Foster 1
Katelyn Foster
Putman
Hour 3 & 6
15 November 2016
Argument Paper
A person's ethics are his or her standards of what is right, wrong, and just in terms of obligation, fairness, rights, and specific values. In the story "Flowers for Algernon" Charlie Gordon, the narrator of the story, has an extremely low IQ and longs to be smart. "I hope they use me. Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart" (Keyes, page 53). Charlie is hoping to be selected for an experimental program recommended by his night school teacher in which he and a white mouse named Algernon will undergo a surgery that supposedly makes them smarter. Charlie knows of only one outcome of the operation – getting smarter; he does not know it will affect him in
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so many other ways. Although the surgery indeed helps advance Charlie's intelligence, it is not an ethical decision on the doctors' part, Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur. Charlie Gordon's doctors in "Flowers for Algernon" do not act ethically when they perform the operation to make him smarter. In "Flowers for Algernon" Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur do not act ethically because they do not explain to Charlie the possible side effects and harm the operation may cause. When the doctors inform Charlie of being "picked," they simply tell him he will have an operation done to make him smarter; they do not tell him the full extent of possible outcomes. They are lying by omission; they know the experiment has many risks, yet fail to fully inform Charlie. When performing an operation, a doctor is obligated to inform the patient of any Foster 2 possible side effects and harm. "On what grounds can anyone judge that some quality of life would be undesirable for a patient who cannot make or express such a judgment?" (Siegler). Charlie is not intelligent enough to comprehend that having an operation of this type has the potential to dramatically affect his life; it is the doctors' responsibility to outline this for him. Failing to do so is unethical. Charlie Gordon's doctors do not act ethically when they perform the operation to make him smarter because the doctors were not fully aware of the outcome of the experiment.
In the story "Flowers for Algernon" Charlie explains how the doctors were conducting the experiment to see if the operation had long-term increase in intelligence. On page 57 Charlie writes, "If you volenteer for this experament you mite get smart. They don’t know if it will be perminint" (Keyes). In the article "Ethics in Medicine" it lists questions for doctors to ask themselves before performing an operation. One question was, "Has the patient been informed of benefits and risks, understood this information, and given consent?" The doctors cannot even begin to answer this question because they do not know the risks themselves. With such uncertainty, their motivation for conducting the experiment becomes questionable and consequently unethical.
Although the doctors do not act ethically, many would argue they do. Charlie Gordon is a thirty two-year old man who has an incredibly low IQ and mental disabilities. His life long dream is to become smart and works diligently in night school with his teacher Miss Kinnian. The
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3 doctors may be justified in performing the operation because Charlie is enthusiastic, motivated, and completely firm in his decision to have "the operashun." In fact, in the text Charlie states, "Their going to use me! Im so excited I can hardly write" (Keyes, page 57). In the article "Fives Steps to Better Ethical Decision Making" the fifth step is to be able to justify why you are making a decision. Even though Charlie is enthusiastic about participating in the experiment, this is not enough support to fully justify the doctors' decision. To be ethical one must be able to determine what is right and wrong according to their values. Charlie Gordon's doctors do not act ethically when they conduct the operation to make him smarter. Dr. Strauss and Professor Nemur do not inform Charlie of the risks involved in the operation nor do they truly know what the results of the experiment will be. Some people may believe otherwise because Charlie wants to increase his intelligence. However, such a desire is not adequate justification for the doctors to conduct a life-altering procedure in such an unethical manner. In life when making important decisions, one must choose the ethical path; it is the just and right choice. Foster 4 Bibliography Siegler, M., and W. Winsdale. "Ethics in Medicine." Clinical Ethics. By A. R. Jonsen. 7th ed. N.p.: McGraw-Hill, 2010. N. pag. Print. Dobrin, Arthur, D. S. W. "Five Steps to Better Ethical Decision Making." Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 13 July 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2016. Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966. Print.
Back in the day, there was no such thing as electricity or power. Until one day, people discovered electricity and many inventions were created. Now, technology is everywhere, and is becoming a part of our everyday lives. This is unethical since the screen displays are deteriorating our eyesight everyday. Many people have glasses because of this. The short story, “Flowers for Algernon,” by Daniel Keyes, is about a man named Charlie, an intellectually disabled man, who is trying to be smart by going through a surgery. Instead of an exponential growth of knowledge, that prolongs for a reasonable amount of time, Charlie Gordon only got smarter to one point, and his mind started to deteriorate back to his original state. The experiment in “Flowers
First, when we talk about ethics we talk about moral principles, what is good and what is bad. Throughout the book the author starts showing us the unethical things doctors use to do. For example, on Chapter 3 she writes “Like many doctors of his era, Telinde often used patients from the public wards for research, usually without their knowledge. Many scientists believed that since patients were treated for free
Furthermore, these doctors had no legal or ethical codes to conduct experimentations or research on African Americans. For example, during 1998, “172 employees, all but one of them black, sued Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory when they learned that they had secretly been tested for syphilis, pregnancy, and sickle-cell trait without their knowledge that the blood and urine they had supplied during required physical examinations would be tested…” (314). This indicates that there was no consent from these blacks and scientists where secretively testing immunities for sickle-cell on them without any permission whatsoever. The release of this experiment was against the Americans with Disabilities Act and these researchers had no right to release information without the patient’s consent. Furthermore, experiments that had no patient’s consent varied from blisters “to see how deep black skin went” to threatening surgeries, sterilization, inoculations, and not tested pharmaceuticals (54). Without consent, all experiments are considered as unethical. A patient’s consent is important because it is huge determination of privacy and respecting the patient’s wishes. Without any consent, it is indicating that patient’s do not have rights about their own privacy, which was against the law during colonial times and in present days. Some ethical guidelines include the right to withdraw from the study
In looking at these instances, the doctors seemed to have thought their actions normal. They thought that since they were treating the patient they automatically had access to their cells, tissues, DNA, that they could take without permission and use to develop science or to even become rich and famous like Dr. Golde tried to do. One might say that no matter how useful a person's biological property can be to western medicine and science, it does not excuse the violation of privacy of a patient. Ostensibly, there is no need to worry about a patient saying no if the doctor has moral and beneficial intentions for the use of a patient's private, biological
The first article is entitled “of mice but not men: problems of randomized clinical trials,” is written by Samuel Hellman and Deborah S. Hellman discusses the issues of randomized medical testing and experiments on patients. The article describes the role of the personal physician and how the physician can take an ethical or unethical path of treating his/her patients. The relationship between the patient and physician is greatly emphasized because according to the article trust is very valuable in medicine especially when a patient’s life is at risk. A Kantian and a Utilitarian view of randomized clinical trials are debated but the authors clearly steers towards a Kantian point of view.
Charlie Gordon is a thirty-two year old man who is diagnosed mentally challenged but, is very eager to be smart. In order for this to happen Charlie will have to have surgery. There will be two doctors assisting Charlie; Dr.Strauss and Dr.Nemur. In the novel the two doctors are to totally different in how they motivated Charlie, treatment for Charlie and their reasoning for helping him.
Ethics are the principles that shape individual lives in modern society. It is a subjective idea that seems to have a standard in society. Ethics and morals are the major factors that guide individuals to make right and wrong choices. Something that is morally right to one person might be the very opposite of what another person would view as right. There are many factors that can trigger a change in an individual’s view of morality.
Ethics is a term used to describe how you conduct yourself with you patients, co-workers and society. Ethical knowing is judgments about what is good, what is right, and what is important. Ethical knowing guides how people conduct themselves in life and work. It helps one determine what is most significant, and what priorities mandate advocacy.
Ethics are the set beliefs and values of an individual which they apply to circumstances relating to morality. To act in an ‘ethical’ manner, an individual must display integrity by doing what they believe to be right.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the moral principles and values that govern our behavior as human beings. It is important in the human experience that we are able to grasp the idea of our own ethical code in order to become the most sensible human beings. But in that process, can ethics be taught to us? Or later in a person’s life, can he or she teach ethics the way they learned it? It is a unique and challenging concept because it is difficult to attempt to answer that question objectively because everybody has his or her own sense of morality. And at the same time, another person could have a completely different set of morals. Depending on the state of the person’s life and how they have morally developed vary from one human
Informed consent is a very serious decision a patient has to make when it comes to their health and consenting to procedures that are believed to cure or treat their current health status. It is important to address the effectiveness of the role a physician play in the informed consent process assuring that the patient has given truly informed consent and what safeguards can be put in place to assure the patient is exercising informed consent. Informed consent is based on the fact that the person consenting is a rational individual that is aware of the action to which he/she is consenting. Allen and McNamara (2011) notes that "On the standard understanding, the important elements of informed consent are the provision of information, the voluntariness of the choice and the competence of the chooser to make the choice— so the potential research participant should be provided with information relevant to the decision to participate, they should be able to choose freely about their participation and they should be competent to decide.
Ethics are moral principles or values that govern the conduct of an individual or a group.It is not a burden to bear, but a prudent and effective guide which furthers life and success. Ethics are important not only in business but in academics and society as well because it is an essential part of the foundation on which a civilized society is built.
[1] Ethics is defined as “the code of moral principles and values that governs the behaviour of a person or a group with respect to what is right or wrong” (Samson and Daft, 2005, p.158)
Ethics is a code of thinking and conduct administered by a combination of personal, moral, legal, and social standards of what is
Ethics is a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is acceptable for both individuals and society. It is a philosophy that covers a whole range of things that have an importance in everyday situations. Ethics are vital in everyones lives, it includes human values, and how to have a good life, our rights and responsibilities, moral decisions what is right and wrong, good and bad. Moral principles affect how people make decisions and lead their lives (BBC, 2013). There are many different beliefs about were ethics come from. These consist of; God and Religion, human conscience, the example of good human beings and a huge desire for the best for people in each unique situation, and political power (BBC, 2013).