Moral Decision Making Flashcards
The Principles of Biomedical Ethics
- Non-maleficence: do not cause harm
- Beneficence: do good; prevent harm
- Autonomy: respect preferences
- Justice: treat like cases alike; be fair
Non-moral facts
States of affairs that can be wholly or adequately described separately from moral values.
Subjectivism
Morality is fundamentally about the expression of feeling or emotion.
Morality is not about beliefs per se.
Moral claims use language to express feelings, especially pro and v CB on feelings about a state of affairs.
Moral Realism
Moral facts exist independently of the evidence for them and about which we can have at least appropriate knowledge.
Metaethics
The inquiry into the nature and status of morality.
Example: whether morality is a preference or opinion or feeling
Normative Ethics
The inquiry into the standards that determine how to act morally and lead a moral life.
The inquiry into what makes right actions right or wrong.
What it is to act morally.
Applied Ethics
The application of moral theories, principles, and ideas to specific moral problems.
Consequentialism
Rightness is a function of promoting good consequences.
Rightness is a function of promoting intrinsically good states of affairs, or good consequences.
The most prominent consequentialist theory is utilitarianism.
Deontology
Rightness is not exclusively, and perhaps, not at all, a function of promoting good consequences.
The task is to explain what rightness is as something partly or wholly dependant of good consequences. The most prominent theory is Kant’s ethics.
Utilitarianism
Right actions are those that maximize overall happiness or well-bring.
That which has intrinsic value, valued for itself (i.e. as an end) or instrumental value, valued for the sake of something else (i.e. as a means).
Rights
Moral claims with special normative, apparently non-consequential, force.
Virtue Ethics
Morality is principally a matter of realizing in action character traits (virtues) that express being a good person.
Care Ethics
Morality is fundamentally about caring, fostering positive relations, and related concepts.
Paternalism
The concept of interfering with someone’s liberty for their own good.
Recognizes a positive conflict between beneficence and autonomy.
Weak Paternalism
It is not permissible to interfere with a competent person’s informed decision to accept or refuse an offered treatment.
Strong Paternalism
It is permissible to interfere with a competent or incompetent person’s decision about treatment if it is in their best interest.
Conflict of Interest
A situation in which a person has an obligation to a person or institution that is in opposition to another interest or obligation, which could corrupt the decision making of that person.
Relativism
The position that moral judgements only reflect moral beliefs or preferences or opinions and nothing more.
Claims that morality is whatever an individual or culture believes is moral.
Cultural Relativism
What is morally right is determined by whatever moral standards a culture or religion endorsed.
Whatever moral standards a culture or religion believes in or endorses are morally correct, and that is all that can be said in determining what is right.
Why philosophers and ethicists are not convinced by relativism.
Relativist ideas about morality can be misleading and problematic.
Morality
Morality is about identifying reasons for certain choices certain choices that all should be able to accept independently of their feelings or beliefs.
Moral debate is an evidence-based sphere of inquiry.
The most prominent consequential theory
Utilitarianism
Example: preventing suffering, and preserving and promoting well being
The most prominent deontologist theory
Immanuel Kant’s ethics
Example: respecting a person’s dignity
Consequential principles relative to biomedical ethics
Non-maleficence
Beneficence
Harm prevention
The idea that it is always a reason for acting if it prevents harm.
Doing good
Is the idea that it is always a reason for to act if the action brings about net positive good consequences overall.
Categorical Imperative
Moral duties.
The principle to which we are motivated to act.
To act with a moral motive is to be motivated to act according to a moral principle.
According to Kantian ethics consequential moralities overlook . . .
Consequentialist moralities over look the key aspect of morality, which is a matter of acting with a
proper moral motive or good will.
Acting with a moral motive means acting with respect towards others by recognizing their inherent dignity.
Why are Kant’s ethics often described as an ethic of respect for the dignity of the person?
Acting with a moral motive means acting with respect to the person.
