Philosophy 2803 – Health Ethics
Andrew Latus
Introduction
Ethics
Study of right and wrong/good and bad
A Branch of Philosophy
Central Question = “How should I live?”
Medical Ethics (Health Ethics)
Study of right and wrong/good and bad in ‘medical
situations’.
What Do We Mean By ‘Studying Right and Wrong’?
Two Approaches:
Descriptive: recording the ethical attitudes of particular individuals
or groups
E.g., what does the Canadian Medical Association Code say?
Doesn’t ask whether we should listen to those ethical attitudes,
e.g., doesn’t endorse or reject the CMA Code
What Do We Mean By ‘Studying Right and Wrong’?
Two Approaches
2. Normative: investigating what people’s ethical attitudes (and actions)
should be
Some would say ‘investigating the facts of morality’
Note: for our purposes ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’
are interchangeable terms
Our Project: Normative
Ethics
Our focus will be on normative medical ethics, i.e.,
how people should behave in medical situations
We will be taking a philosophical approach to this
project
i.e., we will be seeking to provide reasons
or arguments for our claims about how people should behave
Contrast with approaches that rely on some authority,
either religious or human
A Big Question
Our focus will be on normative medical ethics,
i.e., how people should behave in medical situations
A Big Question: ‘uhhhh....how
people should behave in medical situations, according to whom?’
We’ll spend the first two weeks of the course considering
this question.
Moral/Ethical Value
A Big Question: ‘uhhhh....how
people should behave in medical situations, according to whom?’
Short answer: how people
should behave from the standpoint of moral value
This gives us part of the picture.
Whatever morality is about, it’s about evaluating
people and their actions from a certain viewpoint (i.e., the viewpoint of
morality)
Notice that there are other sorts of value judgment
Other Sorts of Value Judgment
Based on aesthetic value
E.g., Creed should never be allowed to make another
album.
Based on legal value
E.g., It’s wrong to possess
marijuana.
An important question: What
is the relationship between ethics and law?
A Brief Aside: Law
& Ethics
It’s impossible
to talk about medical ethics without talking about the law
But ethics and
law are not the same thing
They share many
concepts
Rights, obligations,
justice
But differ in other
respects
Sanctions, enforcement,
source
Illegal vs. Immoral 1
If it’s illegal, is it immoral?
Not necessarily
Ethics provides the backdrop for law. In order for laws to be legitimate they must ultimately
be ethically defensible.
Some legally prohibited things are clearly immoral
(e.g., killing for fun), others only because the legal prohibition is broadly
ethically defensible (e.g., driving when the light is red).
Illegal vs. Immoral 2
If it’s immoral, should it be illegal?
Not necessarily
Telling lies is in most cases immoral, but should
it really be made illegal?
Moral Value is broader than Legal Value
Law is about not being bad.
Morality is about being good.
Making Ethical Evaluations
If morality is all about evaluation, it makes sense
to ask how those evaluations are supposed to be made.
One possible answer: ‘Making
moral evaluations is just about going with your gut feeling. There’s no such thing as getting the evaluation right
or wrong. It’s all subjective.’
Contrast aesthetic value with legal value
Moral Facts?
We certainly talk about moral value as though it
involves more than just a gut reaction.
We tend to talk as though it is possible to be
wrong in our judgments about moral value.
i.e., we tend to talk as though it is possible to
get the ‘moral facts’ wrong.
Another big question: what
is the source of those facts?
Two Views of Morality
1. Moral Relativism: What is morally right
or wrong depends on what the prevailing view is in the society or culture
we happen to be dealing with.
The ‘moral facts’ are relative to culture.
The ‘moral facts’ may change over time.
There’s no such thing as right or wrong period.
Two Views of Morality
2. Moral Objectivism:
What is morally right or wrong doesn't depend on what anyone thinks
is right or wrong.
'Moral facts' are like
'physical facts'.
They simply have to be
discovered just like the laws of physics.
Objectivism or Relativism?
Moral Relativism has been an increasingly popular
view since the late 20th century.
Did this change at all with Sept. 11?
But is it correct?
Remember that for us this is a question about what
sort of argument can be offered in support of this view.
The ‘Cultural Differences’
Argument for Moral Relativism
This is the most common argument offered in support
of moral relativism.
Notation: arguments considered
in this class will often be presented as a series of premises (or
reasons) leading to a conclusion.
Premises will be abbreviated as P1, P2,…
Conclusion will be abbreviated as C
The Cultural Differences
Argument
P1: There are huge differences in moral beliefs
from culture to culture and era to era.
E.g., Some cultures
endorse the killing of elderly members of the tribe, we condemn such actions.
Therefore…
C: There must be no objective fact as to which
of these beliefs is correct, morality is relative.
Assessing an Argument
Is the Cultural Differences Argument convincing?
Any time we are asked to consider an argument,
we need to consider two questions:
Are its premises true?
If its premises are true, do they give us good reason
to believe its conclusion is also true?
Two Problems with the Cultural
Differences Argument
1. Are
there really such huge differences in moral beliefs as P1 says?
Perhaps what we see in considering different cultutres is not so much disagreement about moral
principles, as about their application in particular circumstances.
How would we act if we lived in conditions of great
scarcity?
Two Problems with the Cultural
Differences Argument
2. It
is a mistake to conclude based only upon differing opinions about some issue,
that there are no facts about that issue.
Consider this parallel argument:
P1: There is widespread disagreement about the
shape of the earth. Some people say it's flat,
others say it's spherical.
C: There is no objective fact about what the shape
of the earth is. It's all just a matter of opinion.
What Do These Problems Show?
It’s clear that the cultural differences argument
does not make a convincing case for moral relativism.
This doesn’t prove that moral relativism
is false.
It does prove that the cultural differences
argument isn’t a good reason for believing in moral relativism.
A general rule for philosophy/ethics: if you don’t have a good reason for
holding a particular belief, you should question that belief.
Next
Our next move could be to look for other arguments
for moral relativism, but next class we will take a different approach.
Objectivists say there are moral facts. But what are they?
We will consider some influential theories that
attempt to tell us how to figure out what the moral facts are.
This should help you consider how plausible moral
objectivism is.
