4 Principles Lecture Flashcards
(41 cards)
What is a frame?
- foregrounding?
- backgrounding?
- how we analyze situations
foregrounding: focusing on specific aspects of a situation
backgrounding: removing other aspects of the situation
What is the idea of principlism?
- A way of making sure that all moral and ethical issues are addressed by paying attention to the different issues
Tom Beauchamp
Wrote Belmont Report: Wrote an ethical guide for human subject research
What did Tom Beauchamp and James Childress write?
- 1st Edition of the Principles of Biomedical ethics
What are the 4 principles of the Georgetown Mantra (one of the most used texts in bioethics)?
- beneficence
- non-maleficence
- justice
- autonomy
What works exemplify principlism? (4)
- Belmont report
- Beauchamp and Childress’ Principles of biomedical ethics
- The georgetown mantra
- common morality
What are some of the strengths/weaknesses of the 4 principles and common morality? (6)
- non-systematic
- non-algorithmic
- prima facie
- appeal to consensus
- abstract
- ethnocentric?
What are the 3 foci when talking about morality?
- actor
- action
- consequence
Jeremy Bentham
- founding father of utalitarianism/consequentialism
- Embraced the idea that we live our life dictated by pain and pleasure and that which is good (and therefore moral) is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain for the maximum number of people
John Stuart Mill
- Noted for recognition of higher and lower pleasures
- evaluated repercussions and gave an almost mathematical way of pursuing good and bad
What are the primary questions of utalitarianism/consequentialism? (2)
- What are the intrinsic goods of life?
- How do we maximize happiness in the world and produce the best outcomes?
Utalitarianism recognizes the need for the _______ to take preference over _______
- the common good
- self interests
ex: Debter’s prison
How would a utalitarianistic mind decide what’s right or wrong?
- predict how much happiness (since it can be quantified) will be gained from each fo the options in confronting the scenario and the one that maximizes the happiness for the most people is correct
Rule utalitarianism
when utility is optimized by establishing rules
What are the drawbacks to consequentialism? (3)
- you can’t predict what will actually happen
- you dont know if something will lead to the good consequences you want
- can you ignore someone else’s rights to give someone else a greater amount of pleasure?
How does Utalitarianism translate to the physician patient relationship?
- special status because the health care professional must attempt to advance the PATIENTS good
Immanual Kant
- The founding father of deontology
- Pure reason–it is the basis of human dignity
What are the staples of deontology?
- recognizes the world is governed by universal and impersonal laws
- we can manipulate those laws to achieve an end AND make our own laws because we are autonomous
- each person has strict duties and if you don’t fulfill them this is morally wrong
Based on deontologic thinking, the rightness or wrongness of an act is determined by ______
motivation for that act
According to deontology, people can live their lives one of what 2 ways?
- heteronomously (other law)
- autonomously (self law)
Kant’s Categorical Imperative
Golden Rule
- act in a way representative of what you would like to see as universal law
- treat humanity only as an ends and never only a means
- act as if you were the person making the rules of the universe
What is immoral according to deontology?
- Manipulating laws in order to manipulate others and having them do what you want, thus violating them by treating them like an object and using them as “human shields”
- this is immoral because by doing this you are saying that others could do that to you
W.D. Ross
Prima Facie
- “First face” duties: duties that we are obligated to conflict with one another so we must choose what is most important by articulating the reasons for its importance
How does deontology fit into the physician-patient relationship?
- Respect for autonomy: it is ethically mandatory to respect others autonomy as well as our own
- if a patient’s autonomous decision conflicts with your moral positions you must decide why it conflicts and then act in a certain way
- must work through it in terms of autonomy, beneficence and justice
