Medical Ethics Training

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsAuthor's AttitudeHumanities

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Passage

One of the greatest challenges facing medical students today, apart from absorbing volumes of technical information and learning habits of scientific thought, is that of remaining empathetic to the needs of patients in the face of all this rigorous training. Requiring students to immerse themselves completely in medical coursework risks disconnecting them in ethics that takes narrative literature as its primary subject is one method of accomplishing this.

Although training in ethics is currently provided by medical schools, this training relies heavily on an abstract, philosophical view of ethics. Although the conceptual clarity provided by a traditional ethics course can be valuable, theorizing about ethics contributes little to the understanding of everyday human experience or to preparing medical students for such literature attaches its readers so forcefully to the concrete and varied world of human events.

The act of reading narrative literature is uniquely suited to the development of what might be called flexible ethical thinking. To grasp the development of characters, to tangle with heightening moral crises, and to engage oneself with the story not as one’s own but nevertheless as something recognizable and worthy of attention, the ability to depart from one’s personal ethical stance and examine moral issues from new perspectives.

It does not follow that readers, including medical professionals, must relinquish all moral principles, as is the case with situational ethics, in which decisions about ethical choices are made on the basis of intuition and are entirely relative to the circumstances in which they arise. Such an extremely relativistic stance would have as a foundation for ethical reasoning and allow greater flexibility in the application of moral principles.

What this question is testing

Author's Attitude

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

27.

The author’s attitude regarding the traditional method of teaching ethics in medical school can most accurately

Answer choices

Too Strong5% picked this
unqualified disapproval of the method and disapproval of all of
"Qualified disapproval" would be okay. That means "I basically disapprove, although I should qualify that it does provide conceptual clarity that can be valuable." Unqualified disapproval means "there is nothing I like here".
5%
Too Neutral10% picked this
reserved judgment regarding the method and disapproval of all of
The author isn't reserving judgment. She definitely thinks that traditional ethics "contribute little to the understanding that med students will face as physicians."
10%
Too Neutral9% picked this
partial disapproval of the method and clinical indifference toward
The author isn't clinically indifferent toward the effects. She definitely thinks that traditional ethics "contribute little to the understanding that med students will face as physicians." The final sentence of the passage says that narrative-based ethics training "can give us something that is lacking in the traditional philosophical study of ethics". She sees it as a "corrective" to what might otherwise be inflexible application of moral principles.
9%
Contradicted: all of its effects16% picked this
partial approval of the method and disapproval of all of
The author says that a traditional ethics course "can provide a valuable conceptual clarity", so she's approving of at least one of its effects.
16%
Correct60% picked this
partial disapproval of the method and approval of some of
Why this is right
This best captures the mixed feelings she has. She approves some of its effects (the conceptual clarity it provides) but disapproves of its lack of real world depth and complexity. It uses a method that "relies heavily on an abstract, philosophical view of ethics". She thinks it would be bad to be totally relativistic (i.e. "whatever YOU feel in the moment is ethical, is ethical"), so she partially approves of having fixed moral principles. But she wants med students to engage in how difficult real world dilemmas will be and learn to "abandon strictly absolute, inviolate sets of moral principles". She wants them to feel greater flexibility in applying moral principles, but she does still want moral principles.
Skill tested: Author's Attitude · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
60%

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