"Duty," General Robert E. Lee once said, "is the noblest word in the English language."
The concept of duty has engendered an outpouring of works in medical ethics over the past two decades, and this volume is probably destined to become one of the more provocative of the lot.
Pellegrino, one of America's truly distinguished physician-philosophers, and Thomasma, a widely published and renowned ethicist, collaborate here again in a sequel to The Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice. Their intent is to elucidate further their basic contention that the special nature of the doctor-patient relationship is fundamental to all canons of