Life consists of some sort of cause and effect, making each step a person decides to take a factor in the future they uphold to take. However, now a day, people can’t predict or fully control their own mind over every step they decide to make. That’s why the idea of “feeling justified” for stealing medicine to save someone’s life can be agreeable in the sense that we don’t know precisely where life can take us. If my child is severely ill and I’m unable to buy medicine, I wouldn’t regret stealing the medicine due to that even if is wrong for taking something without legal right, in this case being the medicine, I will know and be assured that I could help save the life of someone who hasn’t truly been given yet the opportunity to make decisions
There are many ethical paradigms through which humans find guidance and justification for their own actions. In the case of contractarianism, citizens of a state are entitled to human rights, considered to be unalienable, and legal rights, which are both protected by the state. As Spinello says, “The problem with most rights-based theories is that they do not provide adequate criteria for resolving practical disputes when rights are in conflict” (14). One case that supports Spinello is the case of Marlise Munoz, a brain-dead pregnant thirty-three year old, who was wrongly kept on life support for nearly two months at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Misinterpretation of the Texas Advance Directives Act by John Peter Smith Hospital led to the violation of the contractarian paradigm. Although the hospital was following the directive in order to maintain legal immunity for its hospital staff, the rights of the family were violated along with the medical fundamental principle to “first, do no harm.”
In March of 1998, a woman suffering with cancer became the first person known to die under the law on physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon when she took a lethal dose of drugs. This law does not include people who have been on a life support system, nor does it include those who have not voluntarily asked physicians to help them commit suicide. Many people worry that legalizing doctor-assisted suicide is irrational and violates the life-saving tradition of medicine, and it has been argued that the reason why some terminally ill patients yearn to commit suicide is nothing more than depression. Physician Assisted Suicide would lessen the human life or end the suffering and pain of those on the verge of dying; Physician Assisted Suicide needs to be figured out for those in dire need of it or for those fighting against it. The main purpose of this paper is to bring light on the advantages and disadvantages of physician-assisted suicide and to show what principled and moral reasoning there is behind each point.
Quinn mentions two rights: negative and positive. At the first, “Negative rights are claim rights against harmful intervention, interference, assault, aggression, etc” (Quinn 306). “Positive rights, on the other hand, are claim rights to aid or support” (Quinn 306). Negative agency comes from negative rights and positive agency comes from positive rights. It means that in “Transplant” the positive rights of five people to be saved by transplanting the organs compare with the negative rights of one healthy person not to be killed by harvesting organs. In general, negative rights are morally stronger than positive rights. The reason is that negative rights strongly connects with the moral sense in which our life is ours. It doesn’t mean that positive rights are not important, but negative rights are essential to our general moral sense more than positive rights. Therefore, we are not permitted to harvest the organs of one healthy person in order to save the lives of five because this choice comes from positive
To understand this position on life, take the following hypothetical situation. A woman has a terminal disease; in one year she will be dead. But she does have two options, she can simply live out the year in a hospital bed, weak and sickly from her disease, and die in one year. Or, the alternative choice is that she can take a pill which will...
As the years go by our society advances in all fields. As a result, we as a society have come to question many elements in our lives by comparing them to longstanding morals and traditions. The medical fields has always, and probably will always, raise many controversial issues. The latest concerns whether euthanasia or physician assisted suicide should be universally legalized in the U.S. Those opposed see that there are other alternatives other than taking a person’s own life, with the help of a doctor. Not only are they essential to incorporate into the options for people experiencing terminal illnesses, legalization would allow an overall upgrade in combating abuse with this treatment, at the same time, people are thoroughly against the
ABSTRACT: Recently, unrestrained consequentialism has been defended against the charge that it leads to unacceptable trade-offs by showing a trade-off accepted by many of us is not justified by any of the usual nonconsequenlist arguments. The particular trade-off involves raising the speed limit on the Interstate Highway System. As a society, we seemingly accept a trade-off of lives for convenience. This defense of consequentialism may be a tu quoque, but it does challenge nonconsequentialists to adequately justify a multitude of social decisions. Work by the deontologist Frances Kamm, conjoined with a perspective deployed by several economists on the relation between social costs and lives lost, is relevant. It provides a starting point by justifying decisions which involve trading lives only for other lives. But the perspective also recognizes that using resources in excess of some figure (perhaps as low as $7.5 million) to save a life causes us to forego other live-saving activities, thus causing a net loss of life. Setting a speed limit as low as 35 miles per hour might indeed save some lives, but the loss of productivity due to the increased time spent in travel would cost an even greater number of lives. Therefore, many trade-offs do not simply involve trading lives for some lesser value (e.g., convenience), but are justified as allowing some to die in order to save a greater number.
The war on drugs and the violence that comes with it has always brought around a hot debate about drug legalization. The amount of violence that is associated with drugs is a result from harsher drug laws and prohibition.
Don Marquis states in his article Why Abortion is Immoral that killing someone is wrong because the killing inflicts the greatest possible loss on the victim. He says that it is not the effect on the murderer and the victim's friends and relatives that makes killing an absolute wrong. Although killing does affect those close to the victim the ultimate harm done is on the victim himself due to their loss of future. Marquis states that killing is regarded as one of the worst crimes because it is depriving people of the value of their future. If this view were applied to abortion it would be easy to see how abortion could be considered wrong. By willingly ending the life of the fetus you are willingly ending their possibility of a future. The fetus has the possibility of having a future with emotions, experiences and activities that are the same as human beings and even closer to that of young children. This argument applies in most cases of abortion but not all. For example, to abort a fetus whose life will be filled with unbearable pain and anguish because of a physical or cognitive disorder could be justified because it could be said that the future of the fetus would be bleak and uncertain. In ways it could be stated that the "means justify the end". It must be noted however, that this acceptance would not apply to all situations of physical and cognitive disabilities; only the most severe cases would qualify. For example, there could be no way to justify inducing an abortion because it has been de...
In our world today obtaining medical care is an issue in which many people struggle with, especially when it comes to providing it to children. World hunger is also a major problem people from all over the world face everyday. Despite these difficult circumstances, I personally would never feel the justification to steal in order to save a child's life. There around 42.2 million americans living in food insecure households, this includes 13.1 children. Due to many people living in these situations there many other ways in which one can resolve these issues, it is just a matter of looking for them.
Act-utilitarianism is a theory suggesting that actions are right if their utility or product is at least as great as anything else that could be done in the situation or circumstance. Despite Mill's conviction that act-utilitarianism is an acceptable and satisfying moral theory there are recognized problems. The main objection to act-utilitarianism is that it seems to be too permissive, capable of justifying any crime, and even making it morally obligatory to do so. This theory gives rise to the i...
People have the right to make a decision regarding whether or not they wish to go ahead with a particular treatment and they should not be coerced in any way. Benefit rights say a health care professional is obliged to do right by the patient and provide the necessary care they need and produce positive outcomes for the patient. Another value that arises from rights-based ethics is non-maleficence as it may be wrong or not good to quarantine a patient with Ebola because it is against their rights of freedom, however this is in order to avoid harming the greater good. Justice is also relevant in rights-based ethics
Throughout the course of history, death and suffering have been a prominent topic of discussion among people everywhere. Scientists are constantly looking for ways to alleviate and/or cure the pain that comes with the process of dying. Treatments typically focus on pain management and quality of life, and include medication and various types of therapy. When traditional treatments are not able to eliminate pain and suffering or the promise of healing, patients will often consider euthanasia or assisted suicide. Assisted suicide occurs when a person is terminally ill and believes that their life is not worth living anymore. As a result of these thoughts and feelings, a physician or other person is enlisted to “assist” the patient in committing suicide. Typically this is done by administering a lethal overdose of a narcotic, antidepressant or sedative, or by combining drugs to create an adverse reaction and hasten the death of the sick patient. Though many people believe that assisted suicide is a quick and honorable way to end the sufferings of a person with a severe illness, it is, in fact, morally wrong. Assisted suicide is unethical because it takes away the value of a human life, it is murder, and it opens the door for coercion of the elderly and terminally ill to seek an untimely and premature death. Despite the common people’s beliefs, assisted suicide is wrong and shouldn’t be legalized.
However, instead of making them comfortable until their death, this one involves a doctor helping a patient to end their life. Physician-assisted suicide is a very controversial topic. Many people think that if physician-assisted suicide were to be legalized in cases where the patients are terminally ill, it could then be opened up to be legalized in other cases as well. This could include mentally ill patients and chronically ill patients. In some states, physician-assisted suicide is already legal, such as in Oregon. Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act allows for doctors to prescribe lethal dosages of medications to their terminal patients. Doctors who are opposed to the act are allowed to refuse to participate. The most important part of this act, to me, is that while the doctor prescribes the lethal medication, they do not administer it to the patients. Even after the patients receive the prescription, they are not obligated to take the medication. As I understand it, those who get the prescription but don’t take the medication do so because they want to feel as if they have a choice. While they may not want to end their lives now, they have the power to if at any point their suffering becomes too much for them. Learning about physician-assisted suicide in this course made me even more comfortable with the idea of legalizing it. If I was terminally ill, I would want as
Moreover, in consequentialist normative principles " it require us that we first tally both the good and bad consequences of an action." Then, identify if the "total good consequences outweigh the total bad consequences." If based in our analysis the good "consequences are greater," then "the action is morally proper. In the given situation, stealing for food for a hungry child suggest plenty of good consequences when we try to focus on the true and good intention of the agent. We may think that he is good because he/she is trying to save only the boy from hunger or even from tragic death. Thus, millions of children around the world had died because of
Life threatening situations can be some of the most difficult situations that one can go through. During these types of situations moral lines can be blurred in such ways that what one may think is right for that situation is not actually a moral solution that one should do. In the case of the Heinz dilemma what is verses what isn’t moral is a hard decision to make. In the case of Heinz I feel personally that there were two wrong-doings that were done in order that one right-doing could be achieved. The shop owner was in the wrong for over pricing a drug and refusing to help Mr. Heinz ailing wife, but at the same time Mr. Heinz was in the wrong for stealing from the drug dealer. At the same time he was only forced into that situation due to