In Defense of Uncommon Morality: A Response to: Leonard Fleck, “Medical Ethics: A Distinctive Species of Ethics,” Leslie Francis, “Beyond Common or Uncommon Morality” and Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry, “In Search of Medical Ethics and Its Foundation with Rosamond Rhodes” (CQ 29 (3))

I am grateful to Tomi Kushner for inviting commentaries on my paper, “Medical Ethics: Common or Uncommon Morality?” 1 and for the authors who submitted their remarks, Leonard M. Fleck, 2 Leslie Francis, 3 Tuija Takala, and Matti Hӓyry. 4 I appreciate their investment of time and effort and sharing their insights. Their articles provide a banquet of food for thought, and, in return, I now tender my smorgasbord in response. For the most part, they each raise different issues and I respond to them separately. Professor Francis as well as Professors Takala and Hӓyry, however, challenge one core thesis, and I reply to them together near the end of my defense.