Medical Ethics Terms

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Moral Action

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realm of human behavior associated with responsibility, accountability and personal culpability

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Normative Ethics

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investigates norms or standards for rightness or wrongness of actions

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Descriptive Ethics

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describes how people act or behave

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Meta-ethics

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investigates meaning and use of moral terms and the characteristics of moral judgments

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Objective Moral Standards

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norms that apply to everyone

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Relative Moral Standards

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norms that change with time, individuals and society

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Positive Law

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man makes up his own law

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Customary Mortality

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the patterns of behavior of a group determine the morality of an action

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Subjectivism

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moral observations are a matter of perspective

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Emotivism

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moral observations express emotional attitudes

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Cognitivism

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moral judgments are grounded in knowledge

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Contextualism

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considering the context of the moral agent

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Moral Egoism

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act is moral if it benefits you

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Psychological Egoism

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belief that people only do acts of self-interest

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Amorality

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lack of moral beliefs

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Partial Amorality

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holds a moral system but applies it selectively

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Consequentialism

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the belief that the results of an act determine its morality

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Hedonism

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the belief that if it bring pleasure, it is morally right

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Epicurean

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stressed refinement of pleasures and minimizing of pain

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Utilitarianism

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ends results determine moral quality, greatest good to the greatest amount of people

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Epicurus

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purpose of life in fulfillment and enjoyment and to minimize pain

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Bentham

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utilitarianism

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Hedonistic Calculus

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calculating the intensity, duration, immediacy, certainty, fecundity, and purity of pleasures

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Act Utilitarianism

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right action is one that produces the most good for the greatest amount of people

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Rule Utilitarianism

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right actions are those which conform to the rules which lead to the greatest good

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Is Ought

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difference between statements of fact (is) and moral claims (ought)

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Deontological Ethics

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actions are morally right or wrong in themselves (Kant)

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Categorical Imperatives

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moral commands that are required
1. act according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law
2. act so that you treat humanity as an end, not as a means

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Naturalistic Fallacy

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committed a claim about ethics is supported by using a definition of the term "good" in terms of one or more natural properties

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Carol Gilligan

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challenges Kholberg's model of moral development, influence by Kant, focuses on universal moral principles. Emphasis on relationships rather than rules

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Feminist Theory

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questions theories that ignore marginalized persons, criticizes biases towards men

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Virtue Ethics

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stresses notion of character and traits a good person would have

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Telos

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end goal, to find out what the good life is

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Communitarian

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need to balance individual rights and interests with that of the community as a whole

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Natural Law Tradition

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law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere

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True Law

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right reason

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Law

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ordinance of reason, created by authority for the common good

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Summa Theologica

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written by Aquinas, summarized all the theological teachings of the time

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Theory of Human Nature and Natural Endowments

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nature is the kind of being, discoverable by observation. However, everyone has the endowments.

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The Notion of Intrinsic Good

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all natures have a goodness independent of human wishes or desires

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Constituents of a Moral Act

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the act itself, the end result and the circumstances

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Double Effect

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permissible to perform a neutra or good act even if unintended evil may be a consequence

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Martha Nussbaum

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not only a need for a concept of woman but a universal concept of the human being in order to say what women need

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Margaret Faley

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humans experience moral claims in relation to one another and these claims can cross boundaries

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Herbert Marcuse

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right to resistance has universality

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Autonomy

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capacity of an individual to make their own choices

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Constraints of Autonomy

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legal, psychological, moral, social political economic

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Legal Rights

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moral rights, grounded in ethics

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Positive Rights

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permit action

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Negative Rights

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permit inaction

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Rights Claims

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grounded in the kinds of beings we are, endowments

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Rights of Immature Humans or Damaged Humans

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exercised by others

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Rights of a Fetus or New Born

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to be treated with respect due to the dignity of being a human person

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Principlism

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autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice

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Beneficence

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to do good, enhance well being of persons and society at large

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Justice

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fair in the distribution of burdens and benefits

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Case Centered Approach

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opposite of principlism, look at each case rather than theoretic foundations

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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human beings are endowed from their earliest moments with inherent properties that cannot be taken away form them

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Appetite

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dynamisms towards sense-known desirable objects

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Boethius' definition of the person

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an individual substance of a rational nature