The author highlights the importance of emotions in all ethical reflections. He describes the most common positions of ethicists employing duties and rights as the basis for ethical thought. The author, goes to Freudian theory as viewed by the utilitarians, stating that the 'quest for pleasure' is not necessarily egocentric, especially for adults. For example, the feeling of solidarity emerges ...

The above approaches certainly have their place but also have their limitations. The repeated invocation of archival material tends to create an impression that ethical edicts are merely of historical significance and are irrelevant today. Some of the historical texts on medical ethics are based on morality, at times even bordering on the spiritual or the religious. This could be a hindrance to...

1 Intelligent Interactive Distributed Systems Faculty of Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1081A, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands 2 Computer and Law Institute Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands 3 The Center for Law, Public Administration and Informatization Faculty of Law, Tilburg University Warandelaan 2, 5000...