Description
1 . Please define in several sentences each and in your own words, what you believe to be a central moral issue within each of these ethical issues: bioethics, abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment. (roughly 8-10 sentences).2. State which of these issues is MOST interesting to you AND what your own position on it is, and explain which ethics theory (which we covered in section one) would most support your position and why. (roughly two-four sentences total).3. Clearly and specifically IDENTIFY and READ any TWO selections, OR WATCH any TWO videos (OR read any 1 selection and watch any 1 video) FROM SECTION TWO found in Course Resources (found as the 4th item at the top of the Modules page), and briefly share any one key idea from each (two ideas total) and whether you agree or disagree and why. (roughly 2-4 sentences) Please respond to each question with its own paragraph, separated from others, rather than one large paragraph.Please always respond in your own words and do not use quotes from other persons or sources. Plagiarism needs to be avoided and will not be accepted.Your work must give evidence of listening to the lectures by directly referring to them, discussing the specific issues and information provided in them.The only accepted content for use and/or citations for these discussions must come from the lectures, readings, and videos provided within Course Resources.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Ethics part 4
Now that we’ve completed our look at at the theory we’re going to do applied ethics for the
rest of the semester that means we will be applying these ideas about ethics to specific issues
the second section of this course which begins with this lecture is on the ethics of life and death
we’ll consider biomedical issues as in this lecture and in future lectures on abortion euthanasia
and capital punishment leading to exam two and after that while the third section which I’ll
introduce at that time with new videos audio videos and so just to review some of the issues of
importance within biomedicine issues like fetal tissue research for example in particular stem
cell research of course stem cells look very promising for addressing brain diseases like
Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s some think in fact they could even address the possibility of repairing
paralysis and you could imagine what a miracle would seem if someone found in a wheelchair
could actually get up and walk someday so there’s a lot of promising things about stem cell
research why then the controversy well the controversy comes from the fact that that the most
usable stem cells are retrieved from aborted fetuses and I don’t need to tell you why the
abortion issue is controversial although we’ll get into those details later in the next lecture but
it is sort of through guilt by association that stem cell research again some controversy now
stem cells can be retrieved from adults and from publical cord but those do not currently look
as promising as those obtained from aborted the material other issues concerning cloning for
example the entire idea of cloning an entire human being we cloned the sheep Dolly a couple of
decades ago and it is theoretically possible then to clone a human being in fact some have
already claimed to have done so boats never been totally corroborated below the the ethics of
this on the one hand you could play devil’s advocate say that nature or God a clone all the time
if if you are a twin if you are a genetic match with a sibling or if you know somebody like that in
their maternal twins then they are in fact duplicates of each other’s DNA So what would be
wrong with that of course some of the concerns are the so-called slippery slope we’re going to
start designing people to do our bidding we’re going to design people in society to collect the
garbage you never want to do anything moral or to be our military personnel and never disobey
an order or when designed to compare scientist and etcetera etcetera if when we start to
tamper in that way then we tamper with that thing which makes us all human namely free will
some call this the brave new world problem because of the famous concerns like these raised in
algus huxleys book brave new world in other areas in vitro fertilization a technique meant to
address couples who have a fragility issue and this is done by fertilizing the egg in a Petri what
could be some of the moral issues involved here one has to do with the very notion of
parenthood it changes the meaning because it needn’t be the perspective mother’s egg which is
used so a third party is now involved in could claim some kind of legal parenthood it needn’t be
the prospective father sperm that is used either and so we now we have a 4th partner in this
venture it also needn’t be the prospective mother’s uterus that is used you can use a surrogate
mother and son have 5 and potentially more in clouds the concept of the very meaning of
personhood in real life interesting issues have arisen the real case for example which involves A
wealthy Brazilian couple flying their private jet to a the British clinic which began doing in
Detroit presentation IPF as it’s called in 1976 and after successful fertilization of a number of
these embryos because they do use fertility drugs and they use multiple fertilized eggs and
hopes to choose the best and most fit for facility on the flight back the Rios plane crashed in the
couple the ceased and then lawyers came forward on behalf of the fertilized egg were now
citizens frozen they’re waiting to be implanted the the the lawyers on behalf of the fertilized
eggs argued that they had a right to be formed because they were the sole inheritors of the
wheels fortune so you have a rather strange situation brought upon by real life another
interesting case is the Tennessee case or a couple of ticket and 1/2 or so ago went through this
process which takes time takes several years and six fertilized eggs when I’m frozen and ready
for use but by the time they were ready the couple had had a divorce and we’re now in a legal
battle over who owns the fertilized eggs this went all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court
by the way the the the woman won this case and while she was never legally obligated to
indicate what she was going to do with the eggs it is generally believed that she discarded that
material while the husband wanted them with a new girlfriend to implant them and to raise
them has his own so again once again these these technical issues do raise some serious moral
dilemmas for us you also have the whole area of eugenics eugenics means an attempt to create
good that’s the EU’s genes and we do that by for example in the human genome project we we
have tracked and learned all the markers for things like Down syndrome spina bifida Ty Saks
disease etcetera that we’d like to eliminate and if we could learn well where those switches are
that perhaps we can turn them off and this seems to be a good idea to most people but people
again according to the slippery slope argument aren’t going to be content with just turning off
switches they’re probably going to want to turn on switches that is to say they’re probably
going to want to design their own children should parents be allowed the right to choose the
color of their children’s eyes how about their gender about their body type how about their
intellectual capacity should we learn how to do that in the future again we’ll be in the area of
designing people and natural all folks of course would say that we would be very much playing
God I’m not gonna go through all these issues that are on the on the PowerPoint slide but you
get the general idea that I mentioned natural law while they’re very leery of of of these
technologies which as I say from their perspective tempts us to play God we don’t have the
moral wisdom to deal with it and natural rights theory suggests that remember that’s the legal
political perspective that if a couple has a fertility issue and there’s a technology out there
available for them to use that government religion mom and dad neighbors should **** out
not to interfere remember in their negative rights view not interfere in their right to pursue the
solution they don’t believe in positive rights remember in other words they don’t think that
taxpayers money can be used or should be used for forced to be used to help this couple but
the couple it can achieve this set on their own means that society should put out contrary
remember we focused on a variety of things but we focused mainly on his notion of motive
what would be the motive of doing these things if the motive is to learn how to turn off
switches of bad genes like Down syndrome for example then that’s a good motive but if the
motive is to design people to do our own bidding or to so we can live by curiously through them
so that they might achieve things that we were unable to do then we sort of bring class of
children into the world which are sort of like pets and we will very much be violating his second
imperative remember which is to not treat people as a means only but always respect them as
ends in themselves the utilitarians remember are always focusing in on the greatest good what
is the greatest good for the greatest number and insofar as these technologies could eliminate
bad genes and it would also eliminate the negative consequences the money dedicated
towards hospitalization and surgery surgical procedures and and so on could be used towards
other issues and I think they see a greater utilitarian benefit for this sort of thing then perhaps
the others do now we’re talking about biomedical ethics we’re also talking about research
ethics so we’re going to be you know we can’t learn anything there’s no by doing animal
research or computer research there are ethical issues tied to animal research by the way did
the section which is the research on animals while they’re alive you know to to grab feral cats
and pharmaceutical companies or shampoo companies raised them in such a way that we can
test them by seeing if the new shampoo they are producing in fact burns their eyes etcetera or
worse these kinds of things do happen but when we’re dealing with human subjects you have
the very important notion of informed consent informed consent is the notion that human
beings have the right to be informed of every possible thing that might go wrong during this
sort of research I mean it’s live down here I’m sure you’ve heard other radio and television
pharmaceutical companies who are developing new medications towards the solution of
whatever it is heart condition or anxiety let’s have you should inform us about every possible
side effect negative ones especially that could come about before they get our consent and the
consent part is important too you should never coerce people to to participate in human
research and this has been done in the past as we’ll see that you can take for example the
prisoners who are offering ties often enticed by previous release programs and the like to
participate in research and that would be ethically considered a form of coercion so consent is
very important here of course the problem is this is research so scientists can’t always tell us
what the possible negative side effects are I mean the information they provide to us is only as
good as their research and so we may be surprised for example about what happens with solid
amide was prescribed by doctors to pregnant mothers in the 50s around the world as a
tranquilizer they had no idea what would happen and what happened was the well known
polygamy baby’s namely infants born without limbs without legs without arms certainly doctors
were not aware of this negative consequence and it is because of these sorts of unfortunate
surprises that we have such lengthy processes going on in the FDA the federal Drug
Administration to bring about through years of testing and medication so that could be more
safe when it comes to research you have two different types you have therapeutic research and
non therapy research therapeutic research is research on human subjects who have or a family
history of the disease being researched so if you agree to the medication and your family has a
history of that and you’re involved in the therapeutic research program if you do not have this
disease or or family history then you are in a non therapeutic situation now why would you do
that well maybe a friend of yours or a loved one has heart disease or maybe you’re a medical
student trying to further the advancement of scientific knowledge or maybe you’re just being
highly highly altruistic we want to participate in this and some of the perks for example free
healthcare during the research even some payment might be enough to entice you now there
are many examples of egregious violations of research ethics of willowbrook case and you can
look some of these up online if you wish were in the 60s which warehouse severely mentally
handicapped children where high hepatitis B broke out and instead of closing down the
institution to new admittance they require that new new admittance and parents of them sign
a waiver allowing their child to to be part of a double boy experiment whereby they may be
injected with the hepatitis B virus and that is to say they were giving their permission to make
their child who wasn’t sick sick this of course is unethical Jewish chronic disease hospital where
elderly patients die and though not of cancer were injected with live cancer cells in a Guinea pig
situation the baby doll Loma Linda CA case the baby born into a 16 and 14 year old unmarried
parents who died in the heart failure in this hospital had been doing some research and animal
to human transplantation in particular they replaced the human heart of the baby with a
baboon heart and it was an experiment that did not go well and it looks as though they may
have seized upon this as another Guinea pig opportunity we don’t want you to think that all
cases that scientists are involved in human research are egregious violation of ethics there are
you know these are the bad ones there are good ones like the Barney park case Barney Clark
was a dying of a failing heart and was on the list to receive the human heart was but was so far
down the list it was not likely he would get one at that time the scientist Robert jarvik had
invented the machine heart the mechanical heart pump and they consulted with Barney Clark
about this and he made an informed consent decision to be part of this experiment and this
heart was based on top of a rolling cart so that he could keep his ambulatory could get around
the hospital and live longer than he otherwise would have and our information and our
scientific understanding about how the heart works was in fact increase once again as we draw
this particular session to a close so you can see for yourselves what conforming theories would
say again natural law is quite clearly about doing these sorts of things for fear that we’re playing
God even in the body Clark case I mean they’re going to be replacing human parts with machine
parts are we going to become terminators someday we’re going to become cyborgs I mean that
could be more than the science fiction could serve rates folks again are important are are
interested in protecting the individual rights of people and they would be very concerned about
coercion if it happens as a certain did in the willowbrook and Jewish privacies case et cetera
again count would be concerned mostly with motive if the motives are good it’s certainly
finding a way to replace anything human hearts would be a good thing but also how we do it
would be important and as far as the utilitarians are concerned once again they are concerned
with social good what’s the social utility of this research well the payoff could be quite high So
what if we replace human virtual machine parts we could live understandably of this is well into
the future but we could live decades longer than we currently do and the general good could be
served so this is our first look at an applied ethics issue biomedical ethics and when we meet
next in these lectures we’ll be talking about the most kind of
Ethics part 5
In this session we look at what is undoubtedly the most controversial moral issue we’ll look at
in this course is the issue of abortion Americans disagree about abortion in a way in which they
hardly disagree about anything else but it has not always been the case abortion is not a topic
that was really at the forefront of societies going back to ancient Greece and Rome and even
through medieval Christianity into the Renaissance and the modern world and it really wasn’t a
topic that Americans disagreed about until the early late 60s early 70s what happened well in
the 60s we had the sexual revolution and therefore many more unwanted pregnancies we also
had to focus on the rights of individuals followed upon that the the women’s rights movement
and also the advent of birth control measures and other advances in Medical Sciences therefore
our country became ripe for the abortion issue in particular by 1973 the Supreme Court had to
weigh in on this as it did in the row V wade decision which first legalized abortion in this
country the issue looked at by Roe the wig was whether or not there is a constitutional right
that a citizen and the woman can considering that abortion already has a right constitutional
right that could be applied in this issue their answer was yes it was the right to privacy that they
focused in on so privacy was considered or interpreted broadly enough to include the ones
right to terminated pregnancy other issues were considered for example does the fetus have a
right to life which might outweigh this constitutional right but on behalf of the woman’s privacy
and the court reasoned that only full-fledged persons have constitutional rights and they
denied personhood legally to the fetus and this of course the issue of the status of the fetus
and whether or not is a person is a moral issue that we’ll address here in a few moments of the
Supreme Court issues are important like the Webster ruling in 1989 which allowed states more
rights to more strictly interpret Roe V wade in particular handling of third term abortions that is
to say in the 6th 7th 8th and 9th month and whether or not states have the right to not support
the building of abortion clinics etcetera with taxpayer money are you 486 was a technical the
technical name that is of a scientific drug that was used as an abortifacient and this still isn’t it
today it’s known as the morning after pill it is a board of physicians not a contraceptive it works
by reducing the production of progesterone and uterus and therefore making it nearly
impossible for a fertilized egg to attach itself to the wall of the uterus and therefore to grow
and so it gets flushed out naturally in the system it is the most minimal in earliest kind of
abortions you can have now on the other side of the spectrum are these partial birth abortions
abortions done in the late term we have to literally partially deliver the infants and then
terminate its life now why would people consider these well the example often used as a
woman in late term pregnancy let’s say eight months discovers that she has uterine cancer a
very advanced and can only survive if she has a complete hysterectomy and this of course
would involve the death of the fetus within or an abortion and let us also ratchet up by
indicating this may not necessarily be a selfish decision in that the mother baby maybe a single
mother with five or six kids at home depending on her nonetheless this is the most
controversial type of abortion and President Bush in 2003 delivered a presidential ban on these
things but of course a president is not a king you have to have the other two parts of our
government the legislative branch or the Congress and the judicial branch led by the Supreme
Court to agree well the republican LED Congress did agree all you needed next was the
Supreme Court which the Bush administration got in the Gonzales V Carhartt Supreme Court
decision in 2007 whereby partial birth abortions have become illegal except in those cases to
save the mother’s life and I’ve got a reference URL to that decision if you want to investigate
that one further regarding the moral issues the personhood question is a major focus I mean is
the person a fetus excuse me is the fetus a person or not the Supreme Court had ruled that it
was not but that is not settled the question as a moral and philosophical one there are three
overall views concerning whether or not the fetus is a person the conservative view which is
held to by the natural law theory suggests that the fetus is indeed a person from the moment
of conception that this is where personhood begins of course it begins in potential in other
words conception is the beginning of personhood meaning the thesis is not fully or actualized
as a person you can’t play chess with it it can’t have a conversation with a fetus but this is the
beginning of it personhood they say is a developmental process which begins there at
conception the liberal on the other hand which is the rights and utilitarian perspectives argues
that as long as the fetus is a fetus namely inside the womb it is definitely not a person person to
begin sometime after birth and then the moderate view in the middle there I left for last
because it’s slightly more complicated it does not agree with the conservative that person that
begins at conception nor does it think you have to wait until birth as the liberal argues the
moderate position has gone through a series of evolutions and I’ll go through historical order in
the olden days they used to talk about quickening on a more modern term is insolvent in other
words the argument goes that the fetus becomes a person the moment it gains a soul this
actually goes back to Aristotle so it’s very ancient well how do we know when the fetus has a
soul of course these are among the difficult questions a second theory more modern theory
19th and 20th century is centered around brain development namely the fetus is a person at
that moment that the brain develops to such an extent that it achieves consciousness or
conscious awareness and this too while more modern is difficult to pinpoint exactly when if
ever that happens but certainly the more universally held to view of the moderates in fact so
held to that it’s become state law throughout our country is is the notion of viability viability is
the is that point where the fetus can live on its own outside of the womb now viability has again
the approval of law but it doesn’t really settle things morally or philosophically in other words
there’s still questions you could ask for example viability is dependent on technology in the
1950s and 60s for example 6 1/2 or 7th month old fetus was not viable because of the state of
technology today it is so we have the very odd situation namely if I ability grants personhood
that a fetus in the 50s or 60s at seven months old would not be a person but would be in the
2000s and the 21st century umm this of course would suggest that you could be discriminated
against based on generation to dictate into which you’re born which seems rather odd and
things are even worse than that when you consider that in the United States of America a 7
month old fetus is viable because we have the technology to support it could not say in Ethiopia
and this would be a former discrimination which is clearly unacceptable nonetheless it’s sort of
the best we can do legally and as I’ve mentioned the ethics theories connect in this way natural
with the conservative rights and utilitarians with the liberal where does kant stand document
doesn’t really fit so much with the moderate except now didn’t focus on abortion and the old
time philosophers and cultures in the past did not really consider this issue at the forefront of
their society but he did cut did discuss personhood he defined person of his having two major
criteria rationality and autonomy in most to our continents today we call them neo kantians or
new contents which suggest that cott would describe at the very least potential person to
defeat us is because they have potential rationality and autonomy they would be silly they say
to expect actual or developed rationality autonomy within the fetus that comes through time
and so we’ve got to grab potential person at the very least now there may be exceptions and
and as a phallic fetus for example an antacid phallic fetus is a fetus born without most of its
brain and given that rationale you know autonomy reside in the neocortex if there’s no
neocortex there that it’s difficult to know how even the needle content could ascribe potential
personhood to the fetus but that is a very rare circumstance now there are other issues beyond
personal to to consider Judith Jarvis Thompson is famous for an argument suggesting that we
must go beyond personhood because even natural law which considers the fetus a person from
the moment of conception allows for some abortions what we call indirect or involuntary
abortions for example in the case of the medical emergency where a pregnant mother in their
6th or 7th month needs a radical hysterectomy to save her life and of course this would lead to
and abortion the natural all folks use the doctrine of double effect you see I have that
abbreviated DDE towards the bottom there as an argument for this and the argument to
double effect suggests that every action we do has has directly indirect effects now the direct
effect of of performing a radical hysterectomy on a pregnant woman would be to save the
woman’s life the indirect effect would be the death of the fetus within and so that’s why they
would call it an indirect abortion as long as long it is not intentionally and directly intended we
should only hold people responsible for the directly intended effects of of their actions so
Thompson points out that the most strict regarding personal issue is the natural law view yet
they allow some abortion so she has a point there what are some of the other issues well you
you have the issues of course of rape and incest most would suggest even those opposed to
abortion that there may be some exceptions in cases like this in particular natural rights argues
that in fact if a woman becomes pregnant due to rape or rights or negative rights have have
very basically been violated and she’s done this of course against her will and if she’s forced to
carry the child’s term from the natural rights perspective it’s like society ****** her again or at
least depriving her of her basic human rights and again you could ratchet this up and it’s
unfortunate it does occur in our world that perhaps you’ve been raised by raped by a biological
relative maybe even the father or brother or uncle incest is involved in this case you have
medical concerns regarding the health of the fetus of the first place and utilitarians consider
other issues for example they suggest do we really want to have a society which forces people
to bring children into the world that they don’t want to raise what are the utilitarian concerns
about this well if we do force this upon people by making abortions legal then those children
will likely be left as wards of the state and then they become a burden on society as a whole
furthermore if we make abortions illegal then they would then people will go back to the back
alley style of doing it before 1973 very unsafe ways of doing it and that certainly would have
negative utilities so there are these various things to consider as a you know by way of review
we looked at some of the legal decisions some of the scientific issues related to abortion we
looked at what most people consider to be the main moral question which is the status of the
fetus is it or is it not a person and we saw that there are three overall abused there in all of
them are contending for the truth but as always it’s up to you to decide who you agree with
there and finally we looked at issues here on this last page of PowerPoint concerning the issues
beyond personal votes like rapid incest and and and direct versus indirect abortions so once
again these short audio lectures are meant to be helpful to you in addition to the reading and
for those of you who are in an in class situation in addition to the extended version that we give
these in the classroom and once again I hope they’re helpful while the next audio lecture will be
over the issue of euthanasia I have for now
Ethics part 6
Welcome now to a discussion of the euthanasia issue which literally means in Greek good death
EU from the pretext for good and thanatos the mythological God word for death this topic like
abortion is a very controversial topic however it is of relatively recent interest because you
know in the olden days back in Greece and Rome and medieval period and fairly modern world
we didn’t have the medical technology available to us to extend life the way in which we do
today so you don’t find the old time philosophers and moralists that we’ve looked at played on
Aristotle and John Locke and kant and they’re talking about it it’s an issue of modern concern it
also like abortion it became a prominent issue in America in the 70s because of the focus on the
rights of people clouding the right to decide when it’s time for you to go and also as I say the
medical advances that came about now there are six different types of euthanasia legally and
morally and just let me review these distinctions first there is the passive active distinction and
this is from the point of view of the third party the doctor or to whomever whoever is caring for
the dying patient passive euthanasia is an act of omission meaning it’s something we do not do
we do not put the patient on a respirator we do not put them on any type of life support they
do not do a surgical procedure like removing an intestinal blockage or whatever the case may
be to extend their life why don’t we do this well in the best of all possible worlds the patient
has requested this they’ve asked us to let them go and passive euthanasia indeed is a form of
letting the patient die active euthanasia on the other hand is doing something bringing
something about to hasten the patients death for example introducing palliative medicines like
the morphine pain medicine pain medications at a level at a dosage that we believe will hasten
their death the more controversial the two are the attributes emphasis so we’ll see that the
American Medical Association in particular has difficulty with that and then there are three
other distinctions from the point of view of the patient in herself voluntary euthanasia is 1
concerning a patient considered to be a rational and sound mind who says focally or in writing
that did no longer wish to continue they don’t want to be put on life support they don’t want
surgical procedures or occasion etcetera then there are non voluntary so I’m jumping down to
the bottom here and save involuntary for last non voluntary where the patient cannot speak for
themselves maybe they’re in a coma maybe they’re in a vegetative state or for whatever reason
due to the the illness or or accident cannot speak for themselves in this case we’re left up to
again in the best of all possible worlds there’s a living will or some written kind of advanced
directive telling us what the patient would want if he or she could speak for themselves but
more often than not you do not have this and so you’re left to family members and others to
tell us to speak from the patient as a legal proxy or at least attempt to do so in involuntary
cases you have a patient saying yes I do want the medication yes I do want to be attached to
life support yes I do want the surgical procedure done but it isn’t done and the patient is
allowed to die this might seem particularly cruel it is in fact illegal in the United states but it’s
not illegal in every country not only going to China or Soviet Union or Russia other countries it’s
also we’re told generally practiced in the Netherlands in all but one of our moral theories
considered also immoral but nonetheless it rounds out three different types and since each of
them can be of an active or passive type that gives us our six different kinds of euthanasia you
know as I mentioned the the activities in Asia is more worrisome than passive and so the AMA
policy statement on this has been that doctors should not be involved in active euthanasia stuff
since the Hippocratic Oath the role of a doctor has to pin to aid of it health not death angels of
mercy and Nazi angels of death and they coined the phrase mercy killing for active euthanasia
doctors can they say be involved in passive euthanasia so long as three conditions are met
namely that the that death is imminent the patient is going to die soon anyway secondly that
they would take extraordinary measures to save the patient’s life and 3rd that it not be
involuntary in other words if the patient is asking for help then we must give it now do all
doctors follow the MSA policy statements well known in some states like Oregon Hawaii I think
Vermont to Montana a few others protect the right to so-called physician assisted suicide
where doctors are allowed to participate but you know the AMA is just the policy setting body
of that profession it does not rule the iron fist in just as the ABA the American Bar Association is
the police policy setting body for lawyers doesn’t you know lawyers agree but nonetheless
there’s the issue now the there is a question about how we define death in the American
Medical Association as the Harvard Medical School in the 70s to come up with a definition and
the definition definition that came up with was a biological 1 namely brain deaths when the
brain is dead the patient is dead how do you determine brain death well there are a number of
criteria but the most important of them is a flat EEG or electric encephalogram
electroencephalogr
