The article deals with the problem of ethics in psychiatry. The author is of the opinion, that the concept of mental illness neither arose nor developed in a cultural and conceptual vacuum. That is the reason, why ethical problems are closely connected with treatment of mentally ill people. The author tries to give a brief survey of fundamental ethical theories and explains their contribution for practice. He is persuaded, that caregivers do not have any ethical views that are independent of and cognitively superior to existing social context. The author concludes, that good clinical care is not based only on clinical science and competence of technical procedures, but also on sensitivity to ethical aspects of the given clinical situation.

        Key words: ethics, mental illness, autonomy, ethical theories, methodology.