Medicine and the Call for a Moral Epistemology, Part II: Constructing a Synthesis of Values

The demands and needs of an individual patient require diverse value judgments to interpret and apply clinical data. Indeed, objective assessment takes on particular meaning in the context of the social and existential status of the patient, and thereby a complex calculus of values determines therapeutic goals. I have previously formulated how this moral thread of care becomes woven into the epistemological project as a “moral epistemology.” Having argued its ethical justification elsewhere, I offer another perspective here: clinical choices employ diverse values directed at an array of goals, some of which are derived from a universal clinical science and others from the particular physiological, psychological, and social needs of the patient. Integrating these diverse elements that determine clinical care requires a complex synthesis of facts and judgments from several domains. This constructivist process relies on clinical facts, as well as on personal judgments and subjective assessments in an ongoing negotiation between patient and doctor. A philosophy of medicine must account for the conceptual basis of this process by identifying and addressing the judgments that govern the complex synthesis of these various elements.