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Severe medical condition that leads to significant suffering over time.
Imagine a scenario where a child is born with a rare and severe medical condition that leads to significant suffering over time. While the child initially appears healthy, the condition causes progressive physical changes and developmental challenges. Despite these challenges, the child remains mentally sharp and emotionally aware.
This condition is life-threatening, with a drastically reduced life expectancy, often cutting short the possibility of reaching adulthood. Treatments exist that might alleviate some symptoms and potentially extend life, but they don't offer a cure and could involve extensive, long-term care.
Parents are faced with a tough choice:
Should they approve a medical procedure that might extend their child's life, knowing it could lead to ongoing and expensive care? Or should they decide against it, which could result in their child's death?
For this discussion, let's focus on the ethics of the decision rather than on who has the authority to make it. Respond to one of the following:
Contrast what a virtue ethicist would say according to its core principles of telos, virtue, eudaimonia, and practical wisdom with what a utilitarian would say using its core principles of welfare, impartiality, sum-ranking, and consequences. Do your best to answer whether it is immoral for the parents to withhold surgery. Use appropriate textual evidence to back up your claim. Which of the ethical theories you discussed do you believe provides the best account of what the morally correct action to take is and why? (USLOs 9.1, 9.2, 9.3) Contrast what a Kantian would say according to its core principles of universalizability, duty, impartiality, and reciprocity with what a utilitarian would say using its core principles of welfare, impartiality, sum ranking, and consequences. Do your best to answer whether it is immoral for the parents to withhold surgery. Use appropriate textual evidence to back up your claim. Which of the ethical theories you discussed do you believe provides the best account of what the morally correct action to take is and why? (USLOs 9.1, 9.2, 9.3)
Sample Answer
Contrasting Ethical Frameworks: Virtue Ethics vs. Utilitarianism
The decision facing the parents is a profoundly difficult one, balancing the desire to preserve life against the reality of ongoing suffering, developmental challenges, and extensive care. We can analyze this dilemma through the lenses of Virtue Ethics and Utilitarianism.
Virtue Ethics Analysis
Virtue Ethics, rooted in the philosophy of Aristotle, focuses on the character of the moral agent rather than specific actions or outcomes. The morality of the parents' decision is judged by whether it aligns with what a virtuous person would do.
Core Principle
Application to the Scenario
Telos (End/Goal)
The telos of human life is to achieve eudaimonia (flourishing). The decision must be evaluated on whether it promotes the child's potential for flourishing, or the parents' ability to live a virtuous family life
Virtue Ethicist's Stance on Withholding Surgery
A virtue ethicist would argue that the immorality of withholding surgery depends entirely on whether that choice reflects the virtuous character.
If the parents withhold the surgery out of selfishness (e.g., purely to avoid the expense or inconvenience) this would be an unvirtuous act, demonstrating a lack of compassion and commitment.
However, if they withhold surgery out of profound compassion and practical wisdom, having judged that the procedure and subsequent extensive, long-term care would only prolong agony, minimize the child's ability to experience joy, and possibly destroy the family's overall well-being and ability to care well, then the act would not be immoral.
Textual Evidence: Aristotle states that virtue is "a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 6). The virtuous choice is the mean between two extremes—perhaps the mean between neglecting the child entirely and mercilessly prolonging suffering.
Utilitarianism Analysis
Utilitarianism, as developed by thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, is a consequentialist theory. It assesses the morality of an action based only on its outcome, specifically the amount of happiness or welfare it produces compared to the suffering it causes. The morally correct action is the one that maximizes overall utility.