Premium
Truth Telling
Author(s) -
SURBONE ANTONELLA
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb05161.x
Subject(s) - truth telling , psychology , psychoanalysis
Truth telling is an essential step in medicine and in the patient-doctor relationship. I shall try to examine the epistemic, pragmatic and ethical dimension of truth telling in medicine. It must first be said that neither “truth” nor “telling” are abstract words, nor are they value-neutral. The act of truth telling in medicine is indeed an exchange involving moral agents (the patient, the doctor, and society) with their sets of values and norms, which in turn are derived from culture, personal and religious beliefs, and traditions. Through their variance, complex and differentiated patterns of truth telling emerge in different contexts: hence the different practices and degrees of truth telling throughout the world.1 In the present work I wish to go beyond those differences (which one might see as belonging to the “sphere of the expressive”) to explore the underlying philosophical assumptions and questions which are inextricably intertwined with the ethical and pragmatic dimension of truth telling in medicine.