PEDRO LAÍN ENTRALGO: A FUNDAMENTAL PREDECESSOR OF SPANISH BIOETHICS

In this paper we have aimed to approach one of the most important intellectual figures in Spanish culture in the second half of the 20^th century: the doctor, medical historian and promoter of the so-called Medical Anthropology, Pedro Laín Entralgo (1908-2001). Addressing him from a new perspective, that is, by relating him to the context of Spanish medical ethics and bioethics, we wanted to show how part of Laín’s theories influenced some of the most important authors in those academic fields, taking his disciple Diego Gracia as a paradigm. It is a mistake to consider Laín Entralgo as a bioethicist because, when this discipline was constituted as such in the seventies, the central topics of Laín’s thought had already been developed and his intellectual itinerary was already defined. However, his thoughts on medicine, clinical practice or doctor-patient relationship, among other subjects, have served as a theoretical basis for many later thinkers. Thus, from Laín’s insights, those who were his disciples have been able to ground their philosophical systems by building a bioethical perspective that includes the application of the Medical Anthropology Laín proposed. Therefore, we believe it is legitimate to conclude that, although Laín Entralgo was not a bioethicist, he deserves to be recognised as an intellectual predecessor whose ideas nourished considerations on bioethics and medical ethics, since he influenced some of the authors acknowledged as authorities in such fields.