n Southern African Journal of Critical Care - End-of-life care in intensive care units

Abstract

Ethical theories have been posited since the dawn of civilisation. We all approach moral decisions informed by our historical, family and cultural backgrounds, augmented in turn by our personal and professional experience. Theories and practice reflect the beliefs, values and knowledge of the ages, refined, modified and reinstated to address present ethical concerns. Platonic and Aristotlean ethics were modified in the ensuing centuries: theorists constructed models based on natural law, seeing humankind as a link in the chain of being - stretching from God Himself to the smallest of inanimate beings.