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Applied Ethics · Chapter 8

The Principles Forge

Bioethics did not grow out of an argument. It grew out of harm, and each of its principles is an answer to a particular thing that was done to particular people. Scrub the timeline from 1932 to 1985 and watch the record accumulate — then switch the ledger between Belmont’s three and Beauchamp and Childress’s four and see exactly what the renaming costs.
1932
19321947196619741985

The ledger: what the record forced into law