Ethical Traditions Part 1 Flashcards
Some people believe that only actions that have been made ___________ are immoral.
Illegal. Some people believe that it is the job of the government to legislate against immoral behavior. After all, governments criminalize activities such as murder, theft and kidnapping. However, laws are made by politicians who may have an agenda which may not always be morally correct. Laws vary from place to place, whereas key moral principles are universal. For example, the extermination of the Jews by Hitler was not illegal yet virtually everyone will agree that it is immoral.
The duty to help others in need is called the duty of ______________, whereas the duty to not harm others is called the duty of nonmaleficence.
Beneficence.
Some moral philosophers, such as WD Ross, believe that there are certain basic moral principles which are ______ __________, and he called them our prima facie duties.
Self evident. Ross and some other philosophers believe that these principles do not require proof and are just so. These are duties, so can be broken should conflict arise.
The prima facie duties can be overridden, for example, where the duty to _______ would outweigh the probable consequences of keeping a promise.
Help. An example best illustrates this answer. Jill has borrowed a bottle of aspirin from John and promised to return it to him today, but she has been told by John’s friends that he plans to commit suicide by overdosing on aspirin today. Her duty to help or not harm him outweighs her duty to keep her promise to return the aspirin to him.
The difficulty with the prima facie duties is that it may not be self-evident to those who are _______________ immature or those who have not thought about it sufficiently, and some people may believe that they should not have these duties at all.
Intellectually. Some individuals may lack the necessary mental faculties to grasp the concept of self-evident moral principles.
Medical professionals must balance the ___________ and harms before making a healthcare intervention.
Benefits. Before medically intervening, the healthcare professional must determine if the benefits of the intervention outweigh the possible harms. For example, some drugs have serious side effects.
The doctrine of ___________ effect can be illustrated in a health care setting in a patient that is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer; the treatment has some harmful side effects but the benefits of potentially eradicating the cancer outweigh the risks of the treatment.
Double. This is the term coined for this kind of scenario where harm is deliberately induced to cause good. This doctrine is usually attributed to Aquinas and is highly controversial, especially among Utilitarians.
Most moral people would agree that where we can intervene in minimizing or preventing harm, we should do this where there is little or no ______ to ourselves, even if it is not in our self-interest, as we would expect others to do the same for us if we were in danger.
Risk. We should help someone in danger where there is little or no risk to ourselves. Applying the Golden Rule, we would expect others to act that way if we were in a bad position.
The philosopher Joel Feinberg, in his work The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, listed 4 principles to determine the legitimacy of government intervention in individual freedom, and these are the Harm Principle, the Offense Principle, _______________, and Legal Moralism.
Paternalism. Paternalism is defined as having a person or the government do what they think is best for you, even if it goes against your wishes. The Paternalism Principle states that the government is morally justified in intervening to prevent an individual from harming himself severely, even if no one else is harmed. Feinberg accepts soft paternalism where those who are incompetent, for example the mentally ill or children, should be protected from hurting themselves. However, he rejects hard paternalism where even competent adults would have their liberty restricted to prevent them from harming themselves.
Feinberg expanded on the Harm Principle as laid down by ___ ______ in that he included the obligation to act in order to prevent serious harm to others where the agent bore only a minor risk or cost to himself.
JS Mill. Mill was the original proponent of the Harm Principle.
Feinberg’s Offence Principle permitted governments to prohibit conduct that seriously offended others, and Legal Moralism allowed for the prohibition of ___________ behavior, even if no one is harmed or offended.
Immoral. This is one of the principles propounded by Feinberg. He gives the example of a community attempting to hold on to their traditional ways of life by banning homosexual private acts. It is arguable that this reason is not sufficient to justify government intervention as moral pluralism is the natural course of a growing community.
Common sense morality would suggest that the special parent-child relationship imposes a strong moral duty on the parents to raise, feed, educate and care for the child by virtue of an ___________ contract.
Implied. There is a presumption of an implied contract in this situation even though the child is not competent to make a contract. It is similar to a citizen-state contract. If the parent fails to act in the best interests of the child, for example by abusing the child, then the State should intervene and the child no longer owes the parent a duty of obedience.
Some philosophers would argue that we have a duty of ___________ concern to individuals close to us, such as family members and friends.
Special. Being humans, we succumb to our feelings of emotion and love for our friends and family members. Every human life should have equal value but if faced with the choice of saving the life of our child or that of a stranger, we would definitely save that of our child.
When dealing with children, professionals such as educators, judges and doctors would normally act in accordance with the _______ __________ principle.
Best interests. Most courts around the world make decisions relating to children based on this principle. The UN Convention on Human Rights also states this as a fundamental principle within its charter.
From the perspective of the ____________ profession, the 4 main guiding ethical principles derived from common morality are beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and autonomy.
Medical. These are the widely accepted principles in the US that guide the actions of medical professionals.
The principle of nonmaleficence requires that we not deliberately create unnecessary harm or injury to the patient, either through acts committed or ___________.
Omitted. This principle applies both to acts done and those which are not done. So, the principle would be breached by a medical professional forgetting (omitting) to give a patient the correct drug at the correct time.
In order for patients in a medical environment to give their ___________ consent, medical professionals must have clearly and truthfully explained all of the relevant information to them.
Informed. Patients and their family members expect that medical professionals honor their moral and ethical duties to inform them completely about their situation. The veracity of the information will empower the patient to make an informed decision.
Health and legal professionals owe their patients and clients a duty of _______________ with regards to their information and situation.
Confidentiality. This ethical requirement is paramount in our dealings with these professionals and is clearly laid out in the ethical guidelines of the professional bodies of health and legal workers.
The principle of justice within a biomedical context refers to equal treatment of equal persons and fair allocation of _____________.
Resources. Medical resources must be equally distributed between equal patients and not only, for example, to patients who are from a particular social class.
____________ Ethics describes the development of responsible practices within the culture of a company in matters like corporate governance, accurate accounting and audits, fair labor practices and environmental management.
Business.
Fair labor practices are essential to ensure that workers are provided with a safe and humane working ______________ and compensated with a fair wage.
Environment. Companies are ethically responsible for the health and safety of their workers. They should provide a safe environment – for example, adequate light and correct equipment in order to carry out their jobs.
