摘要 : Physicians have no privileged insight as to the content of social justice, a highly controversial concept. Whatever their views as to how far health care should be conducted as a public rather than as a private activity, or as to ... 展开 Physicians have no privileged insight as to the content of social justice, a highly controversial concept. Whatever their views as to how far health care should be conducted as a public rather than as a private activity, or as to how far collective resources collected for public purposes should be devoted to health care for one societal group rather than for another, these views do not deserve any special respect on account of the professional identity of those who hold them. On such political questions, physicians speak with no more authority than any other citizen. And they are exactly the questions to which Tilburt's position implies there are professionally determined answers that physicians must champion in the political arena. Claiming a professional imprimatur for physician opinions on such matters or valuing their expression as a sign of professional virtue is to mistake ordinary politics for professional work and, in so doing, to degrade both. Pretending that professional norms mandate a political position is to misleadingly lend the profession's authority to disputable political goals. And turning politics into professional work gives aid and comfort to those who would problematize such work by viewing it primarily as a vehicle for power seeking or power wielding. 收起