NCM 108 topic 1

• Everyone's happiness counts equally, a principle that was radical and progressive in Bentham's time.
• Bentham's principle of equality makes the government responsible for creating policies that would benefit all equally, not just the elite.
• Ethics is a set of moral principles and a code for behavior that govern an individual’s actions with other individuals and within society, derived from the Greek word “ethos”, which means “way of living”.
• Morality is what people believe to be right and good, while ethics is a critical reflection about morality.
• Laws are societal rules or regulations that are obligatory to observe, protect the welfare and safety of society, resolve conflicts, and are constantly evolving.
• Health ethics is a science that deals with the study of the morality of human conduct concerning health and health care.
• Bioethics can thus be defined as a science that deals with the study of the morality of human conduct concerning human life in all its aspects from the moment of its conception to its natural end.
• Issues in bioethics are usually life-and-death issues.
• As far as ethics being a moral philosophy is concerned, an act is good when it is in agreement or conformity with the dictates of right reason.
• To Christians, an act is good when it is in agreement or conformity not only with the dictates of right reason but also with God's Moral Law and Gospel Values exemplified by Christ.
• An act is evil when it is not in agreement or conformity with and is in transgression of the dictates of right reason.
• To Christians, an act is evil when it is not in agreement and conformity with and in transgression not only of the dictates of right reason but also of God's Moral Law and Gospel values exemplified by Christ.
• Should children with serious birth defects be kept alive?
• Morality provides ethics with a quality that determines and distinguishes right conduct from wrong conduct.
• Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, upon whom reason has to be anchored in order to be right.
• Human reason has to undergo the processes of information and formation necessarily manifested in its quest for and acceptance of truth and its growth because of the relentless search for truth-for the ultimate truth.
• Both ethics and morality deal with human act or human conduct.
• Ethics studies about morality.
• Who should get the finite number of organs for transplantation?
• Ethics indicates the theory; Morality indicates the 'practice'.
• Should health care workers be required to receive small pox vaccination?
• Morality gives ethics a perspective of what to study about-that is the rectitude of whether an act is good or bad.
• Ethics relate to morals and help us organize complex information and competing values and interests to formulate consistent and coherent decisions.
• Does public safety supersede an individual’s right?
• Ethics is the 'word'; Morality is the flesh.
• Should a woman be allowed an abortion for any reason?
• Should terrorists be tortured to gain information possibly saving hundreds of lives?
• Laws are mandatory to which all citizens must adhere or risk civil or criminal liability.
• Reason is considered right when it is in conformity with the truth, which must be objective in its sense, meaning the truth is universally acceptable to all human persons regardless of time, space and culture.
• In modern healthcare and research, value conflicts arise where often there appears to be no clear consensus as to the “Right thing to do.” These conflicts present problems requiring moral decisions, and necessitate a choice between two or more alternatives.
• Should a parent have a right to refuse immunizations for his or her child?
• Ethics pertains to the knowledge of what to study about-that is the good-ness or evil of a human act; Morality pertains to the application of this knowledge in the performance of human act.
• Immanuel Kant, born in Königsberg, is one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy, known for his comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics.
• Each autonomous, self-directed person has dignity and due respect, and one should never act in ways that involve using other people as a means to one's personal ends.
• Zelda, a practitioner, believes she has a duty to give cardiac clients detailed information on the pathology involved in their condition even though the client has indicated that they are not ready or may be terrified to hear the information causing the client distress.
• Deontology: A duty.
• Human conduct, insofar as it is rational, is generally explained with reference to ends or goals pursued or alleged to be pursued, and humans have often understood the behaviour of other things in nature on the basis of that analogy, either as of themselves pursuing ends or goals or as designed to fulfill a purpose devised by a mind that transcends nature.
• Kant was convinced that only reason, not emotion, is sufficient to lead a person to moral actions.
• Consequentialism, also called Teleological, is the belief that actions are determined and justified by the consequence of the act.
• Kant defined a person as a rational, autonomous (self-directed) being with the ability to know universal, objective moral laws and the freedom to decide to act morally.