A model of community substituted consent for research on the vulnerable.

Persons of diminished capacity, especially those who are still legally competent but are de facto incompetent should still be able to participate in moderately risky research projects that benefit the class of persons with similar diseases. It is argued that this view can be supported with a modified communitarianism, a philosophy of medicine that holds that health care is a joint responsibility that meets foundational human needs. The mechanism for obtaining a substituted consent I call "community consent," and distinguish this from the usual family or surrogate consent for treatment. Care givers are included in the community that might consent for an individual who has no identifiable family members.

Antifoundationalism and the possibility of a moral philosophy of medicine.

The problem of developing a moral philosophy of medicine is explored in this essay. Among the challenges posed to this development are the general mistrust of moral philosophy and philosophy in general created by post-modernist philosophical and even anti-philosophical thinking. This reaction to philosophical systematization is usually called antifoundationalism. I distinguish different forms of antifoundationalism, showing that not all forms of their opposites, foundationalism, are alike, especially with regards to claims made about the certitude of moral thought. I conclude that we are correct to mistrust absolutist principles in a moral philosophy of medicine, but can find some center within the practice of medicine itself for a moral foundation.