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Last summer, not long after Zell Kravinsky had given almost his entire forty-five-million-dollar real-estate fortune to charity, he called Barry Katz, an old friend in Connecticut, and asked for help [...]

Twenty-first-century moral intelligence (1) requires that we admit the mythology of some traditional moral values. That is, sometimes we pretend to live by values that in reality fail us. For [...]

Supererogation can be distinguished from altruism, in that the former is located in the category of duty but exceeds the strict requirements of duty, whereas altruism belongs to a different moral category from duty. It follows that doctors do not act altruistically in their professional roles. Individual doctors may sometimes show supererogation, but supererogation is not a necessary feature of the medical profession. The aim of medicine is to act in the best interests of patients. This aim involves neither supererogation nor even the moral quality of beneficence. It is simply a job description. Morality enters medicine through the quality of the individual doctor's work, not by the definition of that work., Dr McKay maintains that the duties of the doctor are supererogatory, (1) and Drs Glannon and Ross maintain that doctors are not altruistic (2) (although patients sometimes are). What is [...]

There is a growing belief in the US that medicine is an altruistic profession, and that physicians display altruism in their daily work. We argue that one of the most fundamental features of medical professionalism is a fiduciary responsibility to patients, which implies a duty or obligation to act in patients' best medical interests. The term that best captures this sense of obligation is 'beneficence', which contrasts with 'altruism' because the latter act is supererogatory and is beyond obligation. On the other hand, we offer several examples in which patients act altruistically. If it is patients and not the doctors who are altruistic, then the patients are the gift-bearers and to that extent doctors owe them gratitude and respect for their many contributions to medicine. Recognising this might help us better understand the moral significance of the doctor-patient relationship in modern medicine., In a recent review of the advances in medicine in the twentieth century, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine asserted that 'medicine is one of the few [...]

IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION address on January 23, 2007, George W. Bush recognized Wesley Autrey for his act of heroism in a Manhattan subway station. On January 2 [...]

The patient-doctor relationship has recently come under intense scrutiny, resulting in a re-evaluation of the basis of that relationship. The papers by Glannon and Ross, and McKay seek to identify the sources of authority in the patient-doctor relationship by evaluating it in terms of the concept of altruism. In this paper I argue that the analysis of Glannon and Ross, and of McKay is unnecessary and that the analysis offered by the latter is also flawed. I do acknowledge, however, that Glannon and Ross's description of doctors' responsibilities and patients' roles has much to commend it., In their paper, Are doctors altruistic?, Glannon and Ross advance the unusual, but refreshing, view that it is patients rather than doctors who are altruistic. (1) This they explain by [...]