Kantian moral law and the care relationship

Abstract

The care relationship is one of the multiple relationships that human beings maintain throughout their lives. It is built around the paramedic-patient relationship. The paramedic is the holder of medical power, while the patient is afflicted and crushed by suffering and the illness. Today, as in the past, we repeatedly hear accusations about the absence of humanity in the healthcare relationship between the paramedic and the patient, and vice versa. These various accusations provide an opportunity to question the fundamental place of humanity in the healthcare relationship. In formulating his morality through his categorical imperative, Emmanuel Kant raises the issue of humanity as a principle of action. The fundamental idea is that human beings must be respected because they are human beings, an end in themselves. The aim of this article is to study the ethical-practice implications of the Kantian categorical imperative in the healthcare relationship, because if there is a place where the individual must be treated as an end in itself and not as a means to an end, it is in healthcare establishments. Indeed, what does it mean for patients and paramedics to treat humanity in themselves and in others as an end? This is the main theme of this research.