GEORGE J. AGICH WHAT KIND OF DOING IS CLINICAL ETHICS? ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the importance of Richard M. Zaner’s work on clinical ethics for answering the question: what kind of doing is ethics consultation? The paper argues first, that four common approaches to clinical ethics – applied ethics, casuistry, principlism, and conflict resolution – cannot adequately address the nature of the activity that makes up clinical ethics; second, that understanding the practical character of clinical ethics is critically important for the field; and third, that the practice of clinical ethics is bound up with the normative commitments of medicine as a therapeutic enterprise. KEY WORDS: applied ethics, casuistry, conflict resolution, ethics consultation, principlism, Richard M. Zaner I have long been impressed by Richard M. Zaner’s work on clinical ethics, so I welcomed the opportunity to contribute to this issue to try to characterize why this work is important for the field. To do so, I discuss the question: what kind of doing is ethics consultation? This rather odd way of phrasing the question is intended to call attention to the fact that our question is itself unusual and is, remarkably, not a central theme in the literature. I will first discuss how most approaches to clinical ethics fail to seriously take up this question, second, show why the question is pivotal to the field, and third, argue that the work of Zaner points in the direction that we must proceed if we are to answer this question. APPROACHES TO THE QUESTION OF DOING CLINICAL ETHICS The question stresses that ethics consultation is a kind of action or doing and that the action is our thematic focus. Previous discussions of the broad topic of clinical ethics have failed to come to terms with the features that define it as a special type of action. Four broad approaches to the question are evident in the literature. The first three, namely, applied ethics, casuistry, and principlism, view clinical ethics from the perspective of ethics while the fourth approach seeks Theoretical Medicine 26: 7–24, 2005 Ó Springer 2005 DOI 10.1007/s11017-004-4802-6