Heretical Ethics: Reimagining Medical Morality Beyond Technocratic Norms
Author(s):
Julian Ungar-Sargon
This paper proposes a critical reconfiguration of medical ethics rooted in postmodern philosophy, theological heterodoxy, and a rejection of moral trivialization. Drawing on the works of Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Foucault, and Thomas Szasz—as well as the normative and aspirational frameworks advanced by the Hastings Center—it argues for a model of ethical care that is relational, non-reductive, and theologically infused. Medicine, seen through this lens, becomes not a technical service but a sacred encounter shaped by vulnerability, power, and the possibility of presence.