Medical ethics in a multicultural context

One contemporary challenge for medical ethics is to formulate an approach to ethics that will enable us to adapt to a multicultural or pluralistic setting. This challenge has had to be met in New Zealand where there is an explicit biculturalism at the heart of social policy. The two cultures involved are very different but, when examined closely, it can be seen that they have significant moral intuitions in common. Some common threads include the unique value of the parent-child bond, the principle of respect for the individual, and the idea of belonging. I note a number of specific examples where similar intuitions are expressed in different ways. I then suggest that it is in the common and shared experiences of development as a human being that we are more likely to find common ethical intuitions rather than in attempts to agree on abstract rules. This suggests an ethic based in narrative and imaginative sensitivity to the situation of another person. Such an approach to ethics needs to attend both to the meanings and symbols of another culture but also to their history when it has involved significant dealings between cultures.