Moral law and human rights.

HE purpose of this paper is to examine some of the basic terms in the discussion of 1 the theme of this symposium on 'Ethics and the practice of medicine'. These terms can be grouped under the headings of moral law and human rights; for if these two terms are defined a great many of the principles, whose application to medical practice is in question, will have been examined. A general paper like this in moral philosophy cannot avoid being controversial. In the positive sciences one might try to set out the general principles, which would then be applied in particular fields; and one would expect to find a general agreement on the principles, coupled possibly with difficulty, or even disagreement, in their application to particular cases. In ethics, on the other hand, the disagreement is most often upon the general principles themselves-and this is more than ever true today. Indeed, of philosophy generally it might be said that disagreement between the experts is upon the very fundamentals. In no other discipline would one expect to find equally eminent practitioners accusing each other of misunderstanding the entire nature of the endeavour they are engaged upon. This disagreement has shocked many. David Hume, in the eighteenth century, expressed his sense of scandal that his contemporaries should still be discussing the problems that perplexed the ancient philosophers; and many before and since Hume have expressed the same disappointment with the lack of progress in philosophy. The English medieval writer John of Salisbury recounts that when he re-visited Paris, 30 years after he had been a student there, he found the professors still discussing the same questions with the same fervour, the only difference being that they were now more firmly entrenched in their own views and less tolerant of the opinions of others. We may feel a little like those Paris professors of the twelfth century, profitlessly exploring the well-trodden ground of moral principles. But the task is inescapable. And in ethics, of all the parts of philosophy, each age must discover for itself and make its own the vital general principles. Nowadays the main problem is simply stated: Are there any general moral principles at all? We may note the negative answer given to this question by some of the more influential moral philosophies of our day. Existentialism, with its offshoot situation-ethics, at least in its more extreme variants, denies the …