As I have gained more experience of teaching ethics to medical students, I have found it to be a more complex task than I initially (naively) thought. In this talk, I will explore the aspect of this teaching that I find most challenging: simply put, teaching ethics without teaching much philosophy. I will start by outlining the context within which medical ethics teaching takes place, particularly the constraints that are faced. I will argue that a common response to these constraints – teaching ethics in a ‘theory light’ way – has significant downsides. I will use the concept of autonomy as a worked example of how teaching ‘theory light’ ethics can lead not just to misunderstanding of a key concept, but also misunderstanding of ethics as a whole. I will argue that these misunderstandings are evident in how some doctors approach ethics, and that this may have a broader impact upon policy and direction-of-travel within some areas of medicine.