Physicians at War

There are a range of ethical issues that confront physicians in times of war, as wellas some of the uses of physicians during wars. This book presents a theoreticalapparatus which undergirds those debates, namely by casting physicians asbeing confronted with dual-loyalties during times of war. While this theoreticalapparatus has already been developed in other contexts, it has not been specificallybrought to bear on the ethical conflicts that attain in wars. Arguably, wars thrustphysicians into ethical conflicts insofar as these wars create a tension between aphysicianâ??s obligation to heal and an obligation to serve some other good (e.g.,military chain of command, national security, the greater good, etc.). Alternatively,we can debate whether this conception is appropriate. For example, one couldargue that that non-medical duties cannot attach to physicians (e.g., due to nonoverlappingspheres of justice), thus abrogating the dual-loyalty challenge. Or elseone could argue that these medically-trained personnel do not act qua physiciansat all (but rather partisan advocates) and therefore duties that would otherwiseattach to physicians do not attach here.In the first part of this book, these issues are debated. In the second part ofthe book, the dual-loyalities frame is used to explore various substantive debatesthat obtain when the military makes use of physicians. Physician involvementin torture is a heated topic, and certainly the most visible element of the debate.Also, however, we could use the dual-loyalties framework to explore issues inother arenas, such as: development of chemical and biological weapons, medicalneutrality/battlefield triage, and so on. In each of these cases, the same tensionsarguably exist: physicians have duties both to their patients and â?oelsewhereâ?(which, depending on the details of the view, could be any of the above-mentionedends).