공통 도덕 행위자의 비판적 재구성: 인식론적 매개체에서 서사적 공동 저자로

초록

The purpose of this study is to critically examine and reconstruct the concept of the agent of common morality as presented in T. L. Beauchamp and J. F. Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics (8th ed., 2019). In the existing literature, the agent of common morality has been characterized as a rational and impartial party who recognizes human flourishing, autonomously endorses it, and engages in wide reflective equilibrium. This paper does not dispute that characterization. Rather, its focus lies on the practical lacuna that arises from a reading that construes this agent as a merely epistemic vehicle that apprehends and transmits universal norms. Accordingly, the reconstruction of the agent of common morality proposed here constitutes a constructive supplement compatible with Beauchamp and Childress's framework. To this end, the paper proceeds in three stages. First, it analyzes three gaps inherent in the received understanding of the agent—namely, the concentration of epistemic burdens on the individual, the risk of reducing the application of principles to a mere procedure, and the marginalization of concrete relationships and narratives—and demonstrates why the expanded discussion of the virtues in the eighth edition, as an internal resource, fails to close these gaps. Second, drawing on relational autonomy and narrative ethics, the paper reinterprets autonomy not as a procedural right of isolated reason but as a dynamic capacity for attunement within relationships, redescribing the patient as a subject who rewrites the narrative of illness and the healthcare professional as an interpreter of that narrative's meaning. Third, by distinguishing between the authorship of self-determination and the authorship of interpretation, it examines how a reciprocal interaction becomes possible in which physician and patient, attending to each other's vulnerability, function as narrative co-authors, weaving a shared story of human flourishing. In conclusion, the paper shows that the moral capacities of the moral agent converge upon practical wisdom, and, by reintegrating concrete care and narrative into the universal framework of principlism, it seeks to contribute to the practical viability of biomedical ethical theory.

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