Abstract

‘He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer; For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars’. 1 The poet William Blake expressed himself colourfully but also with good sense. What he writes of ‘Art and Science’ is true also of medical ethics. The papers included in this issue of the _Journal of Medical Ethics_ illustrate this. They concern a range of issues which, when debated rhetorically in terms of the ‘general good’ or imagined harms involved, can become polarised in ways that are theoretically unproductive and practically unhelpful. By probing more incisively and imaginatively into some of the ‘minutely organized Particulars’ of these debates, however, our contributors suggest, if not how they might eventually be resolved, then certainly how they might be carried forward more constructively and with greater...