Final Exam

Format

The final exam will consist of four essay questions, of which you will have to select and answer three. Each question will be of the form:

"Summarize and critically evaluate [author's] views in [article]."

You will have roughly 2 hours to complete the exam (from 7:45pm to 9:45pm, April 29th). I encourage you to budget your time carefully; plan to spend at least 20-25 minutes on each question, as the completeness of your summaries will be measured relative to those of other students. I will supply scratch paper and as many blue books as you need.


Grading

• 20% of your grade for each question will depend on the overall legibility, clarity, and organization of your answer. I encourage you to outline your answers before you begin writing them.

• 40% of your grade for each question will depend on how accurately and completely you summarize the author's view. The best essays will demonstrate a thorough understanding of the author's arguments and conclusions.

• 40% of your grade for each question will depend on the quality of your critical evaluation of the author's argument. The best essays will indicate potential problems for, or objections to the author's argument, and ways the author might respond to those problems and objections.

Material

Below, I've listed all the articles I considered fair game for exam questions. I've struck four of them, and I will allow the class to strike another three from the list. Struck articles will not appear on the exam.

1. Alan Goldman, “The Refutation of Medical Paternalism”
2. Terrence Ackerman, “Why Doctors Should Intervene”
3. Emanuel and Emanuel, “Four Models of the Physician-Patient Relationship”
4. Katz, “Informed Consent--Must it Remain a Fairy Tale?”
5. Daniels, “Equal Opportunity and Health Care”
6. Marchland, Wikler, Landesman, “Class, Health, and Justice”
7. Buchanan, “The Right to a Decent Minimum of Health Care”
8. Engelhardt, “Freedom and Moral Diversity”
9. Daniels, “Justice, Health, and Healthcare”
10. Sreenivasan, “Opportunity is Not the Key”
11. Pogge, “Responsibilities for Poverty-Based Illnesses”
12. Risse, “Do We Owe the Global Poor Assistance or Rectification?”
13. Brock, “Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues”
14. Steinbock, “Respect for Human Embryos”
15. Ryan, “Creating Embryos for Research”
16. Marquis, “Why Abortion is Immoral”
17. Thompson, “A Defense of Abortion”
18. Arras, “Physician-Assisted Suicide: A Tragic View”
19. Dworkin et al, “The Philosophers Brief”

The youth in asia.....

I find myself able to argue both sides of this argument.

Good Life/Good Death
I know I would want PAS to be an option for me. I would hope if I felt encased in my body and my will to be here was gone, never to return, that someone would help me move on. I want to leave this place on my terms. I don’t want to leave my family unable to grieve my death or celebrate my life. How unfair it is for me to make them choose because I was too lazy or fearful to choose while I still could.
I am also very aware from my experience in the hospital setting euthanasia is practiced fairly commonly only under terms that make it seem less alarming like hospice or “comfort measures only”. Patients are given different painkillers when they express their desire to end chronic suffering. The patient is given the new meds and is told to be careful because more than 1or2 would certainly be lethal. With a handshake and a smile they get the message. Hearts slow to a stop and breathing becomes shallow, autopsies are performed only at the families request after a certain age (unless circumstances indicate a reason otherwise). Then there are friends and family that insist their loved one be sent home to die in more peaceful surroundings than the overcrowded floors of the hospital. It just doesn’t make headlines but these practices are practices of euthanasia. The fear behind it becoming a slippery slope seems to loose ground if it hasn’t “slipped” thus far. I know people who don’t want to be organ donors because they think medical staff will be less likely to use resuscitative measures. Maybe the idea people will be euthanized against their will is just as hollow. Lastly, as obvious as it sounds we do seem to condone euthanizing animals. There are many differences between animals and humans but at its core it is the same principal.

Hope for the Hopeless?
On the other hand, I too have trouble ignoring the fuzzy line between one’s right to die and one’s obligation to die. Sick people are vulnerable and need advocacy. After this reading and countless “you tube” videos I still wonder whose suffering people really want to relieve. Is it always the patient’s? I learned that within a year of a paralyzing spinal injury more than 90% of patients wanted to end their life but after 5years only 10% said they would. I can’t help but feel like we have an obligation to those people to make them stick around. I don’t trust the government to regulate euthanasia simply because of a poor track record otherwise. There are far too many ideas of what “quality of life” consists of. When it is up to others to decide what another person’s quality of life is some degree of misinterpretation is bound to occur.
The debate is far from dated. As context changes people are faced with new aspects to consider. Unless we plan for ourselves plans will be made for us, period.

The Forgotten - Those That Need Fighting For

Arras made a good point about the uninsured and poor, stating that, “Minorities and the poor already suffer from the effects of discrimination in our health care system, it is reasonable to expect that any system of PAS and euthanasia will exhibit similar effects, such as failure to access adequate primary care, pain management, and psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. Unlike Dr. Kevorkian’s “patients”, these victims will not get their pictures in the papers, but they all will have faces and they will all be cheated of good months or perhaps even years.” More focus should be on the minorities and poor, since they do not have stable financial means, or even any financial means, to help get counseling, pain relief, etc., and yes, they are then robbed of the life they deserve of fulfillment. Arras’ point about the uninsured, poor and minority, brought to my attention things that I did not even think about, which made me wonder why Dworkin and the other authors of the Philosopher’s Brief did not take this into consideration. The author’s of The Philosopher’s Brief are ‘united on their conviction that respect for fundamental principles of liberty and justice, as well as for American constitutional tradition, requires that the decisions of the Courts of Appeals be affirmed.’ But what surprised me is that when talking about liberty and justice, no where did they mention about the uninsured and poor.

The author’s discussed points about how individuals in a free society must be allowed to make life decisions for themselves, based on faith, conscience, and convictions, protected by the courts. Also, the author’s discuss the case of how Cruzan support the liberty interest, which states if a competent patient has a constitutional right to refuse life-sustaining treatment, then the court implied the state could not override that right. Cruzan also supports that a state may not burden a terminally ill patient’s liberty interest in determining the time and manner of his death by prohibiting doctors from terminating life support. Also, given were examples of different situations where people had certain diseases that were not curable and what their decisions were with regards to ending their lives without suffering….If these authors feel so strongly about respect for fundamental principles of liberty and justice, why did they leave out such an important group of people, which includes minorities and the poor? The article was worded to point towards a certain group of people that have the means to make the decisions they wish, but not to the less fortunate.

Suppose a poor person that lives on the streets, scrounging for food and a place to sleep at night, has cancer, chronic pain, or some other disease and cannot go into a clinic for help because they have no money. Do we disregard them and let them suffer and die as a human being that deserves respect and help, just like anyone else? Where is the liberty and justice there, which the author’s are so united about?

To Presence and anyone else interested....

Just wantedto put the info out about the writing center here on campus. Here is the description:

"The Writing Center is a free service for all students (both graduate and undergraduate) currently enrolled at Washington University, as well as for faculty members. We will work with students on essays, senior theses, personal statements, oral presentations, and more.
Our tutors are writers who help writers through the process of revision. Students come in at all different stages of the writing process, from brainstorming all the way to the later drafts. We listen to student concerns, read written drafts, and then discuss larger issues of the work first, such as thesis, organization, development, and clarity of the ideas. By talking with the tutors, students strengthen and clarify their ideas throughout the writing process. Tutors will not edit or proofread student papers. Instead, we will identify patterns of error in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation and help students become editors of their own work."

Gotta have an appointment- here is their info
Eads Hall, Room 111
(314) 935-4981
writing@artsci.wustl.edu

Mary Anne Warren's thought experiment

This is included in the Warren reading that is no longer on the syllabus.  It might be of interest to some, as it has a bearing on Marquis' "valuable-future" view. 

From "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion". Mary Anne Warren:

Suppose that our space explorer falls into the hands of an alien culture, whose scientists decide to create a few hundred thousand or more human beings, by breaking his body into its component cells, and using these to create fully developed human beings, with, of course, his genetic code. We may imagine that each of these newly created men will have all of the original man's abilities, skills, knowledge, and so on, and also have an individual self-concept, in short that each of them will be a bona fide (though hardly unique) person. Imagine that the whole project will take only seconds, and that its chances of success are extremely high, and that our explorer knows all of this, and also knows that these people will be treated fairly. I maintain that in such a situation he would have every right to escape if he could, and thus to deprive all of these potential people of their potential lives; for his right to life outweighs all of theirs together, in spite of the fact that they are all genetically human, all innocent, and all have a very high probability of becoming people very soon, if only he refrains from acting.

Indeed, I think he would have a right to escape even if it were not his life which the alien scientists planned to take, but only a year of his freedom, or, indeed, only a day. Nor would he be obligated to stay if he had gotten captured (thus bringing all these people-potentials into existence) because of his own carelessness, or even if he had done so deliberately, knowing the consequences. Regardless of how he got captured, he is not morally obligated to remain in captivity for any period of time for the sake of permitting any number of potential people to come into actuality, so great is the margin by which one actual person's right to liberty outweighs whatever right to life even a hundred thousand potential people have. And it seems reasonable to conclude that the rights of a woman will outweigh by a similar margin whatever right to life a fetus may have by virtue of its potential personhood.

Thus, neither a fetus's resemblance to a person, nor its potential for becoming a person provides any basis whatever for the claim that it has any significant right to life. Consequently, a woman's right to protect her health, happiness, freedom, and even her life,' by terminating an unwanted pregnancy, will always override whatever right to life it may be appropriate to ascribe to a fetus, even a fully developed one. And thus, in the absence of any overwhelming social need for every possible child, the laws which restrict the right to obtain an abortion, or limit the period of pregnancy during which an abortion may be performed, are a wholly unjustified violation of a woman's most basic moral and constitutional rights .

How can it be resolved in abortion issues?

Don Marquis says that anything with human genetic code is human. Human fetus have a human genetic code. Therefore fetuses are human. Marquis is not arguing for againt abortion with human genetic code. Marquis belives that against abortion's biggerst point is "The view that what makes killing wrong is the loss to the victim of the value of the victem's future(p:550)".

Marquis is counter arguing based on his theory all the way to the end on his essay with "the loss of one's future of one's future is the wrong making feature of one's being killed dose not entail as santity-of-human-life theories do, that active euthanasia is worng(P:550)".

Marquis did not dealing with any option other than save fetus life. It brings some question on us that what we should do in case of someone got raped and unwanted pregnancy or if mother's health is jeopadized in her life by her pregnacy.

In contrast, A defense of abortion by Judith Jarvis Thomson, Her argument was that "Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body(p567)". Thomson belives that fetus is a person from the moment of conception.

Thomson does not belive that abortion shoud not performed unless mother has a serious diseases that would be affect her life by carrying full term of pregnacy as cardiac disease. Thomson says" directltly killing innocent people is a murder and murder is always and absolutely impermissible, abortion may not be performed(p:568)".

If only options are save a baby and letting mother die or save mother's life and letting baby die. What would you do in this case? Mother decided to perform abortion by third person( physician)to save her life then this is her right to save her life. Everyone has a right to own life. Is it child's life is more weightier than mother's life? No one can say that she was wrong to save her life.

If someone has a unwanted pregnacy by result of rape, then she is right to refuse carry a baby because she did not consented.

Thomson is giving a some room to protect individual right and autonomy in her essay, however, she is almost close to prolife that she does not belive to perform any abortion except few cases as described in above.

Battle Royale: Marquis vs. Thomson

Coming into this article I have to say I had a very liberal view towards abortion. I never really thought about the rights of the unborn child, but rather the rights of the mother. Don Marquis presents the “right to life” argument in a convincing way and gave me some hesitance about my opinion of abortion. However, while not a direct rebuttal to Marquis’s article, Judith Jarvis Thomson helps restore my opinion by arguing for the permissibility of abortion in certain situations.

The view that what makes killing wrong is the loss to the victim of the value of the victim’s future makes sense to me. And this is what really strengthens the case against abortion. Nothing has more of a future than an unborn child. Therefore, by killing a fetus, theoretically we are losing more of a future than by killing an adult. However, I believe that a conscious human being’s life is worth more than a fetus even though there is less future left. The impact of those close to this individual would be greater, and the mere fact that this person has an interest to be alive makes his life of greater importance than a fetus with no interests. But this begins to get complicated if we are talking about certain lives being worth more than others.

What I think matters the most is the interest of the mother. As Thomson illustrates in a number of examples, including the violinist one, a mother does not have a duty to carry an unborn baby whose existence is due to rape. The mother has the right to decide what to do with her body. I would go farther and say that the mother has this right even in pregnancies that were not due to rape.

One thing that neither author really touched on was the life prospects of the child after birth. It’s just assumed that the child will have a good life. Do unborn fetuses have a right to a life of being abused by their parents? Or not receiving the kind of nurturing, upbringing, or attention we’ve come to expect in raising a child. Obviously, the child can be put up for adoption if it is clear that the child will not have a home, or parents that will take care of him. But, as we all know, there are many stories of abusive households. If the case were clear the baby would be going into an abusive household, why not allow abortion? And even further, if the mother simply does not want to go through pregnancy, why not allow abortion?