Dr. Faust, meet Dr. Dewey: constructing a philosophy of medicine for the 21st century

Ultimately, because of vast historical and social forces, physicians by and large remain oriented towards an unattainable and inappropriate positivist ideal, and thereby severely compromise the deeper values of their own moral agenda. This choice—encouraged by the professionalization process—largely explains why medical ethics serves such a minor role in medical education; why complaints of medicine’s dehumanization are rampant; and why myriad studies, surveys, and testimonies attest to the lack of physician empathy. Indeed, if medicine aspires to an objective ideal at the expense of its unique value-laden agenda, the profession will be hounded by complaints that it has forsaken its ancient calling for a Faustian pact.

A self-conscious moral epistemology—an epistemology that remains aware of its ongoing negotiation of competing values and construction of its interpretative knowledge—provides a philosophy of medicine for the doctor’s diverse roles and activities. On this view, a philosophy for medicine must acknowledge the multidimensional character of medical thinking that utilizes values spanning the ideals of laboratory science to the empathetic response of humane care. But more, this philosophy must recognize a fundamental difference between the scientist’s search for the real and the physician’s pursuit of the therapeutic.

Medicine requires more than “true” outcomes (as in scientific truth-seeking); physicians embrace “best” results for the care of their patients. While seeking the “true,” patients and their caregivers are often satisfied with something else (for example, the effective intervention may be a sham treatment or a placebo). “Truth” directs clinical science, and clinical science directs itself to good outcomes, but in the hierarchy of medicine’s philosophy, it is ethics of care that directs the physician’s science and ultimately determines clinical choices.

--Alfred I. Tauber, Medicine and the Call for a Moral Epistemology, Part II: Constructing a Synthesis of Values. Perspectives in Biology & Medicine Summer 2008; 51(3).