the parts together and give the alliance trustworthiness. One might call this a proto-profession. Modern physicians form a similar alliance. Specific knowledge and (...) skills and specific action guiding rules are elements of a profession but its trustworthiness rests on a combination of professional autonomy and public control. In order to be granted autonomy the profession must show some effort in enforcing its specific rules and in order to do so its members need to be convinced of the intrinsic value of their profession. Whereas in antiquity physicians acted as single individuals the modern alliance is shaped by division of labour. Physicians use each other and other professions by mutual consent and the health care system as means in the diagnostic-therapeutic process. As any actor is reponsible for the means he uses physicians are co-responsible accordingly. Thus, professional conduct now entails care for the organisation of the alliance as detailed in the “Charter on Medical Professionalism”. The effort the profession gives to this task will confirm its trustworthiness. (shrink)

Contrary to the common view, this paper suggests that the Hippocratic oath does not directly refer to the controversial subjects of euthanasia and abortion. We interpret the oath in the context of establishing trust in medicine through departure from Pantagruelism. Pantagruelism is coined after Rabelais' classic novel Gargantua and Pantagruel. His satire about a wonder herb, Pantagruelion, is actually a sophisticated model of anti-medicine in which absence of independent moral values and of properly conducted research fashion a (...) flagrant over-medicalization of human problems. Ultimately this undermines the therapeutic core of medicine itself. We contend that PAS is a case of such over-medicalization and that its institution creates medicophobia. This article does not express an opinion about euthanasia in general. Rather, we claim that physicians should learn from the oath and from Rabelais that they should keep their practice to medical care and not to exploit their expertise and social privileges for the sake of ulterior motives, even when their patients desire those goals. (shrink)

T. A. Cavanaugh's Hippocrates' Oath and Asclepius' Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession articulates the Oath as establishing the medical profession's unique internal medical ethic - in its most basic and least controvertible form, this ethic mandates that physicians help and not harm the sick. Relying on Greek myth, drama, and medical experience (e.g., homeopathy), the book shows how this medical ethic arose from reflection on the most vexing medical-ethical problem -- injury caused by a physician -- (...) and argues that deliberate iatrogenic harm, especially the harm of a doctor choosing to kill (physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and involvement in capital punishment), amounts to an abandonment of medicine as an exclusively therapeutic profession. The book argues that medicine as a profession necessarily involves stating before others what one stands for: the good one seeks and the bad one seeks to avoid on behalf of the sick, and rejects the view that medicine is purely a technique lacking its own unique internal ethic. It concludes noting that medical promising (as found in the White Coat Ceremony through which U. S. medical students matriculate) implicates medical autonomy which in turn merits respect, including honoring professional conscientious objections. (shrink)

The origins of professional ethical codes and oaths are explored. Their legitimacy and usefulness within the profession are questioned and an alternative ethical source is suggested. This source relies on a commonly shared, naturally knowable set of principles known as common morality.

In Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession, Thomas Cavanaugh focuses on performative aspects of the taking of the oath which bear upon the formation of that community we identify as the medical profession. In this paper, I suggest that we can go further than Cavanaugh does in identifying what the Hippocratic oath makes possible. Given its particular content and what it communicates, the oath makes possible, to a degree few other (...) oaths could, and in a way which might be significantly impaired by the absence of an oath, the form of community we have come to call the physician-patient relationship. In Section I, I will discuss Cavanaugh’s treatment of the oath’s relationship to the community of medical professionals. In Section II, I discuss at a relatively abstract level the relationship between communication and community. In Section III I show how the oath can additionally constitute the primordial moment in the existence of the physician-patient relationship. (shrink)

The Hippocratic oath and ethic have guided medicine for twenty-five hundred years. In the past thirty years there has been an effort to discredit the Hippocratic tradition. The mantra has been “the Hippocratic ethic is dead.” An article by Robert Veatch and Carol Mason, “Hippocratic vs. Judeo-Christian Medical Ethics,” epitomizes the anti-Hippocratic crusade. Veatch and Mason make three points: (1) there is no continuity between the oath and Judeo-Christian ethics; (2) the oath (...) is flawed; and, more important, (3) the Hippocratic tradition is at variance with modern social contract ethics. This essay rebuts each of these contentions. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 7.4 (Winter 2007): 245–254. (shrink)

It is widely presumed, at least among typical Western physicians and medical lay persons, that the Hippocratic and the Judeo- Christian traditions in medical ethics are closely connected or at least compatible. We examine the historical, metaethical, and normative relationships between them, and we find virtually no evidence of any historical links prior to the ninth century. In fact, important differences between them are found. The Hippocratic Oath appears to reflect the environment of a Greek mystery cult. (...) It includes a commitment to secrecy and a sense of community alien to Judeo- Christian tradition. Differences between the two traditions on the issues of killing and life prolongation, abortion, surgery, and normative ethical principles including truth-telling, autonomy, and justice are also explored. We conclude that important differences not only exist but also raise serious problems for persons identifying with both traditions. (shrink)

The trouble with business schools -- The great, but delicate experiment -- A hippocratic oath for business -- Six more arguments for the MBA oath -- The purpose of a manager -- Ethics and integrity -- No man is an island : stakeholders -- Ambition and good faith -- The letter and the spirit : law -- The sunlight of responsibility : transparency -- Personal and professional growth -- Sustainable prosperity : a partnership for living well -- (...) Accountability. (shrink)

This article articulates the Hippocratic medical ethic found in the Oath and the Christian medical ethic as exemplified in the parable of the Good Samaritan. It proposes that the Oath has a natural-law-based deontological character (as understood by Aquinas) that governs friendships of utility (as understood by Aristotle) between student and teacher and physician and patient. The article elaborates on the Samaritan’s conduct as exemplifying Christian agapeic-love. It contrasts agapeic-love with friendship-love, while noting that the Samaritan relies (...) on friendship-love (as found between the Samaritan and the innkeeper) to realize agapeic-love towards the robbers’ victim. It concludes with noting that the grace-based Christian medical ethic perfects the nature-based Hippocratic ethic not by destroying it, but, rather, by employing it. (shrink)

Since the fourth century, B.C.E., the Oath of Hippocrates has been the starting point in analyzing the obligations of physicians to protect the privacy and confidentiality interests of their patients. The pertinent provision of the Oath reads as follows: “What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account must be spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such (...) things shameful to be spoken about.”This part of the Oath is subject to more than one interpretation, but its commonly accepted meaning provides the ethical foundation for the physician’s duty of confidentiality. The Oath expressly declares that a physician’s obligation of confidentiality applies beyond matters of medical care. At a time when there were no hospitals or physician offices, patients received medical care in their homes or in public places. Physicians treating patients in their homes could be expected to see and hear a wide range of activities that might be considered embarrassing, immoral, or even illegal. (shrink)

Bioethicists have typically disdained where they did not simply ignore the Hippocratic tradition in medicine. Its exclusivity—an oath of and for physicians—seemed contrary to the perspective that bioethicists have attempted to invoke. Robert M. Veatch recently articulated this rejection of the Hippocratic tradition, and of a professional ethic of medicine in general, in a volume based on his Gifford lectures. Here that argument is critiqued. The strengths of the Hippocratic tradition as a flexible and ethical social (...) doctrine are offered in its stead. (shrink)

Over the past century, six studies – the most recent data from 2000 – and one review have comprehensively examined the content of medical oaths and oath-taking practices, all focusing on North Amer...

The ancient Jewish law took a strict approach to medical relationships between Jews and non-Jews. The current study deals with the attitude of Amatus Lusitanus (1511–1568), a notable Portuguese Jewish physician towards treating gentiles. The Physician’s Oath of Lusitanus emphasises that as a doctor he treated people from varied faiths and socio-economic status. Lusitanus treated many non-Jews. For instance, he received an invitation from the municipality of Ragusa to serve as the town physician and he accepted this mission. In (...) Anconare, he was called upon to treat Jacoba del Monte, sister of Pope Julius III, and he also prescribed for Julius himself. Amatus Lusitanus was forced to leave his country because of the Portuguese inquisition and wandered in many countries. Despite the hostile religious attitude of his close surroundings, he did not retaliate against his patients and provided medical treatment indiscriminately. (shrink)

Background: Doctor–patient sexual relationship is considered to be unfair because the first party would be abusing the second party’s vulnerability. The prohibition of this relationship is noted in the Hippocratic oath. Currently, a reprise of the use of oaths in medical schools can be observed.Aim: To determine whether the prohibition has been maintained and how its expression has varied in the oaths during different periods.Methods: 50 oaths were studied: 13 ancient–medieval and 37 modern–contemporary. Of the 50 texts, 19 (...) were versions of the original oaths. The oaths that pointed out the prohibited doctor–patient relationship referred to any sexual aspect or included paragraphs that began as the Hippocratic oath does were noted.Results: Of the 24 texts that expressed the prohibition, 8 were ancient–medieval and 16 were modern–contemporary. Some expressly call it Hippocratic oath, many use general terminology and others describe it in association with other commitments .Conclusions: The clause on the prohibition of the doctor–patient sexual relationship in Hippocratic oath was included to be for legal, economic and social reasons at the time. That the clause is found mostly in the ancient–medieval oaths can be attributed to the influence of the original. This commitment is generalised and associated with others by contemporary formulas. Currently, sexual relationships are the subject of legal and ethical analysis and their inclusion in the oaths is being debated. (shrink)

This is a condensed description of the contents and overarching argument found in Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession. In that work, I maintain that the basic medical ethical problem concerns iatrogenic harm. I focus particularly on what I refer to as ‘role-conflation’. This most egregious form of iatrogenic harm occurs when a physician deliberately adopts the role of wounder. A contemporary practice such as physician-assisted suicide exemplifies a doctor’s deliberate wounding. I argue that (...) the author of the Hippocratic Oath – aware of the chronic risk of role-conflation – responds to this threat by having the oath-taker specifically forswear signal acts that wound the sick, such as giving a deadly drug even if asked, giving an abortifacient, sexual predation, and gossiping. I argue that by means of the Oath, Hippocrates founds medicine as a profession, a practice intimately involving promising. (shrink)