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30 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is utilitarianism? |
The criterion of utilitarianism is the amount of happiness an action promotes. If it promotes unhappiness, it is immoral. By happiness, Mill means pleasure and the absence of pain. An act is right iff it maximizes utility; that is, iff there is no alternative act available to an agent that has greater utility. In accordance with Mill's particular version of utilitarianism, an act's utility is the sum of all the pleasure it produces minus the sum of all the pain it produces (for everyone involved). |
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What is deontology? |
Morality is a matter of duty, as opposed to utility. Whether some act is right or wrong does not depend on its consequences. Rather, an action is right or wrong in and of itself. The consequences of an action do not determine its morality. What makes a choice right is its conformity to a moral norm or duty, called a maxim. |
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What are the two formulations of deontology? |
The universal formula -- only act on maxims that you can simultaneously will should become a universal law. The humanity formula -- only act in such a way that you treat people never simply as means, but always at the same time as an end. So, people should never be treated as mere means. Their rationality and autonomy must be respected. |
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What is virtue ethics? |
The crux of virtue ethics is that to be of a virtuous character is to be a certain sort of person with a certain complex mindset. One performs morally-good actions because they are the kind of person who would. Virtuous people have phronesis, or practical wisdom -- they hold true and accurate knowledge of the world which allows them to do the right thing in any given situation. Living a life of virtue is necessary to achieve Eudaimonia, or true happiness and well-being. |
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What is paternalism? |
Paternalismis the overriding of a person's actions or decisions for the sake of that person's own good. Paternalism is in directtension with autonomy, or a person'scapacity to determine their own course of action. |
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What is weak paternalism? |
Itis the overriding of the autonomy of a temporarilyor permanently disabled, non-autonomous person for that person's owngood. |
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What is strong paternalism? |
Itis the overriding of the autonomy of a fullyautonomous person for that person's own good. |
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What does Ackermannthink about paternalism? |
Paternalism is justified, because sometimes true respect for autonomy requires paternalism -- when a patient's autonomy is so severely compromised that it is necessary for doctors to intervene in order to restore autonomy. 4 kinds of constraints impede autonomous behaviour (1) physical, (2) cognitive [i.e., knowledge-based], (3) psychological, and (4) social [i.e., institutional roles/expectations]; (3) and (4) are warrants for paternalistic intervention, because they impinge on a person's decision making process, and undermine autonomy); (1) and (2) are not. Sick people are not just healthy people with illness -- sickness fundamentally changes you as a person, so that you are not yourself. |
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What does Goldman thinkabout paternalism? |
In general, paternalism is not justified, because the obligation to respect the patient's autonomy outweighs the obligation to prevent harm. Medical paternalism is predicated on the idea that patients who seek medical treatment value health and prolonged life overall, but in general, patients do not care about their health and wellbeing above all. There are all kinds of behaviours that people engage in that aren't good for us. So, paternalism for this reason is not justified. People care about living life of a certain quality, not just bare life. The value of life is instrumental, in that it is the precondition to any action. If life only has instrumental value, then the value of other things can outweigh it -- such as autonomy. |
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What does Dworkin thinkabout paternalism? |
Paternalismis justified in cases of hypothetical consent, in which one assumes thatthe patient would consent under certainidealized conditions. |
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What is euthanasia? |
Itis death brought about because it is thought to be in the patient's interests. |
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What is voluntary euthanasia? |
Itis a compassionate death brought about with the patient's consent. |
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What is involuntary euthanasia? |
Itis a compassionate death brought about without the patient's consent. |
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What is active euthanasia? |
Itis the direct compassionate killing of the patient. |
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What is passive euthanasia? |
Itis the "letting die" of the patient by withholding treatment andallowing their ailment to take its course. |
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What does Rachels thinkabout euthanasia? |
Euthanasiais morally permissible, but where passive euthanasia will be pursued, activeeuthanasia is preferable because it is more humane. The distinction between killing and letting die is not morally relevant (i.e., Smith and Jones six year old cousin) However, there is a moral distinction between active and passive euthanasia, because active euthanasia is morally preferable to passive euthanasia. |
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What does Sumner thinkabout euthanasia? |
What makeskilling wrong is that it (1) harms the victim, and (2) undermines autonomy. If killing a person is wrong, and you want to kill yourself, then killing yourself is wrong. Many suicides are irrational in the (1) procedural sense, like invalid reasoning; mistake in reasoning causing a wrong conclusion (2) substantive sense, conclusion makes no sense from an "objective" perspective (i.e., if you think jumping out a window will cause you to fly). However, if one has both procedural and substantive rationality in the decision to end one's life, then that decision has neither (1) caused oneself harm, or (2) undermined one's autonomy. Therefore, euthanasia is permissible. |
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What does Marquis thinkof abortion? |
The featureof killing that makes it wrongful is that it kills the victim, primarily thatit robs the victim of their objectively valuable future. Any being with a future like ours, i.e., one that will be valued the ways ours are valued. Grounds the right to life -- whatever makes taking a life wrong is what makes a life valuable. Because of this, everything that has rights is a person; because a fetus has a future like ours it must also have a right to life because it must also have personhood. |
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What does Thomson thinkof abortion? |
Assume forthe sake of argument that a fetus is a person. One always has the right to detach; Some cases in which abortion is morally permissible, but no cases in which abortion is morally impermissible. Being unjust to someone (e.g., chocolates to boys) is callous, but not morally impermissible. i.e., It's indecent to get an abortion so that you can take a vacation, but not morally impermissible. |
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What does Warren thinkof abortion? |
Women canbe seen as responsible for the fetus, since a fetus is a foreseeable outcome ofsex. Five criterion for personhood (pain, consciousness, reasoning, and so on). Because a fetus lacks these, it is not a person. Just because you have a duty not to destroy something, doesn't mean it has a right not to be destroyed. |
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What does Hursthousethink of abortion? |
From avirtue theory standpoint, is the action of abortion morally good? Disregarding information that goes into the moral decision making process is in itself unethical in the virtue ethicist sense, since it is not indicative of phronesis. Ignoring the intrinsic good of childbirth, parenthood, and so on is neither |
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What does Shabram thinkabout disability? |
Zikababies are portrayed as "circus freaks" in photography; photos arestripped of humanity so that people feel comforted and don't have to feel anykind of sympathy or connection to Zika babies. |
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What does Newell thinkabout disability? |
Disabilityis a problem to eliminate -- what it means to be disabled issocially-constructed. Alison Davis says that society constricts her more than her spina bifida does. Disability may be positioned as tragic in order to promote biotechnology. |
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What does Steinbock think about disability? |
Fivequestions (See notes). Are disabilities neutral forms of variation? No. Real limitations. Some things might be neutral variations, but disabilities are not. Are disabilities best seen as [merely] socially constructed? [Or are they medical?] Sometimes, but not always. Ramps, sign language, etc. Is it wrong to try to prevent disability [in general]? No, it's not wrong to avoid things that cause someone to become disabled, so it's not wrong to prevent disability. Is it wrong to try to prevent disability via genetic selection? Yes, because it promotes the idea that a life with disability is not worth living. No, because fetuses aren't people. Is the distinction between selective abortion and therapeutic interventions to prevent disability morally significant? One cannot reduce the number of disabled people by killing them. But, fetuses aren't people, so you aren't actually killing a person. |
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What does McMahan thinkabout disability? |
If it isimpermissible to screen for disabilities, then it is permissible to causedisability. Aphrodisiac pill; destroys an egg, not a person. Not destroying a fetus, just a perfectly-healthy egg. Then, another egg comes along that it is affected. Problem: Arguing for the moral permissibility of screening for abortion |
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What is hybridism? |
Normativism and naturalism. A disease must have a naturalist basis, which is some kind of causal basis located in the patient that constitutes what the disease is, and a normative element, a requirement that the condition should lead to something that is considered harm. |
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What does Schramme think of the concept of health anddisease? |
Concept isa gatekeeper; argues against normativismfor naturalism, to ensure that "limited" resources are usedefficiently. Don't want to pay for things that aren't necessarily diseases. Normativism: things that are socially undesirable are diseases. Evaluative judgment, individual or sociocultural. What might be a disease at one time or place may not be a disease at another time or place. Possibility of erroneous categories of disease (i.e., drapetomania); however, there are ways around this/ Naturalism defines disease in terms of its deviation from a biostatistical norm. |
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What does Hesslow thinkof the concept of health and disease? |
We do not need a concept of health and disease. Hesslow argues against the idea that the concept of health and disease functions as grounds for (1) treatment, (2) publicly funded medical insurance, (3) special rights, and (4) exemption from moral and legal responsibility. Doesn't function as grounds for treatment because there are things that are not diseases that are treated, and things that are diseases that are not treated. Doesn't function as grounds for medical insurance because certain things that are not diseases should be and are covered by insurance. Doesn't function as grounds for special rights because it is not the disease itself that justifies those special rights -- it's the pain, anxiety, suffering, and so on caused by having the disease that does. People can have these effects without having a disease. Doesn't function as a grounds for exemption from moral and legal responsibility because punishment cannot apply to people that aren't able to conceptualize consequences (i.e., children, certain mentally-disabled people). |
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What does Singer thinkabout justice in health care? |
Singerthinks that it is (1) necessary to ration health care, and that (2) the QALY(Quality Adjusted Life Year) is a reasonable measure to use in rationing healthcare. |
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What does Harris thinkabout justice in health care? |
Harris disagrees with Singer, and does not think the QALY is a reasonable measure to use In rationing health care. Harris thinks that the QALY discriminates against the elderly. He has two arguments in the way of this: the anti-ageist argument, and the fair innings argument. |
