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Principlism’S Main Features Help Can Practitioners Understanding and Recognizing Some of Wellas How As They Might Differ “Principlism” and Frameworks in Public Health Ethics January 2016 How can we perceive and address ethical • Understand some of the historical context and challenges in public health practice and policy? philosophical orientations that underlie public One way is by using ethical concepts to inform health ethics. our thinking. One does not have to be a specialist in ethics to do so. This document is part of a Public health ethics only began to gain series of papers intended to introduce prominence as a distinct field within bioethics practitioners to some values, principles, theories around the year 2000 and its proponents have and approaches that are important in public had the task of defining it as distinct from medical health ethics. ethics due to the distinct nature of public health (e.g., Childress et al., 2002, p. 170; Dawson, Introduction 2011, p. 1; Upshur, 2002, p. 101). Indeed, many papers in public health ethics begin by articulating In this paper we will focus on principle-based the differences between medical ethics and public approaches in public health ethics, comparing health ethics, arguing that the differences some of their features with those of principlism, between clinical practice and public health the well-known and widely-used “four principles” practice may require different ethical approaches. approach in medical ethics. The overwhelming emphasis has been upon the differences, partially in reaction to a poor fit We will first look at some of the main features of between individualistic and autonomy-heavy principlism and then with those features in mind clinical approaches and the collective and we will turn to public health frameworks that rely population-level orientation of public health on principles to see what they have in common practice (Kass, 2004, p. 235). However, they also as well as how they might differ. have much in common; there is much that public health can and does draw from work that has Understanding and recognizing some of been done, and from ground that has been principlism’s main features can help practitioners broken, in medical ethics. to: Since its first appearance in 1979, the “four • Better situate their own ethical deliberations in principles” approach of Tom Beauchamp and public health by seeing both the differences James Childress has transformed the way in and the similarities between various ethical which medical ethics are understood and approaches; practised. This approach is known by various • Identify and make explicit principlist epithets, including the “Georgetown mantra,” the orientations guiding themselves or others in “four principles” approach, and “principlism,” as 1 health care or in public health settings, we shall call it here; all of these refer to their whether in research or practice; Principles of Biomedical Ethics (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994), now in its seventh edition. The • Having identified those orientations, dominance of this approach in medical ethics has communicate more effectively; and had effects beyond the clinical setting: principlism has cast a long shadow over bioethics more generally, including public health ethics.2 1 The norm appears to be to apply the term “principlism” to 2 Note for clarity: we are aligned with Dawson (2010a) in Beauchamp and Childress’s work, and the term “principle- seeing medical ethics and public health ethics as Briefing Note up-to-date knowledge relating to healthy public policy For based approach” more widely and generically to other work contained within the larger field of bioethics. We will in practical ethics that applies principles. Principle-based consistently refer to each of these three using these terms. approaches include both the “four principles” approach For a visual representation, see slide #5 in this web used in other settings as well as approaches that employ presentation: http://www.ncchpp.ca/ftp/2015-ethique- different principles and methods altogether. pw1/en/index.htm 2 Briefing Note “Principlism” and Frameworks in Public Health Ethics Part one – What is principlism? clarification by testing principles against one another and by refining them with observation and case- 4 Principlism is a normative ethical framework that was based moral judgments. Neither the principles nor designed for practical decision making in health care. the case-based judgments are primary or absolute. Its basic approach is an attempt to bypass Rather, each is subject to change or to replacement, intractable disagreements at the level of normative and each is used to hone and test the others. ethical theory and the resulting lack of agreement Reflective equilibrium could reveal that what one about how to proceed. Instead, the authors focus on considered to be a central belief ought to be what people generally do agree upon, in the form of rejected, based on its not fitting with the rest. In this general, mid-level principles. They observe that sense, there is no “foundation,” strictly speaking; one “often little is lost in practical moral decision making could say there is a core. In reflective equilibrium, by dispensing with general moral theories. The rules principles are subject to constant evolution and and principles shared across these theories typically critical analysis (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994; serve practical judgment more adequately (as Marckmann, Schmidt, Sofaer, & Strech, 2015). starting points) than the theories” (Beauchamp & Principlism depends upon this means of justification, Childress, 1994, p. 17). They say that this is because coherence through reflective equilibrium, which is “theories are rivals over matters of justification, supposed to reflect both common acceptance and rationality and method but they often converge on rigorous testing and refinement. According to mid-level principles” (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994, Beauchamp, what justifies moral norms “is that they p. 102). Due to this general convergence on achieve the objectives of morality, not the fact that principles, they call principlism a common-morality they are universally shared across cultures” approach. (Beauchamp, 2007, p. 7). JUSTIFICATION PRINCIPLES 5 Simple agreement, however, is not enough. What are principles, then? Beauchamp and Principlism does not just look at people’s actions or Childress claim that principles are like rules in that beliefs and then declare that the commonly-held they are “normative generalizations that guide values are morally justified. Beauchamp and actions,” but when considered more closely, Childress discuss three models for justifying moral principles are less specific in content and less principles: deductive, inductive and coherence- restrictive in scope than rules (Beauchamp & based. Deductive justification (top-down) means Childress, 1994, p. 38). “Principles are general that an overarching moral theory generates one or guides that leave considerable room for judgment in more principles that will determine moral decision specific cases and that provide substantive guidance making.3 Another approach is inductive (bottom- for the development of more detailed rules and up): this means that principles are generalizations policies” (Beauchamp & Childress, 1994, p. 38). derived from case- or situation-based judgments. The third approach is in-between, relying on Through the process of reflective equilibrium, the strengths drawn from each: it uses the notion of authors developed four principles: respect for justification by coherence among commonly held autonomy (individuals’ freedom and choice), moral intuitions (i.e., something that is intuitively nonmaleficence (not harming others), beneficence reasonable, that fits within a person’s system of (doing good for others), and justice (broadly beliefs). This model tests for and produces understood to include distribution of material and coherence using a method called “reflective social goods, rights, and terms of cooperation) equilibrium.” Starting with commonly held moral (Beauchamp, 2007; Beauchamp & Childress, 1994). principles, reflective equilibrium subjects them to a back-and-forth process of distillation, refinement, and 3 This orientation is often associated with the expression 5 For further reading on principles, we recommend Beauchamp “foundational” when referring to principles. For a discussion of (1996, pp. 80-85), in which he clarifies an important difference some implications of the metaphor of foundationalism, see by distinguishing between principles occupying a foundational Sherwin (1999). role in a theory (they would be unexceptionable, foundational 4 To learn more about reflective equilibrium, see Daniels (1979) and theory-summarizing) as compared to principles within a for a clear exposition. coherentist conception (they would be exceptionable/prima facie, and nonfoundational). Tel: 514 864-1600 ext. 3615 • Email: [email protected] • Twitter: @NCCHPP • ncchpp.ca Briefing Note 3 “Principlism” and Frameworks in Public Health Ethics APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES: BALANCING AND Principlism can be thought of as a normative ethical SPECIFICATION framework. While the distinction between theories and frameworks is not clear-cut, principlism can be The four principles are universal but not absolute. viewed as a framework that has been worked out The authors argue that through reflective equilibrium with extensive theoretical analysis. Among other they have generated ethical principles that apply to reasons, the feature that defines it as a framework everyone, so they are said to be universal. However, for our purposes here is the
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