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Morality and ethical decisions
The importance of nursing theories to nursing
The importance of nursing theories to nursing
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Recommended: Morality and ethical decisions
For Aristotle the overall goal of life would be to attain happiness, that will arise from though and rational thinking. A key goal would be taking in the perspective of the golden mean and selecting virtuous actions. A virtuous action is considered to moral when has motivation behind it to do the right thing. For people with good character virtues is acquired over time by the repetition of proceeding in virtuous ways. Aristotle felt as though becoming a virtuous person was a matter of habit and could be learned over time. The more a person acts virtuously, the stronger the character trait will become. Looking into becoming a good nurse involves that the nurse should train a life of moderate choices based on those they believe that a ethically …show more content…
The big thing is taking in consideration the consequences that result from your action or choice. You have to conclude what action to act on by examining all potential outcomes for every person who may be involved. You must balance and weigh all outcomes, which ever has the best outcome for the best reason and the most people should be selected. Regardless of consequences, actions themselves must be thought to be ethical. With the patient asking to be put us to mercy. The happiness of all affected parties counts equally. The only thing people desire for their own sake is happiness. It’s almost like gambling after you have listed all the possibilities and consequences. The choice could be moral as long as you are not harming anyone. Your choice should be well cultivated and makes a good choice for all. Therefore, the choice to follow that patients wishes would be immoral. The happiness of all affected parties counts equally/ What if they could get through their pain and live. The doctor would be stripping them of their own life. The family would be extremely hurt and upset. You can’t take a way someone for someone and them be okay. Life is irreplaceable. What if the patient wasn’t thinking clearly when they asked what they did. We all want the same thing, happiness, and happiness brings us together. Collectively actions are right if it gets us toward our mandate which is to promote pleasure and minimize pain. You can not get over death, but you can …show more content…
Our reasoning provides us with motive to choose to follow or not follow something. That being said we are responsible for whatever choice we make. The CI is saying that we must always treat humans as rational beings. Our capacity to reason and act morally is what gives us a dignity. Our dignity allows us to have intrinsic moral worth. Every person who is capable of reason is valuable. A person is valuable regardless what anyone may value or not value them as. Kant is believes that all humans have value, which is a person who has the capacity to reason. Human beings have had moral obligation to respect all humans who are humans. The Humanity formulation forbids the objectification of humanity. To act morally you must respect the worth as persons who are above price. To treat me as a person with a dignity is to recognize me as a person capable of making rational choices. If you were to lie, harm, or treat someone like my only value is being something you need then, then you are treating the simply as an instrument. Intent has nothing do with Kant’s theory. So putting a patient to a silent death with the intent of saving them pain and not a miserable life would not be seen as moral to Kant. Initially you are harming them by killing them. You are hurting the family because is it may not be their wishes. The nurse or doctor would be basically lying to the family and may be going against their wishes. You are taking away any
Physician assisted suicide, is it ethically right or morally wrong? The global controversy becomes emotional as some argue that physician-assisted suicide contradicts moral reasoning to preserve life. Others argue that it is acceptable for a dying person to choose to escape unbearable suffering and to alleviate their pain. In order to choose a side of the controversy, one must understand the meaning of physician assisted suicide and what a terminally ill patient is. Physician assisted suicide occurs when a physician supervises a patient’s death by providing the necessary means for the patient to manage the death.
The ongoing controversy about Physician assisted suicides is an ongoing battle among physicians, patients and court systems. The question of whether or not individuals have the “right” to choose death over suffering in their final days or hours of life continues to be contested. On one side you have the physicians and the Hippocratic Oath they took to save lives; on the other you have the patients’ right to make life choices, even if that means to choose death to end suffering. The ultimate question “is it ethical for a physician to agree to assisted suicides and is it ethical for a patient to request assisted suicide?
In the medical field, there has always been the question raised, “What is ethical?” There is a growing conflict between two important principles: autonomy and death being considered a medical treatment. Physician assisted suicide is defined as help from a medical professional,
...for an aid-in-dying drug, shall submit two oral requests, a minimum of 15 days apart, and a written request to his or her attending physician. The attending physician shall directly, and not through a designee, receive all three requests required pursuant to this section. Some people will struggle with conflicting ethical theories such as the Divine Command Theory which states that the morally right action is the one that God commands. Or others may struggle with their view of Natural Law which states the morally right action is the one that follows the dictates of nature. These are all valid and acceptable ethical standpoints, however, no one knows what they would do being faced with a short determined future of pain and decline. Ethical Egoism is the one theory a true decision would come down to, what’s the best action that provides one with the best self-interest.
The patient will see they are hurting their loved ones which will cause them to rethink their decision and risk putting them in more pain. In this circumstance one should realize that it is best to go through with mercy killing and speed up the inevitable thus minimizing the pain. Euthanasia, mercy killing, means “good death” in the Greek language it is the way to end an ill person’s life painlessly which is better than seeing them suffer for their loved ones. This would be one of the many situations in which it is absolutely ok to kill a person because it will reduce their pain and
For hundreds of years a doctor was sworn into practice with the Oath of Hippocrates. Although in the present time parts of the oath have oath has come into question on how they should be interrupted. "To do no harm," the question is what does one consider harm? With our modern technology in medicine our medical community has the ability to prolong a person's life for quite awhile. So the question now is to prolong a person's life that is suffering or basically alive from life support harmful? Or is ending that person's suffering harmful? Death is just another part of life. We are born, we live and then we die. But who is the one that decides when, where and how we die? Another question is ethics and morals, what is the difference between killing someone and letting them die?
There is great debate in this country and worldwide over whether or not terminally ill patients who are experiencing great suffering should have the right to choose death. A deep divide amongst the American public exists on the issue. It is extremely important to reach an ethical decision on whether or not terminally ill patients have this right to choose death, since many may be needlessly suffering, if an ethical solution exists.
Aristotle begins his ethical account by saying that “every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and every choice, is thought to aim for some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim” (line 1094a1). Though some things might produce higher good than others, Aristotle looks for the highest good, which he says we must “desire for its own sake” and our actions are not decided on some other goal beyond this good itself (line 1094a20-25).[1] This highest good is then realized to be happiness (line 1095a16-20).
...t’s family should be able decide for the patient whether or not prolonging their life is moral.
As a result, life-sustaining procedures such as ventilators, feeding tubes, and treatments for infectious and terminal diseases are developing. While these life-sustaining methods have positively influenced modern medicine, they also inadvertently cause terminal patients extensive pain and suffering. Previous to the development of life-sustaining procedures, many people died in the care of their own home, however, today the majority of Americans take their last breath lying in a hospital bed. As the advancement of modern medicine continues, physicians and patients are going to encounter life-altering trials and tribulations. Arguably, the most controversial debate in modern medicine is the discussion of the ethical choice for physician-assisted suicide.
To make good nursing decisions, nurses require an internal roadmap with knowledge of nursing theories. Nursing theories, models, and frameworks play a significant role in nursing, and they are created to focus on meeting the client’s needs for nursing care. According to McEwen and Wills (2014), conceptual models and theories could create mechanisms, guide nurses to communicate better, and provide a “systematic means of collecting data to describe, explain, and predict” about nursing and its practice (p. 25). Most of the theories have some common concepts; others may differ from one theory to other. This paper will evaluate two nursing theorists’ main theories include Sister Callista Roy’s
Some feel that a terminally ill patient should have a legal right to control the manner in which they die. Physicians and nurses have fought for the right to aid a patient in their death. Many families of the terminally ill have exhausted all of their funds caring for a dying patient and would prefer the option of assisted suicide to bankruptcy. While there are many strong opposing viewpoints, one of the strongest is that the terminally ill patient has the right to die in a humane, dignified manner. However, dignity in dying is not necessarily assured when a trusted doctor, whose professional ethics are to promote and maintain life, injects a terminally ill patient with a lethal dose of morphine.
Nursing is considered one of the most trusted professions in the world. It is an essential part in the caregiving of sick, injured, and even healthy individuals. Developing a philosophy with any profession is the beginning basis of any practice. The nursing philosophy is usually incorporated from the science of nursing. That is because the field of health care is constantly changing, which causes the need of better competence in the health field of providing caring (Flagg, 2015). With nursing it starts by the science behind it. Then along with knowledge and experiences, that is when the nursing philosophy is developed. Researching differences between new ideas and cultural differences can then expand the viewpoint into a bigger picture.
Interest is sparked in this area that Aristotle writes of because there is a natural need for Ethics in human life. John K. Roth states, “Aristotle assumes that all things, human beings included, have a good, a purpose or end, which it is their nature to fulfill”. This helps one understand Aristotle’s way of thinking, and provides insight to the basis of his theories. A common theory explored by Aristotle is the Ethics of Virtues, and how to practice them. A theory included in Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics is the unity of all the virtues, and in order to be virtuous, one must exhibit all the virtues. One of these virtues being practical wisdom, or Phronesis.
Aristotle feels we have a rational capacity and the exercising of this capacity is the perfecting of our natures as human beings. For this reason, pleasure alone cannot establish human happiness, for pleasure is what animals seek and human beings have higher capacities than animals. The goal is to express our desires in ways that are appropriate to our natures as rational animals. Aristotle states that the most important factor in the effort to achieve happiness is to have a good moral character, what he calls complete virtue. In order to achieve the life of complete virtue, we need to make the right choices, and this involves keeping our eye on the future, on the ultimate result we want for our lives as a whole. We will not achieve happiness simply by enjoying the pleasures of the moment. We must live righteous and include behaviors in our life that help us do what is right and avoid what is wrong. It is not enough to think about doing the right thing, or even intend to do the right thing, we have to actually do it. Happiness can occupy the place of the chief good for which humanity should aim. To be an ultimate end, an act must be independent of any outside help in satisfying one’s needs and final, that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else and it must be