PHIL 226 Final
Part A:
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism judges the moral worth of an action in the amount of utility the action will create. Utility is an abstract measure which is hard to pin down. Some branches consider the utility of an act to be the amount of pleasure that act will create whereas others use terms such as “happiness” or “benefit”. Mill allowed for a personal definition of utility to attempt to introduce flexibility that was not present in the previous more Hedonic iterations of the school of thought. However, the particular definition of utility is transient. The central point of utilitarianism is that given some function for divining the utility of an act, we say that an action x is more morally justifiable than an action …show more content…
Generally, this can be framed with the question “What would a virtuous person do?”, applied to Biomedical Ethics we arrive at questions such as “What would a good doctor do?”. The prototypical view of Virtue Ethics is presented by the ancient greeks, in particular Aristotle. As described by Aristotle, we call a “virtue” some particular character trait and that these traits are developed over time through intentional conditioning. Aristotle claims that these “virtues”, or traits, are corrective against our baser instincts. He discusses a number of virtues he interprets as cardinal, these virtues being courage, justice, moderation, and …show more content…
Rights Based Ethics defines a common set of rights for actors under its providence. We can say that an action is morally permissible if it does not infringe on another actor’s rights. Rights can be defined both positively, that one can do something, or negatively, that one cannot do something. Locke’s Social Contract is prototypical of this view of Ethics.
To determine Rights Based Ethics’ response to the scenario, we need to consider the various rights involved. We consider that the individual has some right to have the advanced directive that they created is upheld. Furthermore, we can consider that a doctor has some negative right to not violate the agency of their patients. Therefore, we might say that we ought uphold the advanced directive considering the various rights that would be violated in the case we did not uphold
Part A:
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism judges the moral worth of an action in the amount of utility the action will create. Utility is an abstract measure which is hard to pin down. Some branches consider the utility of an act to be the amount of pleasure that act will create whereas others use terms such as “happiness” or “benefit”. Mill allowed for a personal definition of utility to attempt to introduce flexibility that was not present in the previous more Hedonic iterations of the school of thought. However, the particular definition of utility is transient. The central point of utilitarianism is that given some function for divining the utility of an act, we say that an action x is more morally justifiable than an action …show more content…
Generally, this can be framed with the question “What would a virtuous person do?”, applied to Biomedical Ethics we arrive at questions such as “What would a good doctor do?”. The prototypical view of Virtue Ethics is presented by the ancient greeks, in particular Aristotle. As described by Aristotle, we call a “virtue” some particular character trait and that these traits are developed over time through intentional conditioning. Aristotle claims that these “virtues”, or traits, are corrective against our baser instincts. He discusses a number of virtues he interprets as cardinal, these virtues being courage, justice, moderation, and …show more content…
Rights Based Ethics defines a common set of rights for actors under its providence. We can say that an action is morally permissible if it does not infringe on another actor’s rights. Rights can be defined both positively, that one can do something, or negatively, that one cannot do something. Locke’s Social Contract is prototypical of this view of Ethics.
To determine Rights Based Ethics’ response to the scenario, we need to consider the various rights involved. We consider that the individual has some right to have the advanced directive that they created is upheld. Furthermore, we can consider that a doctor has some negative right to not violate the agency of their patients. Therefore, we might say that we ought uphold the advanced directive considering the various rights that would be violated in the case we did not uphold