Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Perspective
  • Published:

Dental indemnity

Ethics on the edge: commodification, credence and care in general dental practice

British Dental Journal volume 239, page 409 (2025)Cite this article

Key points

  • Commodification of care creates ethical challenges in dentistry, risking overtreatment, loss of trust, and erosion of professional values.

  • As a credence good, dentistry is shaped by the principal-agent problem, with patients relying on dentists despite misaligned incentives.

  • Ethical fading shows how the moral dimension of decisions can slip from view under commercial or workplace pressures, leading to lapses without deliberate misconduct.

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Brady F N. A Janus-headed model of ethical theory: looking two ways at business/society issues. Acad Manag Rev 1985; 10: 568-576.

  2. Bloom A. The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic Books, 1991. Original work c380 BCE.

  3. Sandel M J. What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. London: Allen Lane, 2012.

  4. Pellegrino E D. The commodification of medical and health care: the moral consequences of a paradigm shift from a professional to a market ethic. J Med Philos 1999; 24: 243-266.

  5. Mueller D. The Oxford Handbook of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

  6. Tenbrunsel A E, Messick D M. Ethical fading: the role of self-deception in unethical behavior. Soc Justice Res 2004; 17: 223-236.

  7. Bazerman M H, Tenbrunsel A E. Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What's Right and What to Do About It. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

  8. Sanfey A G, Loewenstein G, McClure S M, Cohen J D. Neuroeconomics: cross-currents in research on decision-making. Trends Cogn Sci 2006; 10: 108-116.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dental Director, Dental Protection, UK

    Raj Rattan MBE

Authors
  1. Raj Rattan MBE
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raj Rattan MBE.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rattan MBE, R. Ethics on the edge: commodification, credence and care in general dental practice. Br Dent J 239, 409 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-025-9208-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41415-025-9208-z

Search

Advanced search

Quick links