The perspective of Virtue Ethics regarding the process of medical decision-making

Abstract

Many doctors understand bioethics as the discipline that should substantiate decisions and conduct in dilemmatic cases, indicating rational and universal rules of action. In this scenario, the perspective of Virtue Ethics proposes the modification of the question “what to do” to “how to be” and, how to constitute one’s own character in order to take wise and prudent decisions in life, including professional ones. This theoretical essay will present the Aristotelian Ethics perspective, its contemporary authors, the answers to the main criticisms
and will underline the advantages this framework offers to medical decision making processes - its evaluative, particularistic and teleological characteristics. It will lead to a conclusion that more than proclaiming an autonomous patient and a professional who seeks externally established rules, Virtue Ethics recognizes that both patient and professional are integrated in communities, traditions and cultures, respecting values and virtues, in the pursuit of a particular purpose for their practices and lives.