Le sens de l'éthique en psychiatrie. Par delà Beauchamp et Childress

Nowadays medical ethics usually refers to Beauchamp and Childress principlism. Based on a sociological approach, the paper will show that, for psychiatrists, the meaning of ethics, expressed in the framework of interviews, is unsolvable in the principlism, especially in benevolence and autonomy. We will first underline the interpretation of ethics in moral terms, i.e. referring to our common humanity and secondly that the concern with responsibility leads the psychiatry beyond autonomy. Finally, it will appear that the ethical issues raised mainly when several norms are at stake and when psychiatry has to deal with constitutional requirements.