Conscientious objection: unmasking the impartial spectator

Hoping to bring some objectivity to the debate, Ben-Moshe has argued that conscientious objection in medicine should be accommodated based on its concordance with the ‘impartial spectator’, a metaphor for conscience drawn from the writings of Adam Smith. This response finds fault with this account o...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Saad, C. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: BMJ Publ. 2019
In: Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 45, Issue: 10, Pages: 677-678
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Summary:Hoping to bring some objectivity to the debate, Ben-Moshe has argued that conscientious objection in medicine should be accommodated based on its concordance with the ‘impartial spectator’, a metaphor for conscience drawn from the writings of Adam Smith. This response finds fault with this account on two fronts: first, that its claim to objectivity is unsubstantiated; second, that it implicitly relies on moral absolutes, despite claiming that conscience is a social construct, thereby calling its coherence and claims into question. Briefly, a traditional account of conscience is then described, before ending with a related thesis for future discussion.
ISSN:1473-4257
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2019-105698