Sidney Farber’s injection of folic acid into leukemic children without sure knowledge of the effects nearly killed the patients. Utilitarians would regard his actions as the right actions to take considering that if Farber did not attempt to cure the disease, the kids would most likely die anyway like many before them did. My argument contradicts with this utilitarian thinking due to the unethical nature of Farber’s actions that endangered the innocent against their will. By not giving informed consent, the actions by Farber at that time were highly unethical as there was no assurance of the results of his experiments. Later on, in the lives of the majority, happiness is maximized because Farber did end up. However, at the time, it is highly unethical and erroneous for anyone, utilitarian or not, to refuse informed consent to innocent people and put them at harms risk with the possibility that their sacrifice may be in vain.
Hurting the few that Farber injects and lowering their happiness led to more happiness later on for other leukemic patients who then have a solution to their disease, therefore maximizing happiness for more members of society in the event that more people do not die. Utilitarians, with this thought in their minds, would say that Farber’s decision was correct and that these sacrifices were necessary as pleasure for those that overcame the disease overweighed the pain from those initially injected for experimentation. In my opinion, the problem with this theory is connected with the question if Farber’s injections didn’t lead to a cure to cancer. Then negative utilitarianism increases, as pain overpowers pleasure. The criticism that utilitarianism ignores is justice. Innocent children would have given their li...
... middle of paper ...
... procedures and there is less happiness and more pain if people die due to these injections knowing the fact that the doctor has no clear proof that this will surely contribute to a cure to cancer. It could just be another trial by another crazed doctor, so the entire procedure would be immoral for any utilitarian because it does not maximize happiness. Without knowing the result Farber’s injections, the rule to always give consent could result in more pain than pleasure if patients refused the treatment due to the high risk of death. The rule to say it is okay to refuse informed consent because more people will go through with the injections and make advances for a wider range of people is invalid too as they are not certain a cure will certainly be found. No rule should be applied to this situation because whichever rule that is decided upon will be contradicted.
The patient might just be waiting for the disease they have caught to kill them, but it does not always go so quickly . ¨Ending a patient's life by injection, with the added solace that it will be quick and painless, is much easier than this constant physical and emotional care¨ (Ezekiel Emanuel, 1997, p. 75). If a patient is terminally ill and will not get better, it allows them to end the suffering. If the physician has to keep a constant eye on the patient and they need constant care and the patient is not getting better, the option is there if they want to end all of it they can. Sometimes dealing with all of the physical care like medications and not being able to live completely normal with a disease is hard. It can get extremely hard and stressful that all the patients can think about doing is ending it, this alternative gives the patient a painless option. According to Somerville (2009), ¨… respect for people's rights to autonomy and self determination means everyone has a right to die at a time of their choosing¨ ( p.4). The patient deserves to choose whether they want to keep fighting or if they cannot go any farther. The patient should not have to push through a fight they have been fighting and know they cannot win. According to Kevorkian ¨the patient decides when it's best to go.¨ Nobody tells the patient when they have to end their lives, they understand their body and know
Over the years, medical researchers have violated parts of individual rights. However, the results from the famous study of Henrietta Lacks has provided for significant advancements in medical research. In hindsight, it makes sense to choose to save one hundred people while sacrificing only one individual in sake of the greater good. In the novel, Dawn by Octavia Butler, and an article written about Henrietta Lacks by Jessica L. Stump, correlations become evident between choosing the greater good over the individual. the choice to let an individual suffer somatically is acceptable when the sake of the greater good is in question.
In conclusion, since the argument “Too high for humanity” is sound and Milner’s response cannot satisfactorily refute the argument, Milner’s response fails and the objection “Too High for Humanity” still remains as a shortcoming of Utilitarianism.
In the case of Cassandra C, she is faced with a curable cancer, Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Without treatment this cancer is deadly, surely killing her if she does not seek said treatment. This is where the dilemma of the Cassandra C case begins, she deems the treatment, chemotherapy, as poisonous to the body and refuses to do the treatment. The court overrules her negligence and she is forced to undergo chemotherapy. With that said, I am going to give the correct course of action regarding the perspective of utilitarianism and how non-consequentialism fails in this specific case.
“This is a tough-minded world we’ve got going here, George. A realistic one. But as I said, life can’t be safe. This society is tough-minded, and getting tougher yearly; the future will justify it. We need health. We simply have no room for the incurables, the gene-damaged who degrade the species; we have no time for wasted, useless suffering” (Le Guin 122). Le Guin illuminates the ambition of utilitarianism to reduce suffering for the greatest number of people. The quotation illustrates the harshness of utilitarianism to exclude those who do not conform to society in order to achieve the greatest amount of human pleasure in favor of the majority. The psychiatrist Dr. Haber aspires
So by looking at the definition of rule utilitarianism, the doctors would have to look at the overall concept that is related to everyone and ask for the permission before injecting the patient. By this act, it will not give them the maximum of pleasure over pain. Whereas if it was an act utilitarian, it would produce greatest pleasure over pain by following the act utilitarianism because, by not telling or asking the patients would give them the results they wanted without even asking the patients. If somehow they found the cure of the cancer by trying the cancer injections on the patients without their consent at a hospital, that would still be wrong because the patients will not know that the injections that they are given are not for their treatment but an
In the United States, many crimes are considered to be punishable by a life sentence or a sentence of a few years. However, many crimes have earned people capital punishment, also known as the death penalty. The first known death penalty was acknowledge by a legal document known as the Code of Hummarubi. In this document, written in the 1700s, it is mentioned that twenty-five crimes were punished by death. The crimes included being unfaithful to one's partner and even helping slaves escape (Guernsey, 2009). By 1846, the state of Michigan became one of the first US states to abolish the death penalty for all committed crimes. Michigan now replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment (Bohm, 2007). However, then the inventor Thomas Edison conducted his experiment on the use of electrocution on animals. In 1890, New York State became the first state to practice execution by electrocution on an electric chair on William Kemmler. This method then became a preferred method of execution (Guernsey, 2009). By 1924, the first lethal gas in American history was carried out in Carson City, Nev. It was known as a less severe execution compared to hanging, firing squad, or electrocution (The history channel, 2009). Many states, including Washington State, Connecticut, and recently Maryland have suspended the idea of the death penalty. Even though many perpetrators have committed a criminal offence and have affected many families, and the families might want the worst for that person, no one deserves to have to be put on death row because it is inhumane, and it is not teaching the future generations of what Americans value. The death penalty should not be practices on any criminal because it is inhumane, it is expensive, and many criminals m...
Steinbock, Bonnie, Alex J. London, and John D. Arras. "Rule-Utilitarianism versus Act-Utilitarianism." Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine. Contemporary Readings in Bioethics. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 12. Print.
A divergent set of issues and opinions involving medical care for the very seriously ill patient have dogged the bioethics community for decades. While sophisticated medical technology has allowed people to live longer, it has also caused protracted death, most often to the severe detriment of individuals and their families. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, believes too many Americans are “dying badly.” In discussing this issue, he stated, “Families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying, but in fact, there are things worse.” “It’s having someone you love…suffering, dying connected to machines” (CBS News, 2014). In the not distant past, the knowledge, skills, and technology were simply not available to cure, much less prolong the deaths of gravely ill people. In addition to the ethical and moral dilemmas this presents, the costs of intensive treatment often do not realize appreciable benefits. However, cost alone should not determine when care becomes “futile” as this veers medicine into an even more dangerous ethical quagmire. While preserving life with the best possible care is always good medicine, the suffering and protracted deaths caused from the continued use of futile measures benefits no one. For this reason, the determination of futility should be a joint decision between the physician, the patient, and his or her surrogate.
Utilitarianism is an example of Consequentialist Ethics, where the morality of an action is determined by its accomplishing its desired results. In both scenarios the desired result was to save the lives of thousands of people in the community. Therefore, a Utilitarian would say that the actions taken in both of the scenarios are moral. Since an (Act) Utilitarian believes that actions should be judged according to the results it achieves. Happiness should not be simply one's own, but that of the greatest number. In both scenarios, the end result saved the lives of 5,000 members of the community. The end result is the only concern and to what extreme is taken to reach this result is of no matter. In these instances the things that are lost are an Inmates religious beliefs or a mothers fetus, on the other hand Thousands of citizens were saved from dying from this disease.
Have you ever thought about if the person next to you is a killer or a rapist? If so, what would you want from the government if the person had killed someone you know? Should they receive the death penalty? Murderers and rapists should be punished for the crimes they commit and should pay the price for their wrongdoing. Having the death penalty in our society is humane; it helps the overcrowding problem and gives relief to the families of the victims who had to go through an event such as murder.
Consequentialism sets out to prove that one’s actions are morally right just because they produce the greatest amount of possibly goodness in the world. Consequentialism has two forms; one being act-utilitarianism, and the second one being rule-utilitarianism. In this paper I will explain the difference between the two forms, and will also apply these two forms to the same given scenario, and describe how the act-utilitarian will select the male patient, while the rule-utilitarian will select the female patient.
This experiment, proposed by Harris, encouraged people to imagine a world where organ donation was expected to save more lives than it would kill. Under these circumstances, a person is obligated to give up his or her life to save one or more lives in need of a donation when they are drawn from the lottery. Hence, all lives are considered equal and two lives saved are of more value than the one life that dies. Because Utilitarianism is the concept that the right thing to do is the action that maximizes total benefit and reduces suffering, the “Survival Lottery” is morally permissible according to Utilitarianism.
In conclusion, obtaining informed consent is a vital part of respect for the patient and safeguarding of self-determination. The consent to participate in research or treatment should be informed, comprehensible, and free of coercion. There is not a clear black and white answer because no matter what is done to assure informed consent there is always a moment of doubt on the end of the patient as to whether what is going to take place is fully understood and their true wishes honored.