The philosophical basis of medical ethics.

After a short introduction on the status of medical ethics as a special branch of a more general ethical theory, I try to identify its particular principles. According to my analysis there are two opposite basic principles which individuate two conflicting perspectives, i.e. the principle of sanctity of (human) life, and the principle of disposability of mere biological (human) life. Current troubles in medical ethics are mostly dependent on the fact that we are assisting a change from an ethics of the sanctity of life to an ethics of the disposability of life, and I argue for the latter.