The Hippocratic Thorn in Bioethics Hide: Cults, Sects, and Strangeness

Bioethicists have typically disdained where they did not simply ignore the Hippocratic tradition in medicine. Its exclusivityuan oath of and for physiciansuseemed contrary to the perspective that bioethicists have attempted to invoke. Robert M. Veatch recently articulated this rejection of the Hippocratic tradition, and of a professional ethic of medicine in general, in a volume based on his Gifford lectures. Here that argument is critiqued. The strengths of the Hippocratic tradition as a flexible and ethical social doctrine are offered in its stead.