2. • Bioethics is specifically concerned with moral principles and decisions in
the context of medical practice, policy and research.
• Bioethics reviews several major ethical theories which attempt to supply
basic principles that we can rely on in making moral decisions. Those
theories are:
1. Utilitarianism
2. Deontology
3. Rawls’s theory of justice
4. Natural law of ethics
5. Virtue ethics
6. Care ethics
3. Utilitarianism
• According to Utilitarianism, a person should perfom those actions
which conform to the principle of utility.
• The principle of Utility says: a person should choose that action
which produce the greatest number of people affected by the
alternatives open to him.
• The rightness or wrongness of actions is determined by the goodness
or badness of the actions consequences, not by the actions
themselves.
• Because the molarity of an action, according to utilitarianism, rests
on its consequences, utilitarianism is called a “consequentialist theory
of ethics.”
4. Application to bioethic
• In August 2000, conjoined twins, named Mary and Jodie where born
in a hospital in Manchester England. The spines were fused, and they
had one heart and one pair of lungs between them. Jodie, the
stronger one, was providing blood for her sister. The prognosis was
that without intervention, both girls would die within six months. The
only hope was an operation to separate them. This would save Jodie,
but Mary would die immediately.
• Thus , there are two options:
(a) Not intervene and see both babies die
(b) Intervene and save one life, Jodie.
5. • According to Utilitarian, we need to decide which course of action
will produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people
affected by action.
• It is plausible to interpret utilitarianism as supporting alternative (b).
Surely it is better to save life rather than not.
6. Deontology
• As noted earlier, consequentialist theories of ethics find the basis for
an action’s morality in the consequences produced by an action
rather in the action itself.
• Deontological theories of ethics, argue that it is features of the action
itself, apart from consequences, which determine its morality.
• When an action has the relevant features then we can say it is our
duty to perform it.
• There are different versions of deontology. We examine two of them,
those of Immanuel Kant and W. D. ROSS.
7. Kant
• According to Kant. We have an obligation to perform an action if it
satisfies what he called “the categorical imperative”.
• Kant formulated three versions of the imperative. Though differing in
wording and emphasis, he understood them as three different
“views” of the same overacting principle.
• We shall restrict ourselves to the first two versions, starting with the
first.
8. First Version
• If you decide to have an abortion and go through with it, it is possible to view you’re
your action as involving a rule.
• You can be thought of as endorsing a rule to the effect “ whenever I am in circumstances
like these, then I will have an abortion.” Kant calls such a rule a”maxim”.
• In his view, all reasoned and considered actions can be regarded as involving maxims.
• The best way to illustrate the first version of the category imperative is to consider a
possible instance where an action fails the test.
• Suppose, for example, that I am a physician and I tell a patient that he has a serious
illness, although I know that he doesn’t. This may be to my immediate advantage, for the
treatment and the supposed cure will increase my income and reputation.
• The maxim of my action might be phrased as “whenever I hve a healthy patient, I will lie
to him and say that he has an illness.”
9. Second Version
• Act as you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of
another, always as an end never as a means only.
• This version illustrates kants notion that every rational creature has a
worth in itself.
• This worth is not conferred by being born into a society with a
certain political structure, nor even by belonging to a certain
biological species.
10. W. D. Ross
• W. D.Ross attempts to incorporate aspects of utilitarianism and
aspects of Kantianism.
• Ross rejected the utilitarian notion that an action is made right by its
consequences alone, but he was also troubled by kants view, if a rule
passed the categorical imperative, it could have no exceptions , it was
absolute.
• He saw not only that such rules fail to show sensitivity to the
complexities of actual situations, but also that they sometimes confict
with one another.
11. • Ross offers a list of duties that he consideres binding on all moral agents
1. Duties of fidelity, telling the truth.
2. Duties of reparation, righting the wrongs we have done to others
3. Duties of gratitude, recognizing the services others have done for us
4. Duties of justice, preventing a distribution of pleasure or happiness that
is not keeping with the merit of the people involved
5. Duties of self-improvement, bettering ourselves with respect to virtue or
intelligence
6. Duties of beneficence, helping to better the condition of other beings
with respect to virtue, intelligence
7. Duties of non-malfeasance, avoiding or preventing an injury to others
12. Rawls’s theory of justice
• The theory of justice formulated by the philosopher John Rawls can be understood as
the attempting to combine the strengths of utilitarianism and deontology while avoiding
the weakness of each view.
• Rawls argues that there are two fundamental principles of justice:
1. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic
liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.
2. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both:
(a) To the greatest benefit of the least advantaged
(b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of
opportunity.
• for Rawls, these two principles are taken to govern the distribution of social goods;
liberty, property, wealth, and social privileged.
• The first principle has priority. It guarantees a system of equal liberty for all. The second
principle governs the distribution of social goods other than liberty.
13. Natural Law Ethics
• Natural law theories of ethics share the general idea that the
rightness of actions is something determined by nature itself, rather
than by the laws and customs of societies or the preferences of
individuals.
• For example, when conditions are right, a tadpole will develop into a
frog. In its growth and change, the tadpole is following “the law of its
nature.” It is achieving its goal.
• Humans have a material nature, just as atadpole does and in their
own growth and development they too follow a law of their material
nature.
• Following are two principles especially relevant to bioethics.
14. 1. Principle of double effect
The principle holds that such an action should be performed only if the
intention is to bring about the good effect and the bad effect will be an
unintended or indirect consequence.
2. Principle of totality
This principle says that an individual has a right to dispose of his or her
organs or to destroy their capacity to function only to the extent that
the general well-being of the whole body demands it.
15. Virtue Ethics
• Virtue ethics is ethics based on character. Its fundamental idea is that
a person who has acquired the proper set of dispositions will do what
is right when faced with a situation involving a moral choice.
• Thus, virtue ethics doesn’t involve invoking principles or rules to
guide actions.
• The virtuous person is both the basic concept and the goal of virtue
ethics. The virtuous person is one who acts right, because she is just
that sort od person
16. Care ethics
• Care ethics is an outgrowth of feminist ethics or, perhaps more accurately,
is a particular strand of feminist ethics.
• Care ethics is not a unified doctrine that can be captured in a set of
abstract statements. It is perhaps best characterized as a family of beliefs
about the way values should be manifested in character and in behaviour
• It is unified by a set of shared concerns and commitments, as well as by
the rejection of the traditional philosophical view that ethics can be
adequately represented by rules and principles.
• As the name implies, the sentiment of caring is taken as a central
consideration in deciding what to do. In medical ethical contexts this
perspective is perhaps exemplified by how a doctor looks at his or her
patient: is this a problem to fix or is this a person whose health I care
about?
17. GROUP MEMBERS
• Arkam Said
• Haji Mjumbe
• Ibrahim Omar
• Laila Msonga
• Ramla Maulid
• Ummukulthum Haji
