Flashcards on Phronesis: Medicine's Indispensable Virtue
Phronesis: Medicine's Indispensable Virtue Explained
Tap to flip · Swipe to navigate
Virtue Ethics
21 cards
Card 1
Question: What central role does prudence play in clinical judgment within medical practice?
Answer: Prudence is indispensable; it links intellectual and moral virtues to guide reasoning about means to attain the healing purposes of medicine, producin
Card 2
Question: How are medical and clinical decisions characterized in relation to scientific and moral reasoning?
Answer: They require close integration and intimate dialogue between clinical facts (scientific) and moral principles, values, or virtues; decisions are produ
Card 3
Question: Why is prudence more than just ordering intellectual virtues in medicine?
Answer: Because prudence also incorporates moral judgment and links emotions and dispositions to reason, thus motivating action toward the good.
Card 4
Question: Which virtues are necessary to act in the patient’s best interests, according to the text?
Answer: Both intellectual virtues (theoretical wisdom, understanding, practical wisdom) and moral virtues (generosity, self-control, etc.), ordered by prudenc
Card 5
Question: What is the relationship between practicing medicine virtuously and personal happiness?
Answer: Habitual prudence in medical practice conduces to happiness and a satisfying life in medicine, moving one toward fulfillment though not necessarily th
Card 6
Question: What is the meaning of prudence as quoted from St. Aquinas in the context of medicine?
Answer: Prudence (a recto ratio agibilium) means a right way of acting aimed at attaining the healing purposes of medicine.
Card 7
Question: What does the text identify as the necessary pivot for placing virtue theory in a moral philosophy of medicine?
Answer: The virtue of prudence (phronesis) is the pivot for integrating virtue theory into a comprehensive moral philosophy of medicine.
Card 8
Question: How does prudence connect deliberation to the passions and motivation?
Answer: Prudence uniquely endows one with deliberative capacity to reason well about means, potentially linking cognition of the good with motivation to do th
Card 9
Question: What is the ethical tension described between compassion and objectivity in clinical care?
Answer: Too much compassion can impair diagnostic objectivity and treatment selection; too little treats the patient as an object and ignores their personal p
Card 10
Question: Why is prudence (practical wisdom) needed in balancing compassion and objectivity?
Answer: Because there is no formula to determine the right balance for each patient; prudence enables assessment of therapeutic options, outcomes, side effect