Talk:Principlism

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Philosophy: Ethics Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Associated task forces: /  Ethics

Is this simply an idiosyncratic naming of conventional medical ethics by Jeffrey Bulger? I will wager the Beauchamp reference does not use the term Principlism, and that the Bulger reference is a personally developed teaching syllabus. While the material, if not copyrighted, is unexceptionable, and much would make be useful in the medical ethics and bioethics articles, this article needs sources applying the term "principlism" to standard medical ethics. If so, the article can stay, but should be rewritten along the following lines, "Principlism is a term proposed to encompass the standard ethical principles of medical practice and research developed in North America and Europe in the latter half of the 20th century." Has principlism actually contributed anything new, or is it simply familiar principles with an ugly new name? alteripse (talk) 11:53, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be used in the field. Agree it probably adds nothing, but it is referred to in the literature and hence arguably has notability for Wikipedia purposes. See

• http://books.google.com/books?id=_14H7MOw1o4C&vq=principlism&dq=Principles+of+Biomedical+Ethics&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0; and
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2351895

The lack of worth of the theory or term is reason for it to be rejected from a field, not to be excluded from an encyclopedia. Of course, a decent article explaining (with references, which appear to be available) why professionals view it as a useful or non-useful concept would be welcome. Bongomatic 12:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, if the term is used by more people than the contributing editor, i agree that it is a valid article, but the article needs to explain the source of the term and its use, not just rehash the contents of a research ethics course. Every single item in the article was devised, elaborated, and universally accepted before anyone uttered the term "principlism". While every single item in the article is familiar to me as a requirement for doing medical research, i have never heard the term used. However, your second reference completely persuades me of the validity of the article. My complaint is simply that its content lacks the core information about the origin and purpose of the term, as well as the controversy reflected in the second reference and a linked one. Can we have some addition? alteripse (talk) 14:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be the editor for the job. This is a field I know nothing about. The only reason it is on my watchlist is that I nominated a previous version of it for deletion. I think there the article cited probably is a pretty good place to start. Check out also:

• http://books.google.com/books?q=principlism&btnG=Search+Books (generally)
• http://books.google.com/books?id=OUnuJWTXFjwC&pg=PA121&dq=principlism#PPA122,M1
• http://books.google.com/books?id=46n1S5lqvzsC&pg=PA167&dq=principlism
• http://books.google.com/books?id=SoBTVTyZ2KEC&pg=PA228&dq=principlism#PPA228,M1
• http://books.google.com/books?id=EfNLH99zlcEC&pg=PA18&dq=principlism
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7738461?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=5&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed survey article
• http://books.google.com/books?id=wnJOvEe0LD0C&pg=PA39&dq=Casuistry+and+principlism&lr=#PPA3,M1

Hope you do in fact dig in. Regards, Bongomatic 17:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

THIS ARTICLE NEEDS TO BE RENAMED The 4 principles approach that is discussed in this article is not synonymous with the idea of principlism: principlism merely refers to the ideas about the structure of morality. If we can identify higher moral truths, they may not necessarily be practically useful. To make them useful we can use those higher moral truths (there may be more than one, depending on your viewpoint) to create moral principles. These principles may ultimately conflict, but that's acceptable as they only express a practical method to solve moral dilemmas, rather than truths in themselves. Beauchamp and Childress' 4 principles approach is a principlist method, but should be distinguished from principlism per se. The best source to begin to write an article on this topic would be the opening chapters of Beauchamp and Childress' book, which explains all this. The current article would be better titled "The Four Principles Approach to Medical Ethics" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.154.142 (talk) 11:21, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think Principlism can be effectively linked with Casuistry. This is a general method for ethical decision-making. Principlism cannot be distilled into the four principles mentioned, regardless of the prevalence of these principles in principlist documents (The Belmont Report, etc.). I believe Beauchamp spoke of Belmont as a principlist document and then said it was compatible with Casuistry, when challenged by the casuists (Jonsen and Toulmin) he was working with. Vixsomnis (talk) 08:39, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]