Reflections on Public Health Ethics

Trace to the source of public health ethics is neither medical ethics nor bioethics. This paper begins by exploring the slow development of public health ethics and argues that a true understanding of public health ethics requires not only an understanding of public health itself, but also the inclusion of perspectives from the philosophy of public health, health economics and even political philosophy. Only then can we gain a deeper understanding of the characteristics and essence of public health, which in turn will help to highlight the ethical issues involved in public health interventions and public health ethics practice. It remains difficult to outline a satisfactory theory of public health ethics; however, the path to consensus requires a foundation of the core values of public health ethics. For instance, it is necessary to precisely define concepts such as groups, communities, populations, public goods, common interests, solidarity, reciprocity, welfare, well-being and justice. A comparative study of Eastern and Western philosophical and ethical perspectives would help us to gain a more profound understanding of these issues.