MT2 Flashcards
What is the viewpoint of Thompson?
Pro-Choice (abortion)
What is the viewpoint of Marquis?
Pro-Life (abortion is immoral)
What is the viewpoint of Callaghan?
Anti-MAID
What is the viewpoint of Lachs?
Pro-MAID
What is the viewpoint of Steinbach?
MAID in principle is good, psychiatric illness not yet
Resnik
Distinction of Gene therapy
What are Callaghan’s 3 concerns of MAID?
- Euthanasia is a new dangerous mode of legitimate killing
- Limits of self-determination: individuals now have the right to demand this from another
- Role of medicine is taken too far
What is the difference between moral and causal responsiblity?
Causal is attributed to a physical responsibility, moral is attributed to one who has made a judgement morally
What is the difference between letting die and killing?
Letting die: not necessarily moral responsibility, more causal
Killing: moral responsibility.
What is Callaghan’s problem with MAID and responsibility?
He sees that if we blur the line between causal and moral responsibility, we will justify more active forms of euthanasia
What are Callaghan’s 8 critiques of maid?
- Unbearable suffering is subjective
- Medical conditions/prognoses are uncertain
- Doctors/patients may conceal euthanasia
- There will be low reporting rates of euthanasia
- Doctors cannot determine the worth of life
- Euthanasia shifts all of medicine’s role
- Medicine = illness treatment
- Physicians will see it as a solution to wrong cases
What are Callaghan’s 4 slippery slope arguments?
- He will see self-determination as a justification for all to have access
- Incompetence will be grounds of unfair refusal
- No clear stopping point
- Inevitability of abuse
What are the 4 points Callaghan makes about the inevitability of abuse?
- Legal violations always occur
- Disagreement will lead to evasion
- Dutch experience - done without explicit agreement (non-voluntary)
- Weak enforcement = violations
What is Lach’s critique of Callaghan’s slippery slope?
- Lack of causal necessity - there is no connection
- Ignores regulatory safeguards already in place
- False dichotomy - it is not black and white, exceptions can be made
What are Lach’s arguments about the ability to transfer right to kill oneself?
It is transferrable as a right in itself - free to do whatever with it
What examples does Lach use to argue his ability to transfer his own rights?
Dentist, kidneys, army
What is Lach’s viewpoint on limits?
They are conventional, not absolute, they can be amended to fit the situations and are set by society
What is Steinbock’s main stance?
Non-terminal illness should get maid, but psychiatric not yet
What are the two criteria a depressed person must have to get MAID in Steinbock’s opinion?
Competence and treatment resistance
What is Steinbock’s arguments against MAID for psychiatric patients?
Not enough data to assess competence/treatment resistance
What is the paradox of treatment resistance and competence of depression?
It is a symptom, so the more ill one is, the more suffering they will have, but the less competent they will be
What are Steinbock’s concerns with identifying TRD?
- There is no consensus on diagnoses
- There is no consensus on how many other forms of treatment
- No idea of when treatment will even work
What is anhedonia?
The feeling of hopelessness, inability to find pleasure
What is the difference between a logical and empirical slippery slope argument?
Logical - a restriction of an existing broad principle is unjustifiable
Empirical - Seemingly acceptable law = unacceptable results
What type of slippery slope arguments are there?
Logical and empirical
What is the example of a logical slippery slope argument?
Same-sex intimacy led to same-sex marriage
How does Steinbock argue with the logical slippery slope argument?
Say the outcome is not inherently bad, some cases of existential suffering/depression may warrant
What is Rooney’s point of view?
MAID is psychiatric cases is acceptable
What are Rooney’s three criteria?
Irremediableness, vulnerability, competence
What are some troubling statistics associated with TRD irremediableness?
Some studies show less than 10% remission, or higher rates with more relapse
Specialized tertiary care even gives les than 40% remission
What is the utilitarianism argument for MAID in psych?
There will be some false positives in return for all of the true irremediable cases
What tool is used for the irremediableness?
The MSM (Maudsley staging method) based on failed treatments
What are the two “risks” that Rooney balances in iremediableness?
False positives vs. continual suffering
What is Rooney’s issue with vulnerability?
It lumps together all patients as there are no precise boundaries.
What is VPS?
Violence, abuse, poverty, are all conditions that contribute to vulnerability
What does Rooney argue about competence?
If a patient is competent, they are not volnerable
What is the problem with labelling patients vulenrable?
- It is overbroad
- It ignores the autonomy of the individual
- It stigmatizes patients as people who can’t make decisions
- It may hinder development in individuals with the label
What is Rooney’s conclusion on vulnerability?
Can’t ban everyone, but there should be proper safeguards
Can psychologist gauge an individual’s competence?
According to survey, yes to some extent (challenging)
What are Rooney’s conclusions on competence?
Small countries have small numbers of psych MAID, so careful review is possible
High scores can give some confidence
With guidelines, healthcare providers can make judgement
What is Thompson’s main argument about right to life?
Even if the fetus is a person, it is not necessarily outweighing the mother’s bodily autonomy
What does the Violinist case imply?
Involuntary circumstances does not equal murder
What does the people-seeds analogy imply?
Its superogeratory to host if precautions were taken against it
What parallel does the coat example demonstrate?
Bodily ownership, mother has a rightful claim to her own body
What abortion analogy shows us that even if sharing is good, there is no entitlement to demand the resources of another?
Chocolate box analogy
What kind of Samaritanism is applied to pregnancy? What is Thompson’s argument here for the pre-choice debate?
There is good Samaritans and Minimally decent Samaritans, and minimally decent ones are not punished in other parts of society
What is Marquis focus on abortion?
It is about future prospects of the fetus
What definitions of personhood does Marquis go over and why is it relevant?
There are biological and rational ways of describing humans. It is an idea that states there will never be an agreement as to if an embryo is a baby, if it is biologically considered one or morally
What does FLO stand for?
Future like ours
What is the desire account? What is Marquis objection to this?
It is that killing is wrong based off of desire to live, but the argument is that some individuals don’t have an active desire to live
What is the discontinuation account? What is Marquis objection to this?
Killing is wrong because it discontinues someone’s life, the argument is that fetuses have no beginning, so this argument does not protect them
What is Bassen’s argument? What is the response?
Bassen’s mentation argument says a fetus cannot be a victim. Marquis response is that mentation is not all that is required, unconscious persons are still wrong to kill. It is the lack of future.
What are the 4 reasons why the “value of future view” is useful?
- It avoids the ambiguities about human life
- It permits euthanasia and does not condemn contraception
- It aligns with moral intuitions about why killing is wrong
- It resolves the standard abortion dilemma (fetus not single cells fall under the same category as adult killing.)
What are the two types of disease descriptions?
Normative(social norms, undesirable deviation) and descriptive (atypical functioning)
What is the first proposed response of Resnick as to why gene therapy is good but enhancement is bad?
The goals of medicine are to heal (but there are blurred lines as enhancement may prevent disease.)
What is a cluster concept?
It is a list of overlapping features that describes what it means to be human.
What is Resnik’s position on the slippery slope concerns of genetic therapy/enhancement?
Some enhancements may be problematic but not necessarily all. Complex field involving other values.
What are the types of euthanasia?
Voluntary
Non-voluntary (can’t give)
Involuntary (murder)
Pain vs suffering
Physical vs mental reactions
