PHIL 235 BIOMEDICAL ETHICS UPDATED FINAL
EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔positive rights - ✔✔rights to the provision of some item or service, for example the
right to receive an elementary school education or health care. (welfare rights)
o doesn't explicitly define who owes you the right
✔✔objectivism - ✔✔the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist
independently of human knowledge or perception of them.
o there is at least one standard or principle that is accepted by all people in all places
and times
✔✔Deontology - ✔✔Kant - monistic Dentology
a duty-based moral theory in which some behaviours are morally obligatory or
prohibited regardless of the good consequences that may be achieved by doing them or
not doing them.
o individuals' motives are the basis for judging their actions morally right or wrong
- humans are important because we are rational
- Regardless of the outcome lying is never good
- Imperfect duties: Things you don't always have to do (help strangers)
- Perfect duties: Things you always have to do (Not lie, keep promises)
,✔✔Categorical Imperatives - ✔✔a universally binding, unconditional, or absolute moral
requirement. Kant made 2:
-Universal law of nature: Act in such a way that you can at the same time desire that the
principle of your action become a universal law of nature
-Second Categorical imperative: Act so that you treat humanity, whether yourself or
others, always as an end, and never merely as a means.
✔✔Hypothetical Imperatives - ✔✔Commands that are only binding if the person they
are addressed to actually fit the "if" part of the command.
✔✔Pluralistic Deontological Theory - ✔✔WD Ross
- Believes ethics was not made of a single duty but rather a set of prima facie duties
List of duties
1. Beneficence
2. Fidelity
3. Gratitude
4. Justice
5. Self improvement
7. reparation
8. Non-maleficience
- When there's conflict between duties the more pressing ones need to be respected.
✔✔prima facie duty - ✔✔a duty that is morally obligatory unless it conflicts with another
moral duty, in which case the more pressing duty takes precedence.
- fidelity - keeping both explicit and implicit promises;
- reparation - righting previous wrongs one has committed;
- gratitude - acknowledging services rendered by others;
- justice - rewarding acts of merit and thwarting those that aren't meritorious;
- beneficence - bettering the condition of others in the world;
- self-improvement - improving one's own virtue or intelligence; and
- nonmaleficence - refraining from injuring others
✔✔Virtue Ethics - ✔✔Aristotle
How you ought to be and how you ought to live
- Not a situation but rather your traits
- You become virtuous by performing the act
- Golden middle ground between two extreme behaviors that are virtuous.
limitation: tells us how to be, not what to do in a particular situation
✔✔Ethics of Care - ✔✔Carol Gilligan
a two-pronged theory of moral development widely used to guide actions and resolve
conflicts by (1) minimizing and avoiding harm, and (2) maintaining, protecting, and
creating positive relationships.
- Not looking at moral situations in terms of rights and justice
- Looking at it in terms of care and relationships.
- Instead of "Respect my rights" Its "I wish they could see things my way"
, limitation: can't apply to strangers
✔✔non-maleficience - ✔✔the medical principle of doing no long-term harm to a patient
or worsening his condition.
✔✔the justice objection (utilitarianism) - ✔✔utilitarianism allows unjust behaviours to be
done to a few individuals in order to create a greater good for a larger number of
individuals
- Modern utilitarians use a two-level strategy to deal with justice objection criticism
o First level: rule utility: we use general rules that benefit all people and acknowledge
and protect individual rights
o Second level: act utility
✔✔Hippocratic Oath - ✔✔- Above all, do no harm
- He was not the author
- Updated version written by Louis Lasagna "Above all I must not play at god"
✔✔4 principles of biomedical ethics - ✔✔1. respect for autonomy
2. beneficence (doing good for or helping the patient)
3. nonmaleficence (not inflicting unnecessary pain, suffering, and/or harm on patients),
4. justice
✔✔moral community - ✔✔a group of moral persons or moral agents, individuals who
agree to voluntarily limit their behaviour in order to achieve personal and social benefits
through promoting the goals of morality: practical action guidance and conflict
resolution.
✔✔paternalism - ✔✔the policy or practice on the part of people in positions of authority
of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those dependent on them in their
supposed interest.
advantages: doctor has more training, doctor must make decisions with patients under
distress, unconscious...
disadvantages: suspends autonomy, things might have to be hidden
✔✔weak paternalism - ✔✔the belief that it is permissible to interfere with the autonomy
of a competent individual only when he is acting in an apparently irrational fashion that
could lead to harm to himself or to others.
✔✔strong paternalism - ✔✔the belief that it is permissible to override the autonomy of a
competent individual in order to promote beneficence and nonmaleficence.
✔✔Brock and Buchanan definition of competence - ✔✔a more accurate characteristic
by which to measure an individual's ability to understand and respond to a medical
situation
3 diff standards of competence:
EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔positive rights - ✔✔rights to the provision of some item or service, for example the
right to receive an elementary school education or health care. (welfare rights)
o doesn't explicitly define who owes you the right
✔✔objectivism - ✔✔the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist
independently of human knowledge or perception of them.
o there is at least one standard or principle that is accepted by all people in all places
and times
✔✔Deontology - ✔✔Kant - monistic Dentology
a duty-based moral theory in which some behaviours are morally obligatory or
prohibited regardless of the good consequences that may be achieved by doing them or
not doing them.
o individuals' motives are the basis for judging their actions morally right or wrong
- humans are important because we are rational
- Regardless of the outcome lying is never good
- Imperfect duties: Things you don't always have to do (help strangers)
- Perfect duties: Things you always have to do (Not lie, keep promises)
,✔✔Categorical Imperatives - ✔✔a universally binding, unconditional, or absolute moral
requirement. Kant made 2:
-Universal law of nature: Act in such a way that you can at the same time desire that the
principle of your action become a universal law of nature
-Second Categorical imperative: Act so that you treat humanity, whether yourself or
others, always as an end, and never merely as a means.
✔✔Hypothetical Imperatives - ✔✔Commands that are only binding if the person they
are addressed to actually fit the "if" part of the command.
✔✔Pluralistic Deontological Theory - ✔✔WD Ross
- Believes ethics was not made of a single duty but rather a set of prima facie duties
List of duties
1. Beneficence
2. Fidelity
3. Gratitude
4. Justice
5. Self improvement
7. reparation
8. Non-maleficience
- When there's conflict between duties the more pressing ones need to be respected.
✔✔prima facie duty - ✔✔a duty that is morally obligatory unless it conflicts with another
moral duty, in which case the more pressing duty takes precedence.
- fidelity - keeping both explicit and implicit promises;
- reparation - righting previous wrongs one has committed;
- gratitude - acknowledging services rendered by others;
- justice - rewarding acts of merit and thwarting those that aren't meritorious;
- beneficence - bettering the condition of others in the world;
- self-improvement - improving one's own virtue or intelligence; and
- nonmaleficence - refraining from injuring others
✔✔Virtue Ethics - ✔✔Aristotle
How you ought to be and how you ought to live
- Not a situation but rather your traits
- You become virtuous by performing the act
- Golden middle ground between two extreme behaviors that are virtuous.
limitation: tells us how to be, not what to do in a particular situation
✔✔Ethics of Care - ✔✔Carol Gilligan
a two-pronged theory of moral development widely used to guide actions and resolve
conflicts by (1) minimizing and avoiding harm, and (2) maintaining, protecting, and
creating positive relationships.
- Not looking at moral situations in terms of rights and justice
- Looking at it in terms of care and relationships.
- Instead of "Respect my rights" Its "I wish they could see things my way"
, limitation: can't apply to strangers
✔✔non-maleficience - ✔✔the medical principle of doing no long-term harm to a patient
or worsening his condition.
✔✔the justice objection (utilitarianism) - ✔✔utilitarianism allows unjust behaviours to be
done to a few individuals in order to create a greater good for a larger number of
individuals
- Modern utilitarians use a two-level strategy to deal with justice objection criticism
o First level: rule utility: we use general rules that benefit all people and acknowledge
and protect individual rights
o Second level: act utility
✔✔Hippocratic Oath - ✔✔- Above all, do no harm
- He was not the author
- Updated version written by Louis Lasagna "Above all I must not play at god"
✔✔4 principles of biomedical ethics - ✔✔1. respect for autonomy
2. beneficence (doing good for or helping the patient)
3. nonmaleficence (not inflicting unnecessary pain, suffering, and/or harm on patients),
4. justice
✔✔moral community - ✔✔a group of moral persons or moral agents, individuals who
agree to voluntarily limit their behaviour in order to achieve personal and social benefits
through promoting the goals of morality: practical action guidance and conflict
resolution.
✔✔paternalism - ✔✔the policy or practice on the part of people in positions of authority
of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those dependent on them in their
supposed interest.
advantages: doctor has more training, doctor must make decisions with patients under
distress, unconscious...
disadvantages: suspends autonomy, things might have to be hidden
✔✔weak paternalism - ✔✔the belief that it is permissible to interfere with the autonomy
of a competent individual only when he is acting in an apparently irrational fashion that
could lead to harm to himself or to others.
✔✔strong paternalism - ✔✔the belief that it is permissible to override the autonomy of a
competent individual in order to promote beneficence and nonmaleficence.
✔✔Brock and Buchanan definition of competence - ✔✔a more accurate characteristic
by which to measure an individual's ability to understand and respond to a medical
situation
3 diff standards of competence:
