The "Do No Harm" Principle and Ethical Theory
SORAJ HONGLADAROM*
Affiliation : *Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkom University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand.
The "Do No Harm" Principle, also known as the Principle of Nonmaleficence, is a basic prin- ciple in medical ethics(!). What doctors need to do in the first place is that they do no harm to the patients. This principle is known in Latin as "Pri- mum non nocere", which is translated as "First, do no harm"(2). This principle is capable of various interpretations, and it has become a debating issue in medical ethics. In the various scenarios in which doctors need to make decisions, what do they have to do actually in order to follow this principle? Can staying still and letting patients die without doing anything be considered as following the "Do No Harm" principle? In this case doctors do not cause the patients to die, but they merely allow them to die. Examples like this one prompt medical ethicists to distinguish between positive responsibility and negative responsibility. The former is a direct res- ponsibly of the agent of an act. For example, a robber intentionally shoots a man to kill him. The robber must be responsible for what he has done. Negative responsibility, on the other hand, arises when the agent intentionally omits an act which is his duty or obligation to perform, and such omission causes damage to arise. Examples include doctors who let
Keywords : Do No Harm, Ethics
