This issue of the Bioethics Bulletin is devoted to briefly looking at the four main principles that guide medical ethics currently. As things stand today, the bioethical principles developed by Beauchamp and Childress viz. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice are the dominant methods to evaluate and practice ethical choices and decisions. It is not that these principles were developed by these men, or were not known or practiced before them. But it is simply that these ethical principles were laid down as tools to be employed in ethical dilemmas by these authors.