Abstract

Medical ethics is not known for being a fast-paced discipline; many of the principles we draw on are 2000 years old. And yet, during John McMillan’s 7 -year tenure as editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics ( JME ), the journal has changed a great deal and has in turn changed the discipline. The issues discussed and the ethical concepts in play have broadened while the purpose itself has been refined to publish excellent medical ethics articles that are both philosophically sound and of practical use to clinicians, patients and policy makers. Under his leadership, the journal remained committed to the idea that bioethics is not merely an academic exercise but a normative enterprise—concerned, at its core, with how we ought to respond to the ethical challenges that arise in medicine, science and public life. John’s vision of good bioethics is rooted in a belief that philosophical clarity and real-world relevance should not be seen as competing aims but as mutually reinforcing. As he argued in a 2018 editorial, good medical ethics is defined not just by its analytic sharpness or theoretical sophistication but by how well it is framed, how transparent it is about its normative commitments and how seriously it takes engagement with diverse perspectives.1 For John, good medical ethics needs to be open to input from law, social science and clinical experience but without losing sight of the responsibility to make reasoned ethical judgments. Good medical ethics needs to take a normative stand. In this spirit, John has encouraged work that grapples with moral complexity without retreating into abstraction and that draws on a wide range of disciplinary tools while maintaining a clear normative focus. He has also been attentive to how bioethical arguments are presented—not only in terms of structure and clarity but also in terms of …