In the New York Times article, an older scientist is faced with an ethical dilemma regarding his research at his job in a laboratory and his personal health. On one hand, he is working in a laboratory that is investigating early-onset Alzheimer’s disease genes and pioneering effective treatments. Based on the article, the researchers invented a gene-transfer method that stopped brain damage caused by the disease and restored cognitive function. On the other hand, he just received a diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease from his doctor. As we all know, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease currently, or at least, no cure out on the market yet. Does this scientist have the right, given he will otherwise die of dementia, to give himself this new treatment before a clinical trial can even begin?
Ethical egoism is a theory of morality that states everyone should act in a way that promotes their own
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This theory disregards the interests of others, unless their interests also serve your own. In the case of the scientist and his ethical dilemma, I believe ethical egoism would lead the scientist to take the experimental treatment, regardless of the effects on others. Based on what we currently know about the disease, if he did not take the experimental treatment, he will eventually die of dementia no matter what. However, if he took this experimental drug and it cured him or at least prolonged his diagnosis, that would be a much better outcome for the scientist, and thus, would be the decision an ethical egoist would make.
In my opinion, this scientist has the right to risk his own life for a potentially better outcome than nature has given him, being diagnosed with an incurable disease.
In the article written by ANNAS had a guy named Justice Broussard who backed me up by saying that since the patients don’t have a right to their cells when they leave their body and only people that have rights to them are the drug and medical companies (ANNAS, 1190). This just proves that us patients are losing finically since we do not get a cut of the profit these companies and doctors get from our cells in research. It also breaks the fairness principle in the CFP
“In 1999, president Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) issued a report saying that federal oversight of tissue research is “inadequate” and “ambiguous”. It recommended specific changes that would ensure patients’ rights to control how their tissues were being used.” (page 327). Unfortunately, the changes were never made and scientists still have the ability to conduct research on one’s tissues without consent. The reason for why the changes were nullified remain unknown even to Wayne Grody an individual “who was in thick of the debate in the nineties, (for) why the congressional recommendations and NBAC report seemed to have vanished.”.
Is it right for one's life to be manipulated for the use of scientific research or is it just a evasion on the person's privacy. Henrietta Lacks was a African American with cells that intrigued many people, she was diagnosed with cancer leaving her to be cared for at her local hospital, where she would later die due to the extremity of the illness. While at the hospital she was unaware that the doctors there were experimenting on her taking cell samples from her body, to help find a resolution to multiple diseases. The people who examined Henrietta manipulated her and the rest of her family to gain information on her cellular structure to be ahead of others looking to achieve the same objective. Henrietta Lacks cells should have never been evaluated because it's an evasion of her freedom, a danger to her personal health, and cause conflicts.
Immortal Henrietta Informed consent is an ethically important aspect of medical care; patients must be fully informed of any and all possible risks and benefits from receiving medical treatment, participating in medical research as a subject, or donating live tissues to be studied. Only after receiving and understanding all of the necessary information can a patient give consent; if the patient does not consent, for whatever reason, then it is both illegal and unethical to follow through with treatment, research, or taking samples (O’Neill, 2003). However, particularly in regard to taking tissue samples, some doctors seem to think that what the patient doesn’t know won’t hurt them. One example of this is Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells.
However, some may disagree, “Dr. Hagiwara felt his family had an economic interest in the new cell line since he had proposed the project and his mother had provided the original cells” (Andrews). Stating that people’s body parts are apart of their personal property and need to be treated as so. That without the persons who donated the body parts there wouldn’t be any tissues or cells to help aid in research anyways. On the other hand, “Dr. Royston disagreed with Dr. Hagiwara, since he and his colleges had invented the procedure and created the parent cell line that made the production of human monoclonal antibodies possible” (Andrews). In the end, there will always be new and incurable diseases like that of my grandfather’s Parkinson’s.
In this case, the informed consent of the subjects was not fully attained as researchers used misinformation to encourage participation in otherwise detrimental studies. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, author Rebecca Skloot references a similar case in which a researcher named Chester Southam injected prisoners with cancer cells. Like researchers in the Tuskegee experiments, Southam did not thoroughly explain his research “[as] patients might have refused to participate in his study if they’d known what he was injecting” (Skloot 13). In addition to promoting ethical research, informed consent strengthens the trust between researchers and donors. When researchers seek permission before experimenting on biospecimen, they remain trustable figures to donors.
This is discussed by Shafer-Landau in The Fundamentals of Ethics; he says that ethical egoism “arbitrarily makes my interests all-important” (114). If a person is required to do whatever is necessary to increase their well-being, then they must only act in their interests. Ethical egoism allows individuals to think that there is no one more important or as important as them. It supports the belief that egoists should only care for themselves, ignoring everyone else’s needs and wants. An ethical egoist will only do the things that are pleasurable for them and that increase their welfare.
Reading this article for the elderly care, I feel that ethical issues commonly occur anywhere in the treatment of older patients. I had a clinical experience both in an acute-care hospital and in a long-term care facility. Before working in a long-term facility, I was not aware of how many ethical principles were violated in the treatment of older patients as a daily routine as stated in the article. In reality, there are many situations in which older patients don’t completely exhibit their autonomy because they are vulnerable physically and emotionally and dependent on others. Therefore, they become more conscious of caregivers or healthcare professionals.
A student from the Michigan University (2007) defines Bioethics as an activity which is a shared, reflective examination of ethical issues in health care, health science, and health policy. These fields have always had ethical standards, of course, handed down within each profession, and often without question. Hence, the discussion of this standards is called Bioethics. This discussions takes place in the media, in the academy, in classrooms, in labs, offices, and hospital wards. The conversation is often sparked by new developments, like the possibility of cloning.
If the scientist is experimenting on animals, and what he is doing doesn’t really have a purpose then we shouldn’t allow the scientist to keep experimenting if he is not trying to cure a bad disease or doing something that will benefit more people besides him. All he is doing is just hurting animals for his own good, because his experiment isn’t really any good for anyone else but he for the reason that he only wants to find out if he could make the perfect human. Dr. Moreau is the perfect example on why we should have a limits on science and on how far we take it, and why there should be a good reason behind why you're doing the science you're doing. Dr. Moreau took his science way too far, he didn’t care about hurting anyone or anything. “The crying sounded even louder out of doors.
Ethical Egoism is a simplistic approach to morality which reduces notions of justice and ethics to mere self-indulgent desires. This philological approach asserts that an action which satiates an individual 's desires or inclinations is right, while an action that goes against an individual 's wishes is categorically immoral. In sum, Ethical Egoism puts the individual 's wants, interests, and aspiration at the forefront of morality. The movie Rain Man is riddled with instances and scenarios of the protagonist Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) employing Ethical Egoism. In fact, the entire premise of the movie and the development of the plot rely on Charlie continually using Ethical Egoism to make decisions.
I agree when Rachels says that the best argument in establishing Ethical Egoism as a viable theory of morality is Thomas Hobbes principle that we should do unto others because if we do, others will more likely to do unto us (Pojman and Vaughn, 2014, pg. 527). People should avoid harming others because we should care about the interests of other people for the very same reason we care about our own interests; for their needs and desires are comparable to our own (Pojman and Vaughn, 2014, pg. 532). Therefore, I believe that Rachel makes the better case regarding ethical
William James, a leading figure in the field of psychology, was born into a very wealthy family and received schooling in both Europe and the U.S, yet suffered from poor health. Eventually he enrolled in Harvard, then changed his studies from chemistry to medicine, dabbed in zoology/biology, then returned to biology. He suffered from “neurasthenia”, which appeared to be neurotic in origin and was epidemic at the time. Eventually, James began to develop his own philosophy and came to believe in free will. In addition, he also became interested in “mind-alternating chemicals”.
Psychological egoism asserts that people always act selfishly and self-centered. Ethical egoism asserts that people should always act in his or her own self interest. Psychological egoism defines how we are as human beings. It is the prime idea that selfless acts do not exist. It is the belief that all people are selfish.
This theory doesn 't describe what you should be doing morally for yourself but rather prescribes you to do it for yourself. The two objections to psychological egoism are the everyday objection and the evolutionary objection. The best arguments for ethical egoism rely on psychological egoism as their premise. These arguments also make us of other general philosophical principles.