This Is Bioethics. Udo Schüklenk. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Udo Schüklenk
Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Медицина
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781118770733
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_d0d59656-71e7-56b3-afd3-8ef4f1d09b8e">20 http://www.thelifeyoucansave.com/

      21 21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=onsIdBanynY

      22 22 https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/

      23 23 http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/02/20/bali‐kindness‐and‐the‐neoliberal‐enterprise‐university/

      24 24 http://www.standard.co.uk/business/warren‐buffett‐donates‐another‐178bn‐in‐plan‐to‐give‐away‐99‐of‐wealth‐6419853.html/

      25 25 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/the‐mystery‐of‐steve‐jobss‐public‐giving/

      26 26 http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/history‐and‐founder/

      2.1 In this chapter, we will give you a rough and tumble overview of major ethical theories. They are foundational for much of what follows in terms of the arguments and analyses offered when we look at specific issues in bioethics.

      2.5 This strategy to explain what makes an action right has been criticized on various counts. The only way to determine whether an action is the right action, is by looking at what a person of virtuous character would do. Evidently, this risks becoming a circular enterprise. Once we have determined that someone is a virtuous person, whatever she decided to do would then become a right course of action. But, let’s assume that our doctor is a virtuous person, how is she supposed to determine which virtue is the applicable one in this case? Is the applicable virtue the one requiring her to maintain confidentiality, or is it about preventing harm to another patient? It is not a terrible stretch to suggest that a virtuous doctor could go either way here, depending on which set of virtues is strongest. Critics of virtue ethics have expressed doubts about this approach’s ability to be action guiding.

      2.6 Virtue ethicists respond to this by saying that as far as they are concerned, even if both courses of actions were followed by different virtuous doctors, both actions could be morally acceptable actions. They do away with the idea that ethics requires necessarily that one particular course of action is right, and that all other competing courses of action must be necessarily wrong.

      2.8 Does pointing to what a person of virtuous character would have done constitute an ethical justification? Say, if a virtuous doctor withholds from a terminal cancer patient his diagnosis in order to avoid causing distress to the dying patient, would reference to the doctor’s virtuous character truly justify the decision in a meaningful way? Justin Oakley suggests that ‘most virtues are not simply a matter of having good motives or good dispositions, but have a practical component which involves seeing to it that one’s action succeeds in bringing about what the virtue dictates’ (Oakley 1998, 95). He questions whether the benevolent character traits that motivated the doctor’s decision to deceive her patient is truly benefitting her patient. Of course, that does not actually settle the justification question, and it seems question begging. After all, the doctor in our scenario could well reply to Oakley that he does actually think the course of deception he