Principles of Biomedical Ethics

The text presents the principles of biomedical ethics (the principle of respect for autonomy, the principle of beneficence, the principle of non-harm, the principle of justice) and shows how principlism has influenced perceptions of what is right (good) in medical practice – both in everyday medicine, as well as in clinical research – and to what extent bioethics has provided answers to the moral dilemmas of medicine of the 20th and 21st centuries, a medicine supported by advances in science and research. It is shown that although the principlist approach is not perfect, it represents a successful attempt to bring together the great moral theories developed over time and to create, by balancing them in a new formula, a scheme that represents at the same time a guide moral and an analytical key to human behavior and actions in health care.