- •Metaethics: where our ethical principles come from (for example, Social construction? Will of God?) and what they mean
- •Applied Ethics: examining specific areas (for example, business ethics) and specific controversial issues (for example, abortion, capital punishment)
- •1) Difficulty of proving Supernatural Existence
- •2) Religious people can be immoral.
- •4) Different religions promote different ethical systems.
- •In Aristotle’s ethics (arete) is “excellences of various types.”
- •Virtue ethics is about character (agent-centered)
- •1) Psychological egoism:
- •2) Ethical egoism
- •Values of Traditional Society:
- •Impartiality and equality
- •Intensity
- •In other words with his/her choice man is setting an example of what he/she thinks is the right thing to do
- •Niccolò Machiavelli
- •Is the corporation a moral agent?
- •Favored by just cause advocates: legally.
- •Favored by at-will advocates: through the promotion of a vibrant labor market in which jobs are frequently created and readily available.
- •It can create a climate of support for attitudes that harm women
- •Issues in Euthanasia:
- •Voluntariness and Non-consequentialism
- •Bioethics: stem cell research
- •1953: Watson and Crick determine the molecular structure of dna
- •2000: Human Genome Project
- •Individuals with rare genetic disorders
- •In 1992 in Orlando, Florida, 5% of the drivers were black or Hispanic, but they accounted for 70% of those who were stopped and searched.
- •Information, computer and roboethics
- •Intellectual property
- •Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics (1942, I Robot):
- •56 Nations are developing robotic weapons
Issues in Euthanasia:
Patient rights
Life and death (life as a gift of God, life as ‘priceless’, individual right over one’s own life)
The proper function of doctors
The ethics of suicide
The overlap between law and morality
Euthanasia: ‘good death’ (what does it mean ‘good death? Peaceful, painless, lucid, with loving ones around…)
Passive Euthanasia: withholding or withdrawing certain treatment and letting a patient die (for example, respirators or feeding tubes). It can be done at the request of the patient or of the patient’s family. In the USA is a ‘normal’ practice
Active Euthanasia: using death-causing means (for example drugs) to bring about or cause the death of a person (in the past called ‘mercy killing’). It is consider more problematic
Physician-Assisted Suicide: in this case the physician does not actually inject a patient with a death-causing drug as in active euthanasia, but rather provides patients with drugs that they will take themselves.
Passive Euthanasia
Ordinary Measures: measures or treatments with reasonable hope or benefit, or the benefits outweigh the burdens to the patient
Extraordinary Measures: measures or treatments with no reasonable hope of benefit, or the burdens outweigh the benefits to the patient
Active Euthanasia: A law has been approved in the Netherlands on November 28 2008. These are the conditions:
The patient’s request must be voluntary and clearly understood and repeatedly voiced
The patient must be faced with unbearable and continuing suffering (although he or she need not be terminally ill, and the suffering need not to be physical or physical only)
The patient must believe that no reasonable alternative is acceptable
The doctor must consult with at least one other independent physician who also has examined the patient
Voluntary Euthanasia: it is the person whose life is at issue who knowingly and freely makes the decision about what is to be done
Nonvoluntary Euthanasia: it is not the person whose life is at issue who makes the decision
Three forms of Voluntary Euthanasia:
1) Voluntary Active Euthanasia: the person who is dying (or suffering) asks to be given the ‘fatal dose’
2) Voluntary Passive Euthanasia, Withholding Ordinary Measures: don’t use life-saving or life-prolonging medical measures
3) Voluntary Passive Euthanasia, Withholding Extraordinary Measures: don’t use those medical measures because the chances of benefit
Three forms of Nonvoluntary Euthanasia:
1) Nonvoluntary Active Euthanasia: others decide to give the person the ‘fatal dose’
2) Nonvoluntary Passive Euthanasia, Withholding Ordinary Measures: others decide not to use life-saving or life-prolonging medical measures
3) Nonvoluntary Passive Euthanasia, Withholding Extraordinary Measures: others decide not to use those medical measures because the chances of benefit
Making moral judgments about Euthanasia:
Respecting people’s own choices
Every person is the best judge over what is better for herself
Problems with information: it may be that people do not know all the alternatives available