Blog Assignment #10

(1) Choose one inquiry, from inquiries 1 - 28 (pages 114 - 117). Indicate which inquiry you chose, and then briefly explain it in your own words: I chose the one about the 2 doctors having to choose between the 2 patients to give a heart transplant to.

(2) Stakeholders: The doctors, both patients, the families, other people on the list.

(3) Are the details given sufficient? Why or why not? No because you need answer to make a fair and ethical decision.

(4) What additional questions does this inquiry raise? Transplants are normally done on a first person on the first to recieve a heart basis. We have no idea who is first on the list. We also don't know what other preconditions each patient could potentially have.

STEP TWO: THE RELEVANT CRITERIA

1. Obligations (aka "duties"): Optional this week
2. Moral Ideals (aka "virtues"): See breakdown of ideals below
3. Consequences (aka "outcomes" or "results"): Optional this week

NOTE: Not ALL of the following ideals will apply! Only consider the main ones that you believe apply, in the inquiry you chose. Don't just pick the easy ones to consider, because you didn't take the time to thoroughly read the chapter and learn what each one of these actually means. I will quiz you when we do group work on Thursday.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Prudence: No because they should have thoughtfully decidied and weighed all the options before making a decision.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Justice: Yes because you should count each person as equal and give to higher value to either of their lives. They are both equally important to the people around them and it should be done fairly and without prejudice for age or anything else.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Temperance: No because this based on more indiviualistic views which aren't really present here.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Courage: No unless you put the patients next to each other to make the decision of who got the heart which I doubt would happen.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Loving Kindness: No because they should be making their choice based on a set of rules or other ideals more than just love since they are patients rather than family or friends which complicate the matter.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Honesty: Yes because they should be honest about who is on the list and not about who necessarily deserves or needs it more.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Compassion: Yes I think it does because the doctors may want to choose the child because they think she has more to live for than the older lady but they should add in other judgements to help them.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Forgiveness: No because I don't see any wrong doing that cause the issue.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Repentance: No because I don't think the doctors should feel sorry for their decision as long as it was fair.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Reparation: No because no harm was done unfairly to another person.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Gratitude: You could maybe say the recipient of the heart could give gratitude to the doctors for picking them but I think that is more just the emotions rather the ethics.

* Cardinal Ideal/Virtue of Beneficence: The surgery could be deemed beneficence but other than that they did the act because it was their job rather just for no reason.

* Conflicting ideals--consider the relative importance of each; determine which ideal represents the greater good (or the lesser evil). See pages 110-11 for clarification. Erase this sentence & insert your own answer. I don't see any conflicting ideals. The rules and obligations should be set out for the doctors. Whether they agree or not is up for debate but it should be much simpler than that.

STEP THREE: POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTION

Alternative #1: To give the heart to the other lady.

Alternative #2: To wait for 2 hearts if possible so both get one and neither is out of a heart.

Alternative #3: To continue with giving the young girl the heart as the decided before.
STEP FOUR: THE MOST ETHICAL ACTION

Examine the action taken or proposed and decide whether it achieves the greater good (the most widespread "respect for persons")...if it does not, choose one that will, from your alternatives. Where the choice of actions is such that no good can be achieved, choose the action that will result in the lesser evil.

I think as long as they followed the rules set down to them by the obligations of work and location than giving it to the young girl is correct but if they passed over the other lady because of her age that is not right and it should be given to her.

SELF EVALUATION

1. In your own words, describe something new that you learned from this week’s assigned reading material and guidance. I learned are much more complicated than previously thought and that you need to weigh them and give them each a proper examination so that they are followed and thought out. You may even think of ones not previously and could end up changing your decisions.

2. In your own words, describe in detail some insight you gained, about the material, from one of your classmates' blogs this week. MCK-thics was the blog and I learned that he posted about weighing consequences early even though we haven't covered that but they do go hand in hand with the ideals because it may look good with the ideal but it may have very serious consequences depending on which path you choose.

3. Did you post a thoroughly completed post to your blog on time this week? I think mine is pretty thorough but that could be up to debate depending on your definition of the word. :)

4. Did you ALSO print this out, so you can bring it to class and earn total points? Nope because I am in Atlanta for work reasons for the rest of the week so it did not happen though I wish I was there to learn the lesson.

5. Of 25 points total, my efforts this week deserve: I deserve a 12.5 since I posted the online version but did not show up to class for the week. Sorry!!!!

Blog Assignment #9

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ASSIGNMENT PART ONE

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In this section, we're going to return for a moment to Chapter 7, to the section that discusses errors that are common in the analysis of moral issues (p. 89). Breifly explain each of the following errors in your own words, as if you were explaining the concept to a friend who had never taken this class (consider who, what, when, where, why, how, when); and then give an example of each one, preferably from your own past experience.

Unwarranted Assumptions: Unwarranted Assumptions are simply assuming things that you have no fact based information to bring to the table to support your theory. Take for example if Ms. Pierce is getting a fee for us to attend these seminars or group Philosophy events but if we were to go and show up our beliefs or ideals could be challenged and we could leave very unhappy or worse with a lose of respect for her inviting us out there. Not that I assume that would happen but what if she knew the topic could be something offensive and just didn't inform us on purpose? :)

Oversimplification: Oversimplification is nothing more than leaving out key pieces of information that are important to the topic or issue at hand. Say for example Ms. Pierce hosted class and people just rose up and interupted her and didn't care. Well she could just tell each person to shut up everytime she does it and that would fix the issue. Well there is more to it than that. Can she even tell us to shut up? Is there a serious penalty if she does? If she can what tone of voice can she use for it? These are all issues that complicate the quick fix.

Hasty Conclusions: Hasty conclustions are nothing more than jumping to a decision without doing due diligence to the issue at hand. I love using Ms. Pierce in my examples because she challenged me to use her in each one so for this one let's use a positive hasty conclusion. Say Ms. Pierce just gave each a full 100% on all of our blogs just for posting it. She just went into reader saw the topic of Blog Assignment 9 and said 100 good to go, rather than reading through each one to make sure the questions were answered properly and fairly to each of the students. Not all of the examples have to be negative and I think she should take this theory into serious consideration.

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ASSIGNMENT PART TWO

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Briefly answer the following "chapter opening" questions, in your own words, based on what you learned by studying chapter eight:

1. What do we do in situations where there is more than a single obligation? When you have to choose between more than one obligation logic tells you that you will weigh out all the options and pick which one is most fitting and important to you. Not sure if Karla wants examples but I think I can think of one for her. Take Ms. Pierce used to be a bartender so we will assume she likes beer (even though we know she does). So what if on a Thursday night she really wanted to go drink instead of having class and making money to pay rent or for the beers she is about to have? Well hopefully if she chooses to go have a drink she invites all the legal students she has to have class out there while doing both or that she chooses to keep her employment obligation to all of us. Let me know if that is innappropriate and I'll change it.

2. How can we reconcile conflicting obligations? There is no way to resolve conflicting obligatoins. No matter what you do you are going to be breaking an obligation to another party or person. You just have to weigh all the ideas and options out there and make the decision on what you feel is best for the situation at hand. Take Ms. Pierce again for example. Say I show up late everytime for class or just plain don't show for what ever reasons. I then go apply for a campus job and she seems to not hate me for a teacher so I use her as a reference. The people call and ask if I can make it on time and all that. She is now stuck will telling my could be future employer I am never on time to anything in my life or lie for me and say I am always punctual to everything I do knowing that I am not. She has conflicting obligations that could be bad for both us depending on the consequences.

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ASSIGNMENT PART THREE

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1. In a nutshell, what is the most important thing, for you, that you learned from this assignment? I learned that jumping to hasty conclusions is usually the best way to make a decision if you are pushed for time and have no other choice. No really it is the fact that when you are going to decisions on issues and situations it is the fact that you need to take into account every point of view and consequence and obligation because a lot of times you are going to affect just more than yourself with the choice.

2. How will you apply what you learned through this assignment to your everyday life? I will look more at what my actions do to affect the other people arround me rather than just myself.

3. What grade do you believe your efforts regarding this assignment deserve? Justify your answer. I think I should get full points. I answered each question fully and gave proper examples each time and take your challenge on and passed.