Beneficence
- Principle
Beneficence is the duty to act for the patient's good: prevent, cure, relieve and help.
What it is
Beneficence is the positive duty to do good: prevent disease, cure, relieve suffering and promote health. It goes beyond not harming, because it requires action. In practice it means weighing the expected benefits of each option against its risks and costs. The good sought is the patient's good according to their own values; when a doctor imposes their own idea of good on a capable patient, beneficence turns into paternalism.
What it requires
- Prevent harm and disease.
- Remove or treat what causes harm.
- Relieve suffering even when cure is not possible.
- Choose the option with the best balance of benefits, risks and costs for that patient.
- Protect those who cannot protect themselves (children, people without capacity).
In clinical practice
- Offer the evidence-based options and explain which one the doctor recommends and why.
- Palliative care: when cure is impossible, doing good means relieving pain and staying with the patient.
- Chronic or incurable illness does not allow a doctor to stop caring for a patient (Law 23 of 1981, art. 17).
- Doing good for one patient does not justify harming a third party or bypassing the rules of justice.
Limits and exceptions
- Limit: the informed decision of a capable patient; the doctor recommends, does not impose.
- Limit: one patient's good cannot be pursued at the cost of resources others need more.
- Limit: there is no duty to give futile treatments that offer no reasonable benefit.
Test yourself
Think of the answer, then tap the question to see it.
How does beneficence differ from nonmaleficence?
Beneficence requires acting for the patient (prevent, cure, relieve); nonmaleficence requires causing them no avoidable harm.
When does beneficence turn into paternalism?
When the doctor imposes their own idea of what is good on a capable patient who decides otherwise.
If a patient cannot be cured, what does beneficence require?
Continuing to care for them: relieving pain and suffering and staying with them; incurability is no reason to stop care (Law 23 of 1981, art. 17).
Connections
Educational content on ethics and health law; not legal advice. Laws and case law change: each page links the official text and says when it was last checked. For a real case, read the text in force and ask a lawyer or the medical ethics tribunal.
Sources: The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Human Research Protections, 1979); WMA Declaration of Geneva (World Medical Association, 2017); Ley 23 de 1981, por la cual se dictan normas en materia de ética médica (Función Pública, Gestor Normativo (Colombia), 1981).
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Representative model, for educational purposes only.