"Virtue as Mediator: Informing Health Care Issues through Virtue Ethics and Scripture." Journal of Ethics & Medicine 32, no. 2 (2016): 95-103. (original) (raw)
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Epidemiology and virtue ethics
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In 1995, two news articles reporting on issues in the practice of epidemiology appeared in the journal, Science. 1-2 In the Erst, readers learned that an epidemiologist had successfully sued several university faculties for theft of intellectual property, namely, her dissertation research findings. In the second article, prominent epidemiologists discussed the 'limits' of epidemiology, emphasizing the many uncertainties that constrain epidemiologists' ability to make inferences and from them public health recommendations. On the surface, these articles appear vastly different, yet just beneath the surface lies an important similarity: both contain ethical problems for practising epidemiologists. In the first article, the problem is serious scientific misconduct. In the second, the ethical concern is that of making recommendations for public health interventions given uncertain scientific knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to show how partial solutions to these very different ethical problems can be found in the same ancient yet recently revived moral theory, called the theory of virtue.
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By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification.
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