Conceptual work to advance psychiatric and neuroscientific sophistication: a report by the WPA Section on Philosophy and Humanities in Psychiatry

Crucial to Optimal Learning and Practice of Ethics: Virtuous Relationships and Diligent Processes that Account for Both Shared and Conflicting Values

“…VBP calls strongly on the virtues of mutual respect, trust, and interdependence among all involved in their various capacities (Crepaz-Keay, Fulford, & Van Staden, 2015). In the same line of thought, various virtues, being values of a particular kind (Van Staden, 2005), have been identified for psychiatrists: some are essential in everyday in professional life; others are virtues constituted by specifically the psychiatrist role featuring outside the professional setting either merely as prudential or intellectual virtues or not featuring at all (Radden & Sadler, 2010). For psychotherapy, Waring (2016) has recently described epistemic virtues in expressing a reparation ethic.…”

“…For example, a physician would not attempt a hysterectomy when he or she has only 5 minutes to do it-a hysterectomy is valued as taking more time. Bottom line is: we have to (learn to) recognize (Van Staden, 2005) and account for all the values steering our decisions with the view to attain optimal learning and practice of ethics through virtuous relationships and diligent processes.…”