Dr. Ce Ethical Theory

Second Ethics Paper Dr. Cee, a veterinarian with a well-established practice in a small city, saw Ms. Kay's dog, Sandy, in March 1987. Dr. Cee diagnosed Sandy as having a rare blood disease. He knew of only one experimental treatment for the disease, but it was extremely expensive, lengthy, uncomfortable for the animal, and had been ninety-five percent ineffective in laboratory testing. Ms. Kay decided against trying the treatment and asked that Sandy be euthanized because she did not want him to suffer any longer. She was extremely attached so the dog and left him at Dr. Cee's with great sadness.

That afternoon, Dr. Cee began the experimental treatment on Sandy. He felt that most researchers on the disease had made a crucial mistake and

Kay as to not get her hopes up. There are a couple of principles, theories, and models that can be used to argue that Dr. Cee did the right thing, such as the greatest happiness principle and the putative exceptions on deception and lying. The first one we will examine in reference to this case is the greatest happiness principle under act utilitarianism, which states: one ought to seek to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This principle can be used for this argument because by Dr. Cee deciding to do the treatment on Sandy without letting Ms. Kay know, he was attempting to fix the problem without getting Ms. Kay’s hopes up on whether or not he could actually help her dog. This causes the greatest happiness because in the end Ms. Kay got her dog back, but did not have to worry about it while the treatment was occurring. The other idea that can be used for this argument are the putative exceptions on paternalistic deception and lying. However, to discuss the exceptions on deception and lying, it is important to know what lying and deception actually mean. Deception is defined as acting in a way that would lead someone to a belief with the intent of deceiving them, and lying can be defined as stating something wrong with an intent of deceiving someone. With these definitions we can talk about the exceptions. There are multiple theories that help this argument. The first one is an exception under utilitarianism which states that by acting in the best interests of the patient, lying is not detrimental to the wellbeing of the patient. Dr. Cee, as stated above, was clearly acting in Ms. Kay’s best interest. The next theory is the contractarianism exception which is that the patient agrees to any action that promotes their interests. Again, by taking Sandy to Dr. Cee, Ms. Kay has agreed that he should do what