How, in a secular world, should we resolve ethically controversial
and troubling issues relating to health care? Should we, as some
argue, make a clean sweep, getting rid of the Hippocratic ethic,
such vestiges of it as remain? Jennifer Jackson seeks to answer
these significant questions, establishing new foundations for a
traditional and secular ethic which would not require a radical and
problematic overhaul of the old.

These new foundations rest on familiar observations of human
nature and human needs. Jackson presents morality as a loose
anatomy of constituent virtues that are related in different ways
to how we fare in life, and suggests that in order to address
problems in medical ethics, a virtues-based approach is needed.
Throughout, attention is paid to the role of philosophy in medical
ethics, and how it can be used to clarify key notions and
distinctions that underlie current debates and controversial
issues. By reinstating such concepts as justice, cardinal virtue,
and moral duty, Jackson lays the groundwork for an ethics of health
care that makes headway toward resolving seeming dilemmas in
medical ethics today.

This penetrating and accessible book will be invaluable to
students of sociology and health care, as well as those who are
interested in the ethical uncertainties faced by the medical
world.