Test 2

Question 1

Paternalism

Answer 1

Interfering with the liberty of mentally competent adult, solely for that persons own good (Mill)

Question 2

Right to autonomy

Answer 2

A persons ability to make his or her own rules in life and to make decisions independently.

Question 3

A criminal offense (Husak)

Answer 3

an action that makes the person who does it liable to state (that is, governmental) punishment

Question 4

Decriminalization of recreational drugs (Husak)

Answer 4

The USE of drugs would not be a criminal offense. Hausak think that’s people should not be punished unless there are excellent reasons for doing so.

Question 5

Euthanasia (given on class slides)

Answer 5

Killing someone or passing up oppurtunies to save someone’s life, out of concern for the persons own good.
Physicians assisted suicide (PAS) intentionally killing someone with the help of an physical.

Question 6

Voluntary, non-voluntary, and involuntary euthanasia (slides)

Answer 6

Voluntary=ending someone’s life or not saving his or her life with their consent
- have to be mentally competent(able to make decisions)
Consent requires mental competence
Non voluntary= euthanasia of someone’s who did not express if they wanted to die or be alive
Involuntary=euthanasia performed against the persons will

Question 7

Mental competence

Answer 7

Ave the intelligence and maturity of understanding AND choosing an option (have to be conscious).

Question 8

Active, passive euthanasia

Answer 8

Active= actively killing someone put of concern for their/ that person’s own good.
Passive= (not killing BUT) passing up the option to save someone’s life, or preventing their death ( can be not starting or stopping somebodies treatment)
Both of these can be involuntary, non voluntary, and voluntary

Question 9

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS).

Answer 9

Intentionally killing somebody with the help of a physican assistant.

Question 10

The moral right to refuse treatment, and why it’s considered a right

Answer 10

-When receiving medical treatment, something is being done to your body… (being cut, infused with drugs, tube etc)
- doing things without permission is an assualt
-many countries believe in consent before giving medical treatment
-people who are mentally can refuse treatment even for their own good (this is from Kant)

Question 11

The difference between a false premise and an invalid argument (apply to the prediction argument in Husak)

Answer 11

The argument is invalid because theres no relevance and argument is basic and can used against any argument that is against a law. However the false premise is making assumptions about price of the drugs and is not accounting for the other factors that goes into it.

Question 12

Why J. S. Mill thinks freedom to live as we choose increases total well-being.

Answer 12

-Choosing your own plan of life develops your ability to recognize and want what is best
-The experience of the human race may not be applicable to your situation or your personality
- The human species is enriched when people make a wide variety of creative life choices
-People of genius cannot contribute to the good of society if they are restricted to customary ways of life

Question 13

Wilson’s two grounds for opposing decriminalization of drugs, how they differ.

Answer 13

-indirect harm to others
-use of this kind of drugs is fundamentally immoral to oneself
Harming other like your family, children, may turn violent and attack somebody. This differs from the second ground because your causing harm to yourself if your making yourself immoral, also damages character.

Question 14

The kinds of harms caused by heroin and cocaine use (Wilson)

Answer 14

-harms others indirectly
-immoral oneself, it causes damage to one’s character, loose sense of morality, destroyed one’s humanity

Question 15

The kind of harm caused by having a law against drug use (Husak)

Answer 15

-overall decreases peoples freedom
-laws criminalizing drugs only need to pass weak, rational basis test
-Social purposes? Are mad/served by people who dont do drugs and have good reasons to discourage people from using drugs
-treats criminal and non criminal laws the same way

Question 16

The difference between harm and risk of harm, its relevance to drug policy (Husak).

Answer 16

Harm
- restricts people’s liberties
- treats criminal and non criminal laws the same
- rational basis test are fine only if you don’t impose punishments on people for violating a law that restricts their libirties
Risk of harm
-15 million Americans used an illegal drug last year and a small amount of ppl caused harm to others
- It’s NOT RIGHT to punish people for creating a very slight risk of harm to others?

Question 17

One important reason Husak thinks drug use may not rise with decriminalization

Question 18

Why Husak thinks recreational drugs should be decriminalized

Answer 18

1. Challenge the status quo
2. Every time you criminalize something, you’re need a justification
3. Focuses on drug use
4. The use of the drug would not be a criminal offense ( not punishable by the state)

Question 19

Two reasons given by any of our authors that (some) euthanasia is not wrong.

Answer 19

1. 2.

Question 20

What Velleman means by the idea of being alive by default, and losing this default status

Answer 20

Staying alive by default- making a living choice, the patient is held responsible
Losing default status

1. Change how others perceives you, and how you perceive yourself
2. Changes your obligations and responsibilities

Question 21

Two main kinds of harm that, according to Velleman, are done to people by giving them a (publicly established) option to choose to die, even if they choose wisely.

Answer 21

1. Change how others perceives you, and how you perceive yourself
2. Changes your obligations and responsibilities

He thinks it’s a bad idea to make it a law because…
1. Staying alive is no longer by default
2. They are under pressure
3.they are seen as irrational if they choose to keep living
4. They acquire an obligation to choose death

Question 22

Yale Kamisar grants that in principle it would be morally right to give voluntary euthanasia to a patient who fulfilled certain criteria. What are those criteria? Why does Kamisar think that it would be nearly impossible for any patients to fulfill those criteria? Raise an objection that a critic might make to this last claim, that patients will almost never fulfill all of the criteria required to make euthanasia fully voluntary.

Answer 22

Voluntary euthanasia would morally legitimate
1. Present ally incurable
2. Be beyond help of respite of their lifetime
3. Be intolerable pain
4. Cant be relieved by drugs or treatment
5. Has a fixed desire to die
6. This discrepancy to die would be rational
The criteria
1. Some people will choose death, even though they really don’t want to die (they may feel like a failure)
2. It would lead to family discord, hurt feelings, influence of relatives on the patient or doctors to be against euthanasia
3.faulty diagnosis (lead to unnecessary death)
4. New treatments may be discovered within a persons lifetime
5. Voluntary euthanasia can turn into non voluntary and involuntary euthanasia
An objection would be that it is unrealistic to think a new treatments would happen in their lifetime, especially if their lifespan is shorten significantly, (like they have 6 months to live).
Also,

Question 23

Yale Kamisar and Tom Beauchamp argue that legalization of voluntary euthanasia risks making it easy for some people to seek death, or choose death for others, in ways that would be morally bad. What are some of these feared disadvantages and abuses of a legal euthanasia policy? What kinds of regulations might be adopted in order to keep people from abusing or misusing a legal policy of euthanasia?

Answer 23

Disadvantages
1. Family seek to kill their family member because their family member is a financial burden
2. People may put themselves in harms way
Regulations
1. Looking at their medical backgrounds, their mental competence
2. Ppl that got diagnose with bad disease should have like a doula, for themselves to speak for when their unconscious

Question 24

What is the prediction argument against decriminalizing heroin and cocaine that Douglas Husak criticizes? What is the argument about pizza that he uses as an analogy with the prediction argument? Explain why he thinks this pizza argument is invalid, and why he thinks it is sufficiently parallel to the prediction argument to show that the conclusion of the prediction argument also does not follow from its premises. Offer an objection to this analogy.

Answer 24

Prediction argument
1. The use of drugs will soar if we stop punishing people who use them
2. Therefore we should keep punishing people who use drugs
Pizza Analogy
1. The eating of pizza will soar if pizza eating is decriminalized
2. This will be bad for many people (more obscenity )
3. Therefore we should continue to punish people who eat pizza
He thinks theres no good reason to attack obesity by punishing pizza eating . You shouldn’t attack somebody For doing something that they do. Just because something is bad, doesn’t mean you should punish people from doing it. It’s not enough to justify and criminalize it.

Question 25

What is the traditional position about killing and letting die (and so about active and passive euthanasia) that Tom Beauchamp describes and then criticizes? What is his main criticism of that position? Recall his idea of what it is that makes it wrong either to kill or to let someone die in situations where it is wrong. Using this idea, explain why he thinks that some acts of withholding life-preserving treatment are justified. And explain why he thinks that some acts of active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are justified in a parallel way. Raise an objection someone would make to that parallel.

Answer 25

Traditional view
1. The doctors may rightly stop treatement , because this is letting the person die
2. Doctor may not give a fatal injection, or help with suicide because that is killing and it wrong for doctors to kill
Criticizes
1. It’s hard to differ letting someone die against killing them
Withholding life preserving treatments are justified because patients can refuse treatments and this is also letting die
Objection: doctors, nursing, take oaths to do whatever they can to save life’s, in many countries preservation of life is key

Question 26

Explain David Velleman’s general claim that people who make smart decisions can sometimes be worse off when they have a choice than when they don’t, and illustrate it with an example that is not about euthanasia. How does Velleman apply this point to show that some people who make intelligent choices would still be worse off over all if we had a public policy that allowed a choice of voluntary euthanasia? Raise an objection to Velleman’s argument about euthanasia policy.

Answer 26

1. They become under pressure
2. They are seen as irrational if they want to keep living
   3.lose interactions with all people
3. They acquire a situation where they choose death
   Obejection: without having choices your mind is already made up for you, thi scan also lead too ignorance because you are being with held information, restriction of freedom

Question 27

Non fundamental liberties vs Fundamental liberties

Answer 27

Fundamental
-liberties states in the constitution
-must pass compelling state interest? And restrictions on these liberties get scrutiny
Non fundamental
- all other liberties/ liberties not stated in the constitution
-retrstrictions only need to meet rational bases?
-laws limiting these liberties are rarely overturned