Our primary goal is to argue in favour of “integrative bioethics”. Integrative bioethics embeds bioethical reflection in a confluence of disciplines that provide an appreciation of different aspects of medical practice and bring into view different concerns and possible pathways for intervening to address health care needs. The problem is this: medicine is usually viewed as a rigorous, factbased science that provides certain knowledge in matters related to health and disease. On the basis of such a view, the core activities of medicine (e.g. diagnosis, treatment and prognosis) are not open to public scrutiny and debate in the same way other social activities might be. Medical disputes are then resolved as if they were matters of fact, rather than as sociopolitical matters subject to ethical and philosophical reflection that optimally lead to an open-minded dialogue. Complementing this reductionist view of medicine is the traditional principle-based ethic, which sees value disputes as independent of the complex network of relations that characterize medical practice. According to this view, individuals can appeal to specific principles to justify their claims or choices. The principle approach in bioethics and the specific expression of the rights-based approach are examples of this reductionist view of medicine.