What makes an act moral? The reality is that there is no right answer. Different experiences and cultures an individual would identify with will naturally dictate the moral reasoning he/she would act upon. However, certain situations can only be regarded as either moral or immoral. This is shown primarily through the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He argued that acts such as killing or lying are never justified and one must uphold that in order to be a moral individual. When Dr. Kevorkian decided to assist his patients in committing suicide he was ultimately responsible for the murder of 130 patients. Not only did he commit acts that are morally wrong, but also contradicted his oath as a physician. In this incident, there was no exception or …show more content…
Mill’s utilitarianism, it is evident that absolute morality is necessary to understand Dr. Kevorkian’s actions. Utilitarianism would argue that terminally ill patients would inevitably die and in accordance to the Hippocratic Code, the patients’ welfare and financial state must be taken into consideration by the physician.(Cahn 575) They would argue using the Greatest Happiness Principle where morality is measured on the happiness it creates for the individual making the decision. Utilitarianism would focus on Dr. Kevorkian’s intentions as being moral by supporting his patients’ suicide. They would argue that he helped his patients avoid the financial burden and suffering of their illness through suicide. Although some validity is evident, they disregard the possibility that Dr. Kevorkian may have been wrong in his diagnosis and acted immorally in his failure to keep his patients alive through his decisions. If the utilitarianism decide to interpret the Hippocratic Oath as a reason for Dr. Kevorkian’s decision to kill his patients, they avoid questioning the implications of Dr. Kevorkian’s decisions on his role as a physician. By acting outside of good will, he violated his role as physician to keep his patients alive since “prevention is better than cure” by giving himself the power to play God. He did so by crossing the boundary that prevents healers from taking life from his/her patients and thus stepped into the realm of executioner rather than healer. (Lasagna) For Dr. Kevorkian to decide when his patients can die, he not only violated the Hippocratic Oath, but led to question the role of the physician whose job is to treat the sick and not determine when a person could die. Although he have granted his patients what they wanted and believed that he was acting in his role as a physician, the outcome reinforces Kant’s philosophy to act in an absolute
Timothy E. Quill in “Case of Individualized Decision Making”, described his patient Diane who was a vaginal cancer survivor, overcome alcoholism and depression. Dr. Quill diagnose her with Leukemia. He explained to Diane that the chemotherapy has only a 25% chance of survival and there were some complications involves in this process. Diane refused to take the treatment and decided to live the remaining of her life in a most enjoyable way possible, by avoiding all the pain of the treatment. Furthermore, when Diane heath condition deteriorate, Dr. Quill gave her some prescription that was primarily used to sleep assistance. He gave her information of the dose necessary to commit suicide. Diane decided to commit suicide and Dr. Quill diagnosis of death was Leukemia. Therefore, Diane did not do what she should be consider moral actions under the Kantian perspective because her maxim cannot become a universal law. Likewise, Dr. Quill did and did not did his best decision by
The discussion of physician-assisted suicide is frequently focused around the ethical implications. The confusion commonly surfaces from the simple question, what is physician-assisted suicide? Physician-assisted suicide can be defined as a circumstance in which a medical physician provides a lethal dose of medication to a patient with a fatal illness. In this case, the patient has given consent, as well as direction, to the physician to ethically aid in their death (Introduction to Physician-Assisted Suicide: At Issue,
Everybody at one time or another will inevitably have death knocking at the door. And no it will not be Brad Pitt. Coping with death is a very difficult concept to deal with. Dying comes in one of three ways: homicide, suicide and natural causes. There is no debate with regards to homicide, a person takes the life of another person. Suicide is the taking of one's own life, similarly a paper cannot be written for or against it. Last but not least is death by natural causes. I would not want to write a paper on why a one hundred-fifty year old person passes away; could it have been that the person was really really old? Euthanasia consequently does not fall into one of the three causes of death, we consider it between homicide and suicide. Here is where the fireworks really start showing colors. True we could debate various subjects such as gun control, legalization of marijuana, three strikes and so on and so forth. On the other hand euthanasia deals with death totally, once it's done there is no reversal of previous court cases. It is permanent and oops is not mentioned in a sarcastic way.
have to suffer any more than they have to, but they differ in the methods
Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a topic, which proponents often support by the affirmation of patient free will or as the exercise of patient autonomy. The purpose of this paper is to examine this argument further from an inter-disciplinary approach, regarding PAS from medical, ethical and legal standpoints and to examine the concept of free will from the philosophical discipline. Are these concepts compatible in a meaningful context and can a sound argument be constructed to support PAS on the basis of patient free will?
The Dr. Kevorkian case is important for medical ethics, because it brings up the issues of physician-assisted suicide and physician-assisted death. Physician-assisted suicide is where the doctor is assisting the patient in suicide, but the patient actually performs the act. Physician-assisted death, also known as euthanasia, is when the doctor does the act to bring about the patient’s death based on the patient’s request. This brings up the limitations of beneficence. Does a doctor have the right to end a patient’s life to relieve their suffering?
In 1999 a well known physician, Jack Kevorkian, was convicted of second degree murder. One might think that Kevorkian committed the terrible crime of murdering someone, but that is actually far from the truth. Kevorkian was convicted because of something a little unusual; he helped a patient with assisted suicide. Alexander Stingl, a sociologist and science historian, and M. Lee, authors of “Assisted Suicide: An Overview,” define assisted suicide as “any case in which a doctor gives a patient (usually someone with a terminal illness) the means to carry out their own suicide by using a lethal dose of medication.” Kevorkian was convicted because as of right now, assisted suicide is illegal in the United States with the exceptions of Oregon, Montana, and Washington. Huge controversy rose over this case because some feel assisted suicide is a civil right whereas others feel it is unnecessary. Assisted suicide is a practice that has long been debated.
The ongoing controversy about Physician assisted suicides is an ongoing battle among physicians, patients and court systems. The question of whether or not individuals have the “right” to choose death over suffering in their final days or hours of life continues to be contested. On one side you have the physicians and the Hippocratic Oath they took to save lives; on the other you have the patients’ right to make life choices, even if that means to choose death to end suffering. The ultimate question “is it ethical for a physician to agree to assisted suicides and is it ethical for a patient to request assisted suicide?
Dr. Jack Kevorkian assisted over a hundred people in ending their lives voluntarily. He was tried and convicted of second degree murder despite the fact that all of his patients willingly participated and asked him for help in ending their lives (“Jack Kevorkian”). What led to his demise was in one of his cases, unlike his prior patients, he actively participated in the death of the patient with a lethal injection (“Jack Kevorkian”). The man was too weak to do it himself and it was videotaped, which was used as evidence in his case against him. Dr. Jack Kevorkian helped multitudes of competent terminally ill patients, end their suffering and pain (“Jack Kevorkian”). Usually in assisted suicide cases the doctor prescribes a lethal dose of a prescription, but the patient must administer the medication on their own, with no help from anyone else including the physician. This prescription is only ordered after the patient has stated two different times on two different occasions with fourteen days in between and sometimes with written consent, that they agree to the decision to end their life with the help of their physician through a lethal dose of a prescription.
The idea of Physician-Assisted suicide is one that carries many misconceptions and comes with much opposition. Of these opponents, many are doctors and nurses. This opposition is deeply rooted in the belief that the practice of medicine is one that has the sole purpose to increase the quality of life for people and to prolong life. These beliefs are rooted in the Hippocratic Oath, an Oath that all doctors promise to uphold. The Hippocratic Oath proclaims that “I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel” ("The End of Life: Ethical Considerations"). This Oath is a major reason for many nurses and doctors opposing the practice; however, it is not the only source for opposition. In addition to the Hippocratic...
In Utilitarianism, J.S. Mill gives an account for the reasons one must abide by the principles of Utilitarianism. Also referred to as the Greatest-happiness Principle, this doctrine promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people. More specifically, Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, holding that the right act is that which yields the greatest net utility, or "the total amount of pleasure minus the total amount of pain", for all individuals affected by said act (Joyce, lecture notes from 03/30).
But what makes an action, object, or person good or bad? Pleasure, happiness or any other good feelings, or lack thereof, is what makes something moral. Even though there is no set, written rules for morality, the strength of morality codes worldwide. If an action or person distresses a group, it’s deemed immoral. An example could be shown with this quote: “In one view, Abe’s act is immoral because this shooting causes death, so it is an act of killing, and killing is immoral unless it is justified, which it is not in this case.
Suicide, may be said to happen, if and only if, there is an intentional end of someone's life. The doctrine converses that we should never break off anyone’s life, including ours, because life is internally estimable that we should cherish. Therefore chances of that the act, suicide, violating this concept depends on whether a life worthwhile or not. So how do we define a worthwhile life? There is no satisfactory answer. It is ponderable that fragile at best because in moments of despair, nothing seems worthwhile and a Prozac later, everything may be all right again.
It is morally permissible to do an illegal act if the action is morally right and good. An action could be morally right and illegal at the same time, when it represents the lesser of two evils, or when the intentions of the person performing it are noble and have for goal to achieve his duty. An action can be morally right, but still illegal because in a situation where there is no good option, the lesser of two evils is the morally best option to do, even if it is illegal (Thomson 39). For example, in Dallas Buyers Club, Ron Woodroof acted rightly by choosing the lesser of two evils: sell illegal drugs to help AIDS patients feel better and live longer, instead of letting them suffer and die (Dallas Buyers Club). If he would have chosen to obey the law, a great number of AIDS patient would have suffered more and died of their illness, and he would have been guilty of not helping them according to the Harming by Omission Thesis (HOT) and the Equivalence of Evil Thesis (EET) (Mieth 17). These thesis affirm that omitting to help someone in need would be as bad as hurting the person directly. Thus, Woodroof acted in a morally permissible way even if he broke the law because he chose the lesser of two evils (Matheny 16). Also, someone can act justly e...
When asked what is the definition of ethics, many responded that being moral meant doing the right thing. But how can we justify what is a good action and what is a bad action? All humans were created equal, but our principles, and ways of thinking can be extremely different. Some may say doing the right thing means following your heart, your inner feelings and intuition. But emotions can be misleading. Others say in order to do what is the morally right thing means to follow the law and do what is right by society, to be accepted. But today’s society is judgmental and can be corrupted with numerous opinions due to the diversity of cultures. So what does it mean to be ethical? Being ethical means doing what is right in terms of virtues, fairness, duties, responsibilities, obligations, and moral believes all which derived from cultures and family backgrounds.