The care-based ethic of Nazi medicine and the moral importance of what we care about.

This article reports on an inquiry into ideas used to justify the shift of medical ethos in Germany prior to and during the Nazi era, specifically the principles of care advocated by Erwin Liek and Karl Kotschau, the era's most influential medical theorists, who argued that commitments to care of individual sick persons (Fursorge) had to give way to a preventive care that respects emerging needs of the entire society (Vorsoge). The article examines both the socio-cultural factors that shaped, and the far-reaching effects of, this manipulation of care. It argues that we should be attentive to the meaning and requirements of the care revealed in this debate, the ancient Greek idea of care as a concerned moral option.