What Is the Source of Moral Judgments?

This chapter examines the source or “grounding” of ethical duties. Some believe that for professional ethics, the professional association (in the case of pharmacy in the United States, the American Pharmacists Association) is the source, but, at most, the professional group seems to be only the place where ethical duties of pharmacists are identified, and even that claim is controversial. Others claim the source is the orders of the physician or other prescriber of therapy, the hospital’s policy, the patient’s values, or religious or philosophical traditions. This chapter presents cases raising these issues dealing with compounding lethal agents for the execution of criminals, dispensing a potentially lethal opiate, honoring a terminally ill patient’s wishes to refuse an antibiotic, medication errors, an employer’s exclusion of an infertility drug from insurance coverage, and the pharmacist’s right to refuse to dispense oral contraceptives that violate his religious beliefs.