The decline in the interest in ethical theory is first outlined, as a background to the author's discussion of principlism. The author's own stance, that of a communitarian philosopher, is then described, before the subject of principlism itself is addressed. Two problems stand in the way of the author's embracing principlism: its individualistic bias and its capacity to block substantive ethic...

After presenting the current version of principlism, in the process repudiating a widespread deductivist misinterpretation, a fundamental metaethical disagreement is developed by outlining the deductivistic critique of principlism. Once the grounds for this critique have been understood, the dispute between casuistry, deductivism and principlism can be restructured, and the model of "applicatio...

Principlism, a most prominent approach in bioethics, has been criticized for lacking an underlying moral theory. We propose that the four principles of principlism can be related to the four traditional cardinal virtues. These virtues appear prominently in Plato's Republic and in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We show how this connection can be made. In this way principlism has its own compell...

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash INTRODUCTION Bioethics does not have an explicitly stated and agreed upon means of resolving conflicts between normative theories. As such, bioethics lacks essential feature – action guidance ― effective translation from theory to practice. While the approaches historical precedents may discourage overtly egregious acts, bioethical discipline offer decisiv...

Principlism aims to provide a framework to help those working in medicine both to identify moral problems and to make decisions about what to do. For it to meet this aim, the principles included within it must express values that all morally serious people share (or ought to share), and there must be no other values that all morally serious people share (or ought to share). This paper challenge...

The objective of this investigation is to identify reasonable and relevant problems and issues posed for Principlism by the mentally ill. Two concepts of Principlism will be presented: a normative conceptualization of the bioethical theory and a descriptive conceptualization. In reference to both, two philosophical questions will be asked: can we know the natures of other minds and, if so, how?...