Document Type

Thesis

Date of Completion

Winter 2-1-2023

Department

Interdisciplinary

Academic Major

Integrative Studies

Faculty Advisor

Mac Sandlin

Abstract

The American Medical Association’s (AMA) Code of Medical Ethics consists of principles that ensure the legal sanctity and professional conduct of practicing physicians. These principles outline imperatives for physicians “primarily for the benefit of the patient. But a physician can be terrible without violating the AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics. Although the AMA’s code ought not be forsaken or replaced, any code of ethics cannot make its adherents good. Physicians cannot become good following a code that neglects to address the delicacy of good habits. Further, a topical, crisis-management approach to ethical training stifles physicians whose ethical goals transcend lawfulness in the workplace. Anyone who has been a medical patient knows that a code of ethics is not a legitimate substitute for a good reputation. The Greek philosopher Aristotle maintained that human flourishing did not consist in adherence to a code, but in habituating oneself to excellent behavior. An Aristotelian culture asserts that the way to make the AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics better is actually not to rewrite the code, but to make its adherents better at following it. Physicians that compose this Aristotelian culture should grasp concepts such as character, habits, virtue, community, narrative, and telos. Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of virtues as “those qualities essential to achieving the internal goods of practices” actualize what virtue means in a world that believes it has outgrown virtue’s systematic application. Practices are characterized by joy, rules, partners, masters, and growth. MacIntyre’s conceptualization of a practice circumvents the problem of ceaseless bickering over which virtues take precedence and enhances the applicability of virtue in localized communities. Ultimately, the effort of this work is not to eliminate the AMA’s code from our ethical deliberation. The AMA’s Medical Code of Ethics is shorthand for something physicians can only fully understand after they have done the work of becoming good. The code is a useful set of heuristics, but it is an insufficient statement of what it means to be a good physician. The code can only become useful after physicians become embedded in a world where reliance on Aristotelian concepts is a central part of their practice and lifestyle.

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