3. A toolbox of reasoning

2018 ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Michael Dunn ◽  
Tony Hope
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Patient Autonomy ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Playing God ◽  
Slippery Slope Argument ◽  
Scope Of Application ◽  
The Right

‘A toolbox of reasoning’ discusses a further four tools of ethical reasoning: distinguishing facts from values; reasoning from principles; thought experiments; and spotting and avoiding fallacies in reasoning. Five fallacies are discussed: the no-true Scotsman move; the ten-leaky-buckets tactic; the argument from nature; the argument from playing God; and the slippery slope argument. It also explains how the analysis of medical ethics is organized around four principles—respect for patient autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice—and their scope of application. Ethical reasoning cannot be reduced to algorithms. Situations are complex and doing the right thing will often require flexibility. Humane medicine, in addition to rationality, requires wisdom, imagination, and creativity.

Velcro on the Slippery Slope: The Role of Psychiatry in Active Voluntary Euthanasia

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 580-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Voluntary Euthanasia ◽  
Psychiatric Illnesses ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Slippery Slope Argument ◽  
Affected Person ◽  
The Right

Objective: The aim of the paper is to determine the role that psychiatrists should play in legislation that establishes a right to active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). Method: One version of the “slippery slope” argument, usually invoked against the legalisation of AVE, is recast as an argument for the introduction of strong safeguards in any future AVE legislation. The literature surrounding the prevalence of psychiatric illnesses in the terminally ill, physicians' ability to identify such illnesses and the aetiology of suicide in the terminally ill is examined. Results: The strength of the slippery slope argument, combined with the poor ability of general physicians to diagnose psychiatric illness in the terminally ill, demands that any legislation allowing AVE should require a mandatory psychiatric review of the patient requesting euthanasia. Conclusions: Any legislation adopted that establishes a right to active voluntary euthanasia should include a mandatory psychiatric review of the person requesting euthanasia and a cooling off period before the request is acceded to. In addition, the discovery of a serious mental illness ought to disqualify the affected person from the right to AVE until that illness resolves.

Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Dunn ◽  
Tony Hope
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Clinical Settings ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Important Place ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Pressure

Medical ethics—from thorny moral questions such as euthanasia and the morality of killing to political questions such as the fair distribution of healthcare resources—is rarely out of today’s media. Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction explores the ethical reasoning used to approach medical ethics, introducing the most important ‘tools’ of ethical reasoning, and discussing how argument, thought experiments, and intuition can be combined in the consideration of medical ethics. It also considers its practical application by health professionals in clinical settings and the increasingly important place of medical ethics in the wider social context, in healthcare policy, discussions in the media, pressure group and activism settings, and in legal judgements.

Prudence in Shared Decision-Making: The Missing Link between the “Technically Correct” and the “Morally Good” in Medical Decision-Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Muleli Kioko ◽  
Pablo Requena Meana
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Shared Decision Making ◽  
Patient Autonomy ◽  
Intellectual Ability ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Shared Decision ◽  
Physician Patient Relationship ◽  
Good Healing ◽  
The Right ◽  
Physician Patient

Abstract Shared Decision-Making is a widely accepted model of the physician–patient relationship providing an ethical environment in which physician beneficence and patient autonomy are respected. It acknowledges the moral responsibility of physician and patient by promoting a deliberative collaboration in which their individual expertise—complementary in nature, equal in importance—is emphasized, and personal values and preferences respected. Its goal coincides with Pellegrino and Thomasma’s proximate end of medicine, that is, a technically correct and morally good healing decision for and with a particular patient. We argue that by perfecting the intellectual ability to apprehend the complexity of clinical situations, and through a perfection of the application of the first principles of practical reason, prudence is able to point toward the right and good shared medical decision. A prudent shared medical decision is therefore always in keeping with the kind of person the physician and the patient have chosen to be.

The “Rules of the Road”: Ethics, Firearms, and the Physician's “Lane”

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (S4) ◽  
pp. 142-145
Author(s):  
Blake N. Shultz ◽  
Benjamin Tolchin ◽  
Katherine L. Kraschel
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Patient Autonomy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Firearm Injury ◽  
Agency Relationship ◽  
The Road ◽  
Firearm Violence ◽  
Patient Agency ◽  
Foundational Principle ◽  
Do So

Physicians play a critical role in preventing and treating firearm injury, although the scope of that role remains contentious and lacks systematic definition. This piece aims to utilize the fundamental principles of medical ethics to present a framework for physician involvement in firearm violence. Physicians' agency relationship with their patients creates ethical obligations grounded on three principles of medical ethics — patient autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence. Taken together, they suggest that physicians ought to engage in clinical screening and treatment related to firearm violence. The principle of beneficence also applies more generally, but more weakly, to relations between physicians and society, creating nonobligatory moral ideals. Balanced against physicians' primary obligations to patient agency relationships, general beneficence suggests that physicians may engage in public advocacy to address gun violence, although they are not ethically obligated to do so. A fourth foundational principle — justice — requires that clinicians attempt to ensure that the benefits and burdens of healthcare are distributed fairly.

scholarly journals The Horizontal Effects of Charter Rights Given Expression to in EU Legislation, from Mangold to Bauer

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-215
Author(s):  
Elise Muir
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Max Planck ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
Scope Of Application ◽  
Effective Remedy ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Eu Fundamental Rights

This paper investigates the relationship between legislative provisions and fundamental rights by analyzing the Egenberger, IR, Bauer, Max-Planck and Cresco cases. This paper understands these cases as an invitation to reflect on whether, and if so, to what extent, EU fundamental rights' legislation, read in conjunction with the Charter, could have an impact on the scope of application, substance and/or legal effects of the Charter. This paper argues that the Court of Justice's recent case law can be understood as allowing for EU legislative guidance on fundamental rights to interact in an upward process with the rights enshrined in norms with the same rank as EU primary law. This paper sheds light on the constitutional implications of the overlaps between legislation and constitutional norms on fundamental norms while other contributions in this special issue address effectiveness and the right to an effective remedy in a broader sense.

The loved ones: families, intimates and patient autonomy

Legal Studies ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 332-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine O'Donovan ◽  
Roy Gilbar
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Genetic Information ◽  
Patient Autonomy ◽  
Medical Law ◽  
Central Values ◽  
Patients Rights ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
The Family ◽  
Legal Position ◽  
The Individual

Patient autonomy is one of the central values in medical ethics. It is generally understood as recognition of patients' rights as free individuals answerable only to themselves. This emphasis on the individual leaves open the question of the position of the patients' ‘loved ones’, that is of families and significant others. The authors examine this question in three areas of law and medical ethics. Organ donation offers an example of preference given by medical ethics to family views, notwithstanding an expressed wish of the deceased to donate, and the legal position protecting such a request. Decisions concerning the treatment of incompetent patients illustrate consideration for the family in medical ethics, but hesitations in both law and ethics in accepting family views once expressed. And the tension between the interests of patients and family members over the access to genetic information usually results in respecting the patient's right to confidentiality. This individualistic perception of autonomy, as adopted by medical law, overlooks the patient's relationships with others and is too narrow to face the complexities of human lives.

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