Topic 2: ethical theories Flashcards
How do individuals decide what is ethical?
- Obedience
- Imitation
- Desire/feeling
- Intuition
- Habit
How do doctors decide what is ethical?
- Have ethical guidlines + duties in practice
- Patient expectations = provide best interest
- Need to justify decision in practice
Define ethical reasoning
- Ability to reflect on moral issues
- Ability to identify/assess/develop ethical arguments from variety of positions
Parts of ethical reasoning
- Duty + righgts = taking right action
- Character = relationships = being good person
- Consequences = predicting best possible outcome
Describe consequentialism
- Action right = promotes best consequence/outcome
- During discussions of risks vs benefits
- Focuses on end product than means used to reach end
- E.g. cancer treatment + extra embryos in IVF
Describe utilitarianism
- Branch of consequentialism
- Most ethical choice = best outcome for MOST people = maxium satisfaction
- Greatest good > greatest number of people
- People should maximize human welfare + well-being
What is Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian ideology?
- Pleasure = only good
- Pain = only bad
Describe the criticisms of utilitarian approach
1) Future consequences difficult to predict = cannot be certain our action will lead to good/bad
2) Measuring/comparing good of consequence difficult = assigning value to life and comparing
3) Limitations in accounting for justice = individual rights
4) Ignores things we regard ethically relevant = intention/character of person doing action + fairness of result
Explain resource allocation according to utility
- Difficult choices when limited budget =
> Priority to young?
> Interventions to prolong/improve life?
> Established/experimental treatment? - Determining morally relevant reasons for treating people differently
- Measure QALYs/DALYs
Define QALYs
- Quality adjusted life year = generic measure of disease burdern
- Quality + quantity of life lived
Define DALYs
- Disability adjusted life year = measures disease burden
- Cumalitive number of years lost due to ill health
Describe deontological ethics
- Concerned with nature of action NOT outcome
- Reason for which action is taken
- E.g. murder inherently wrong
- Right > good
- Some approaches derived from traditions = religious/historical
- Rule-based ethics = duties must be followed or fulfilled
What is Kant’s deontological ideology?
- Using rationality = find moral rules to obey using reason
- Hypothetical imperative: do this in order to achieve that
- Categorical imperative: do this = unconditional command
Define moral rule
- Laid on us + required by reason
- All rational beings would choose
Describe parameters of ethical act according to deontology
- Self = able to accept same action on self
- Universibility = able to universalize action + still right
- Means = person isn’t a means to an end
Describe the strengths of deontology
- Simple to apply = follow rules + do duty
- Fits well with natural intuition about ethical
- Unlike consequentialism don’t need to weigh costs/benefit of possible consequences
Describe rule-based medical practice
- Doctors attend each patient with same set of rules
- Rules set pre-consultaion = cannot be broken
- Moral actions of doctors = judges in conformity of rules
Give the challenges of rule-based medicine
- Each patient is unique = individual health needs
- 1 set of rules = not suit every patient/situation
- Pre-set rules = not much room to negotiate varying situations
- If rules conflict = unclear what to do
Describe the criticizms of deontological approach
1) Moral rules abstract = unavle to deal with complexity of real ethical situations
2) Room for disagreement about rule requirement = against killing = prohibit abortion
3) Ridgid following = disregards possible consequences of action
Describe virtue ethics
- Traced to = old greek/east philosophy = Socrates + Aristotle + Mencius + confucius
- Virtue = character trait = can take an indicator from their actions of their virtues
What is Aristotle’s view of virtue ideology?
- Right act = virtuous person would do in circumstances
Give 4 cardinal virtues of a virtuous person
1) Prudence
2) Justice
3) Fortitude
4) Temperance
Describe prudence
- Right reason applied to action with care for the future
- Doesn’t tie medical professional to rules = eac patient individual case + come up with best treatment plan
Describe justice
- Giving everyone what is due to them
- Fair to patient = everyone in similar position treated similarly
- Aristotle = justice more than equality = equal treatment can be unjust
- Horizontal equity = treat equals equally
- Vertical equity = treat non-equals unequally in proportion to inequalities
