ABSTRACT
The rules, principles, ideals, sentiments, laws, and agreements that play a central role in nonfeminist ethics also figure strongly in nonfeminist bioethics. But this is not surprising given that medical ethics, from which bioethics has developed, is an attempt to apply general ethical theories to specific forms of conduct and moral judgment in the medical realm. 1 Thus, philosopher K. Danner Clouser is correct when he writes that medical ethics is
a special kind of ethics only insofar as it relates to a particular realm of facts and concerns and not because it embodies or appeals to some special moral principles or methodology. … It consists of the same moral principles and rules that we would appeal to, and argue for, in ordinary circumstances. It is just that in medical ethics these familiar moral rules are being applied to situations peculiar to the medical world. 2
