The doctors dilemma: preface on doctors by george bernard shaw (excerpt) there is another difficulty in trusting to the honor and conscience of a doctor. doctors are just like other englishmen: most of them have no honor and no conscience: what they commonly mistake for these is sentimentality and an intense dread of doing anything that everybody else does not do, or omitting to do anything that everybody else does. this of course does amount to a sort of working or rule-of-thumb conscience; but it means that you will do anything, good or bad, provided you get enough people to keep you in countenance by doing it also. it is the sort of conscience that makes it possible to keep order on a pirate ship, or in a troop of brigands. it may be said that in the last analysis there is no other sort of honor or conscience in existence—that the assent of the majority is the only sanction known to ethics. no doubt this holds good in political practice. if mankind knew the facts, and agreed with the doctors, then the doctors would be in the right; and any person who thought otherwise would be a lunatic. but mankind does not agree, and does not know the facts. what is the likely purpose of the passage? a. to explain the severe difficulties faced by doctors b. to encourage skepticism toward the medical profession c. to argue that doctors, as a group, are unusually evil people d. to imply that common medical practices do more harm than good