The Virtue of Piety in Medical Practice
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The Virtue of Piety in Medical Practice David McPherson 1 Received: 25 August 2020 / Accepted: 28 August 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Following the Introduction, the second section of this essay lays out Tom Cavanaugh’s helpful and convincing account of the enduring significance of the Hippocratic Oath in terms of how it responds to the problem of iatrogenic harm. The third section discusses something underemphasized in Cavanaugh’s account, namely, the key role of the virtue of piety within the Oath and the profession it establishes, and argues that this virtue should be regarded as integral to an authentic Hippocratic ethic. The fourth and final section briefly examines the connection between medicine and philosophy, focusing on how both should be seen as wisdom-seeking ways of life, and shows the relevance of this for regarding the virtue of piety as the key virtue of medical practice. Keywords Hippocratic oath . Piety . Virtue . Sanctity of human life . T. A. Cavanaugh
“… purely and piously I will watch over my life and my art.” —The Hippocratic Oath (tr. T. A. Cavanaugh in Cavanaugh 2018: 154)
1 Introduction In Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession, Tom Cavanaugh provides a rich and illuminating exploration of the Hippocratic Oath; both in terms of its historical genesis and its enduring significance for medicine. I am fundamentally in agreement with Cavanaugh about the enduring significance of the Hippocratic Oath. However, I want to discuss a feature of it that is underemphasized
* David McPherson [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178, USA
Philosophia
but which I maintain is of great importance for medical practice today: namely, the centrality of the virtue of piety. In the second section of this essay I will lay out Cavanaugh’s account of the enduring significance of the Hippocratic Oath. In the third section I will discuss the role of the virtue of piety within the Oath and the profession it establishes and argue that this virtue should be regarded as integral to an authentic Hippocratic ethic. In the fourth and final section I will briefly examine the connection between medicine and philosophy, focusing on how both should be seen as wisdomseeking ways of life, and I will show the relevance of this for regarding the virtue of piety as the key virtue of medical practice.
2 The Problem of Iatrogenic Harm and Hippocrates’ Oath The foundational medical-ethical problem to which Hippocrates’ Oath seeks to respond, Cavanaugh contends, is “the problem of iatrogenic harm,” and this response “inaugurates medicine as a profession” (2018: 2–3; cf. 18–30). Harm that is iatrogenic – from the Greek iatros, meaning “physician,” and genos, meaning “born of” – is harm that is caused by a physician, and it can take three forms: First, there are wounds that are ineliminable from the work of healing (e.g., cauterizing to stop bleeding). Second, there are harms that are the result of phys
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