Ethics
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.

Ethics

Philo 171
 
HomeLatest imagesSearchRegisterLog in

 

 RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam

Go down 
2 posters
AuthorMessage
jimenez




Posts : 70
Join date : 2008-11-25

RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam Empty
PostSubject: RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam   RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam Icon_minitimeSun Mar 29, 2009 11:50 pm

Raval
Raval:
1. In those cases where Jack Kevorkian performed assisted euthanasia on patients confirmed to be terminally ill and who were fully autonomous in seeking euthanasia, was Jack Kevorkian's action morally excusable? Why or why not.

2. After careful considerations of the various ethical theories/views we discussed, what “personal moral system or code” can you come up with and which you can adopt? Be sure to talk about the values, precepts/ideas, and other elements that should comprise this “personal moral system or code”. Include your conception of freedom and accountability in this given moral system and your view of what it means to be a moral individual.
Back to top Go down
Raval




Posts : 5
Join date : 2008-11-24

RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam Empty
PostSubject: Re: RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam   RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam Icon_minitimeMon Mar 30, 2009 9:58 pm

1. In those cases where Jack Kevorkian performed assisted euthanasia on patients confirmed to be terminally ill

and who were fully autonomous in seeking euthanasia, was Jack Kevorkian's action morally excusable? Why or why

not.


For patients that were terminally ill, i would say that jack kevorkian's action is morally excusable in all cases,

provided that they were confirmed to be really terminally ill. People who are terminally ill undergoes torment

every single day and whenever they voluntarily decided to have their lives ended, then we should give that right

to them. Coming from the side of the terminally ill patient, it was his choice to have his life severed because of

too much pain or trauma that he experiences at this moment. Most people would say that euthanasia should not be

done because there could still be hope for recovery or further treatment and all that jazz. that what makes the

future so problematic, the future is still the future and the only thing we could be sure of it are its

uncertainties. In my case, i would rather work with the concrete situations that i have right now rather than

expecting something from the future, and what i have right now are people who are terminally ill, who wants to

have their lives ended. they feel misery at this moment and they want to be relived from this misery and so

assisted euthasia is morally permissible.

On second note, the fact that these people were fully autonomous in seeking euthanasia makes it more justifiable,

because they were in control of their choice. they want to do something without any external pressure coming from

the environment.

The act that jack kevorkian performed was termed "assisted" because his patients voluntarily went over to get his

services. This means that the person really wanted to have his life severed and that jack only assisted in the

process. i'm not sure about the exact motivation for seeking the assited euthanasia of those people. Perhaps these

people could not bear the idea of getting suicide or they are too weak to do it on their own. what I'm trying to

say is that when somebody wants to have his/her life ended, then he or she must be given the right to do so, when,

where, how he wants it to be. The same is true in cases where in a soldier is captured by the enemy forces,

naturally the opposing force would torture that soldier in order to get something from him. the soldier is bound

feel so much pain that he would rather have his life ended that going through that pain every single day. Now if

you were given the power to alleviate him from that misery, (as in the case of Jack Kevorkian), would you choose

to see him suffer or just end his life, when you know that he is begging for it. Some people would say that they

would rather not cast the first stone and just let him suffer, thinking that they are being moral. i personally

dont think that they were being moral, its more of being a coward. in Jack's case, what he's doing is something

that is courageous and the fact that these people were terminally ill and they were only practicing their free

will makes it morally acceptable.


2. After careful considerations of the various ethical theories/views we discussed, what “personal moral system or

code” can you come up with and which you can adopt? Be sure to talk about the values, precepts/ideas, and other

elements that should comprise this “personal moral system or code”. Include your conception of freedom and

accountability in this given moral system and your view of what it means to be a moral individual


its not really a grand ethical theory that i would choose to adopt as my one, its just a simple conception coming

from emmanuel kant. his formula of universilizability is the greatest lesson that i have learned in our philo

class. the mindset that "do only if you could imagine a whole world doing the same thing" has been the greatest

lesson so far. its an evaluative measure wherein i could evaluate the goodness of my act on the basis of its

applicability on other people too. whats good about this "personal moral code" is that every action is

applicable or not applicable to everyone and there will be no double-standards. for example, before doing

something, i should think first if that action could also be done to me by other people. if i think that there is

nothing wrong with it, then go. if otherwise, then i should not push through with it.

in this personal moral code, the concept of freedom goes hand-in-hand with being able to make a choice in the

action that you would take part. at the very least i am given the choice of what should i do and what should not

be done. or there could be times that i may be limited in making choices but the fact that i am already thinking

about what makes it limited means that i still have some sort of freedom to think about it, and maybe to change

that already limited situation. since everything that i have done is governed by this "do only if you could

imagine a whole world doing the same thing" principle, then i (we) should also be accountable for everything that

we have done. we have full control of our choices and we should be held responsible for all the repercussion of

that same choices.
Back to top Go down
 
RAVAL Questions for the Third Exam
Back to top 
Page 1 of 1
 Similar topics
-
» CATINDIG Questions for the Third Exam
» DE RAMOS Questions for the Third Exam
» DE GUZMAN Questions for the Third Exam
» TORRECAMPO Questions for the Third Exam
» DE GUZMAN Questions for the Third Exam

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
Ethics :: Philo 171 B :: Third EXAM-
Jump to: