« On ne badine pas avec l'éthique »

This contribution discusses the attraction to reading an ethical dimension into the characteristic features of our civilization, a process which reveals a correlation between renewed interest in ethics expressed via the development of ethics committees, and the fall of the ideals governing modern times. Ethics committees have been developed in many sectors of human activity, but are particularly important in the healthcare field concerning the questions of life and death. Discourses related to end-of-life situations and ethical questions directly involved with human suffering can be identified. The category of discourses issuing from psychoanalysis and renewed clinical practices are proposed as solutions for dead-end situations created by guidelines for good clinical practices.