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Medical Ethics

Medical Ethics. Fall 2011 Philosophy 2440 Prof. Robert N. Johnson Wednesday, November 12, 2014. Do animals have rights?. Carl Cohen: No Rights are claims among a community of moral agents. Animals are not moral agents. Therefore, animals have no rights. Do animals have rights?.

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Medical Ethics

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  1. Medical Ethics Fall 2011 Philosophy 2440 Prof. Robert N. Johnson Wednesday, November 12, 2014

  2. Do animals have rights? • Carl Cohen: No • Rights are claims among a community of moral agents. • Animals are not moral agents. • Therefore, animals have no rights.

  3. Do animals have rights? • Why aren’t animals moral agents? • Moral agents can exercise and respond to moral claims. • Animals cannot exercise or respond to moral claims. • So animals are not moral agents.

  4. Really? • Often rights are based in moral agency. But if they all were, then there could be no ‘inalienable’ rights, or rights that we cannot lose even if we exercise our moral agency to try to give them up. • Some think it is interests and needs that are the sources of rights. Animals have interests and needs.

  5. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Peter Singer • Preference vs. Hedonistic Utilitarianism • Anti-Speciesism

  6. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Setting aside religious beliefs, what makes it wrong to kill? • Singer: Killing ends whatever goods life holds.

  7. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Therefore, there is reason (not necessarily conclusive) to kill when the future holds more unhappiness than happiness.

  8. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Mill: Beings capable of reflecting on available information and choosing are the best judges of their interests.

  9. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Killing does not end whatever goods life holds for such a person.

  10. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • So reasons against killing evaporate when someone judges it would be better to die.

  11. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Is the right to life inalienable?

  12. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Singer: No, that is just a right not to have one’s life involuntarily taken.

  13. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • “But we forbid people from selling themselves into slavery.”

  14. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Singer: That’s because you’d have to be crazy to do that. Voluntary euthanasia isn’t crazy.

  15. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Singer: Also, morally repugnant to enforce such a practice.

  16. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Nat Hentoff: “Physicians often don’t recognize depression.” • Treatable vs. non-treatable

  17. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • How should physicians respond to requests from untreatable depression?

  18. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Netherlands 1991: Can be competent.

  19. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • What matters is pain and the request to die, not what kind of pain it is.

  20. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Episodic depression and moments of clarity.

  21. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Utilitarianism does not support the assisted suicide of the temporarily deluded.

  22. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Hentoff: Physicians are bad at palliative care. • The only meaningful difference between terminal sedation and euthanasia is that the former takes longer.

  23. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Some who want euthanasia are not in pain: Nausea, breathlessness, tiredness, lack of dignity.

  24. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • If patients can rationally opt for refusing life support or pain medication that will shorten life, they are rational enough to choose voluntary euthanasia.

  25. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Slippery Slope Argument: If minor harm A occurs, then a series of events will occur culminating in major harm Z.

  26. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • “Legalizing VE will lead to involuntary euthanasia.”

  27. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Evidence? No reports of such in Oregon since 1997.

  28. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Evidence? • In Holland there was a slight rise initially in involuntary euthanasia. • Did legalization lead to this?

  29. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Evidence? • A similar study of a later period showed no rise, however.

  30. Utilitarianism and Voluntary Euthanasia • Evidence? • Also, involuntary euthanasia has gone down in Australia and Belgium, suggesting the effect is quite the opposite.

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