The Ethic of Responsibility: Max Weber’s Verstehen and Shared Decision-Making in Patient-Centred Care

Abstract

AbstractWhereas evidence-based medicine (EBM) encourages the translation of medical research into decision-making through clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), patient-centred care (PCC) aims to integrate patient values through shared decision-making. In order to successfully integrate EBM and PCC, I propose a method of orienting physician decision-making to overcome the different obligations set out by a formally-rational EBM and substantively-rational ethics of care. I engage with Weber’s concepts “the ethic of responsibility” and verstehen as a new model of clinical reasoning that reformulates the relationship between medical knowledge and social values, while demonstrating the relevance of the classical sociological cannon to contemporary medical humanities.