Holly Lynch Ethical Theory Summary

Two ethical theories that are used to determine the rightness or wrongness of a situation are Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean and the principle of utility. The doctrine of the mean focuses more on finding a middle ground between two extremes; while the principle of utility is all about finding the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The article “A Lesson From the Henrietta Lacks Story: Science Needs Your Cells” possesses an ethically questionable situation. Whether or not discarded biospecimens should be used in scientific research without the patient's permission is up for debate. The author Holly Fernandez Lynch is very straightforward with her position on the issue, exhibiting a normative ethical theory.

Holly Lynch

covered a story of exploitation of a terminally ill cancer patient back in the 1950’s. Researcher’s used cells that were taken from a biopsy and cultured them. This cultured sample later called HeLa resulted in significant medical advances. These advances benefitted a lot of people, but not Ms. Lacks's family. Due to the result of these medical advancements, many lives were saved, as well as a substantial amount of money being made. This once old predicament has become a new complication, which now begs the question, “Should what happened to Ms. Lacks's cells be able to happen to our very own biospecimens?”. Ms. Lynch shares her view on the issue, which shows to be a utilitarian view.
The Principle of utility is focused around the idea that the right thing to do is that which brings about the the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Throughout the article Lynch makes statements that lean towards a utilitarian view. She states, “Rather than demanding consent and payment, we should promote biospecimen research, shore up privacy protections and push for universal health care to ensure that the benefits of the research are available to all.” Lynch is suggesting that it’s worth giving up the right to consent for researchers to use discarded biospecimens, because of the ability of the research to help tons of patients. She even considers the notion of universal health care. Universal health care is a prime example of something a utilitarianist would suggest because it provides medical attention for everyone allowing no room for any kind of discrimination; which they believe will result in the greatest good, for the greatest number. Then she says, “Perhaps we should be concerned about risks to patient’s privacy, but that is why we remove the identifying information.” She is justifying overseeing one's basic right to privacy and bodily materials. Even though it is still possible to identify one’s self she’s willing to overlook that for the possible medical advancements.
Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean centers its ethical theory around the idea of finding a middle ground between situations of extreme deficiency and excess.

In the presented predicament, Lynch doesn’t show an aristotelian perspective. There is a way in which one could find the mean when giving away our biospecimens using the doctrine of the mean. Aristotle discusses the virtue of justice, where one should not allow too much to be taken from them neither should one take too much. In this case there should be some sort of compensation for one consenting to their biospecimens to be used for research. In Ms. Lacks’s case she had too much taken from her. She didn’t benefit from the research, and her family didn’t see any of the profit

either.
Both aristotelians and utilitarians have different ways of approaching ethically questionable situations.

Aristotelians when analyzing a situation try to find a middle ground, which is also known as the mean. The mean is different for everyone, but once it is reached, the action becomes virtuous. Aristotle states there are a few different types of virtues such as courage, anger, humor, and justice. Each virtue has a point where they have been taken into excess or deficiency; for example courage when in excess is being a coward, but when in deficiency it is considered being rash. In order for one to be considered virtuous they need to form habits of using the mean to then become continuously virtuous. The doctrine of the mean requires reason and the use of reason to apply it to situations. The principle of utility is all about finding the greatest good for the greatest number of people. When analyzing a situation, utilitarians use the rule of utility, which is thinking about the long term effect. For example, if there are five people in need of different organs and there’s one person that matches all these people, a utilitarian would believe it is okay to kill them for the sake of the five people in need of organs. However, if everyone who needed organs went around killing people it then would become a problem in the long run. All of the people with healthy organs would live in fear of being killed for their organs. This is not in any way an ideal situation.

This would result in a bad long term effect. So, the utilitarian sees the problem with this and would say this is not the over all good for the most people. When considering these two ethical theories, utilitarianism is more persuasive. When analyzing a problem using the principle of utility, it is easy to see what can bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. As well as considering the long term effect of making a decision. Whereas in Aristotle's doctrine of the mean one must find the mean between two extremes which is different for everyone. In this particular example, there is only one virtue that can be used to find the mean, whereas the principle of utility brings about many reasons and arguments.
In conclusion, Holly Lynch shares her view on an ethically challenging situation. Her view shares that of a utilitarians, which is proven throughout the article. Utilitarians believe in determining actions based off the principle of bringing about the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Another ethical theory that can be used to determine rightness or wrongness is Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. The doctrine of the mean supports the idea of finding a balance between two extremes, and once a balance is found one has achieved finding a virtue. Utilitarians provide a more persuasive argument through the use of the rule of utility while the doctrine of the mean uses reasoning and applies virtues which can’t be used in every situation.