Clinical Ethics as Applied Aesthetics

Medical training needs an aesthetic education, too. This article explores some theoretical reasons of this necessity. Each clinical and bioethical decision is interwoven in a personal attitude regarding the meaning of life, a meaning that throws light on concrete bedside dilemmas and that is expressed in a language filled by aesthetic nuances. Ethical theories root in founding stories, which describe the role, duties, and destiny of the human being in a world marked by an impending evil. On the other hand, the history of art (especially of music, in the case of Bach and Schönberg) shows an interest in the ethical dimension of the existence. How can we explain this mutual synergy? Nietzsche’s thought about Greek tragedy proposes an aesthetic justification of life. If μύθος (mythos) nurtures λόγος(logos), if conceptual moral tools keep inside narrative metaphors and plots (which we believe in), clinical ethics is an applied aesthetics, and the agent in dilemmatic situations works as an interpreter of the human desire and as an art critic of deeds, seen as texts.