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Article: Benefits, Ethics, and Risks
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BENEFITS, ETHICS, AND RISKS
Morality requires that people not only treat each other autonomously and refrain from harming one another, but also that people contribute to each other's welfare. These beneficial actions fall under the principle of "beneficence." It is appropriate to distinguish two further principles under the general principle of beneficence
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the "provision" of benefits, and the "balancing" of benefits and harms.
Questions commonly arise in biomedicine about the comparison of, and relative weights of, costs, risks, and benefits. Questions about medical treatment are routinely decided by reference to the probable benefits and harms, and questions about the ...