Should Doctors Tell The Truth?

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Recommended: Professional ethics of medicine

There are a lot of moral problems in healthcare, one being truth-telling. It is highly believed that a doctor should tell his patient the truth, in order to respect the autonomy of the patient. However aren’t there some cases where telling the truth can proved to be harmful? Can we conceive a world where lying is not permitted? A study of Immanuel Kant’s arguments on truth-telling in general, then an analysis of Joseph Collin’s ideas on truth-telling in healthcare might help us have a better understanding of the different questions that emerge from this problem.
Kant defends the principle that we should never lie, even if our doing so could prevent a death. He believes the expression “to have a right to the truth” to have no meaning and argues that people should rather say that a man has a right to his own truthfulness (603). For him, truth in utterances that cannot be avoided is the formal duty of a man no matter how bad are the consequences (603). According to him, what the jurists believe to be a lie, that is an intentionally false declaration towards another man that must hurt another, is not proper because a lie always injures another (604). He thinks that whoever tells a lie, however good his intentions are, is responsible for the consequences and must pay the penalty (604). He argues that to be truthful in all declarations is a “sacred unconditional command of reason” (604).
In contrast, Joseph Collins takes a different view in his presentation. He chooses a negative answer to the question “Should doctors tell patients the truth”. He thinks that telling the whole truth is often perpetrating a cruelty of which many are incapable (605). He divides patients in four categories of people: those who want to know the tr...

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...ins try to be more realistic and talk about what their experiences are. For Kant, lying is always wrong whereas Collins thinks that lying contribute to the success of the physician’s job. Kant is stricter on the subject. However, Collins’ perception of the subject might be more appealing to people because he involves the reader. Doctors focus on the well-being of patients and if they think not telling the whole truth is helping them, it should not be considered wrong.

Works Cited

W. Chen, Pauline. “When Doctors Don’t Tell the Truth”. The New York Times. New York Times, 01 March 2012. Web. 22 April 2014.
Collins, Joseph. “Should Doctors Tell the Truth?” Kuhse and Singer 605-610
Kant, Immanuel. “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives”. Kuhse and Singer 603-604
Kuhse, Helga, and Peter Singer, eds. Bioethics an Anthology, Malden: Blackwell. 2006. Print

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