Ars medicina et conditio humana. Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., on his 70th birthday.

In his writings, Edmund Pellegrino analyzes four deficiencies in the humanity of those who fall ill: the loss of (1) freedom of action, (2) freedom to make rational choices, (3) freedom from the power of others, and (4) a sense of the integrity of the self. Since Pellegrino's analysis and commitment to virtue-based ethics preceded much of the attention later given by philosophers to the importance of the moral principle of autonomy (in contrast to beneficence) in patient care, it is helpful to trace the source of his commitment to virtue-based ethics and his account of freedom to Aristotle's analysis of the human soul, as an entelechy of an intact and healthy living organism that, unimpeded by illness, moves itself to act, to actualize its intellectual potential in the form of making rational choices, and to free itself from the power of others by remaining independent and without need of continuous assistance, while at the same time retaining the integrity of a unified self that can act, think, and choose for itself autonomously.