Aesthetics and ethics are relevant to health care and clinical practice because they frame our conceptions of value and our habits of valuation. Sketches, photographs, and other visual representations of persons’ illnesses, injuries, disabilities, or differences, for example, can have ethically, clinically, and legally relevant consequences for how we care for and care about persons depicted. How persons are perceived and represented in different visual media, for example, can influence what clinicians, law enforcement personnel, or members of the public think those persons deserve from them when they are in their care, custody, or social environments. Visual artists’ skills in truthful or sympathetic rendering situate what viewers discern as prominent, as worth knowing about, and as worth acting upon in response to our own and others’ needs and vulnerabilities. This theme issue investigates key intersections of health, aesthetics, moral psychology, and ethics.
Manuscripts submitted for peer review consideration and inclusion in this issue must follow Instructions for Authors and be submitted by 30 July 2025.
The AMA Journal of Ethics® invites original, English-language contributions for peer review consideration on the upcoming themes.