REMINDER: I AM POSTING A NEW TOPIC ABOUT ONCE A WEEK OR PERHAPS TWICE A WEEK. HOWEVER, IF YOU DON'T FIND A NEW TOPIC POSTED, THERE ARE AS OF MARCH 2013 OVER 900 TOPIC THREADS TO WHICH YOU CAN READ AND WRITE COMMENTS. I WILL BE AWARE OF EACH COMMENTARY AND MAY COME BACK WITH A REPLY.
TO FIND A TOPIC OF INTEREST TO YOU ON THIS BLOG, SIMPLY TYPE IN THE NAME OR WORDS RELATED TO THE TOPIC IN THE FIELD IN THE LEFT HAND SIDE AT TOP OF THE PAGE AND THEN CLICK ON “SEARCH BLOG”. WITH WELL OVER 900 TOPICS, MOST ABOUT GENERAL OR SPECIFIC ETHICAL ISSUES BUT NOT NECESSARILY RELATED TO ANY SPECIFIC DATE OR EVENT, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND WHAT YOU WANT. IF YOU DON’T PLEASE WRITE TO ME ON THE FEEDBACK THREAD OR BY E-MAIL DoktorMo@aol.com
IMPORTANT REQUEST TO ALL WHO COMMENT ON THIS BLOG: ALL COMMENTERS WHO WISH TO SIGN ON AS ANONYMOUS NEVERTHELESS PLEASE SIGN OFF AT THE END OF YOUR COMMENTS WITH A CONSISTENT PSEUDONYM NAME OR SOME INITIALS TO HELP MAINTAIN CONTINUITY AND NOT REQUIRE RESPONDERS TO LOOK UP THE DATE AND TIME OF THE POSTING TO DEFINE WHICH ANONYMOUS SAID WHAT. Thanks. ..Maurice
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Morally Acceptable or Not?: The Gallup's 2011 Poll Provides Popular Conclusions
Discussing ethical issues has been the purpose and the value of a blog such as mine here but the views expressed here provides no statistical strength to validate popular conclusions. That is why, to me, the current 2011 Values and Beliefs Gallup Poll is so important besides being interesting in looking at the results. From the Gallup website: "PRINCETON, NJ -- Doctor-assisted suicide emerges as the most controversial cultural issue in Gallup's 2011 Values and Beliefs poll, with Americans divided 45% vs. 48% over whether it is morally acceptable or morally wrong. Having a baby out of wedlock and abortion also closely divide Americans. However, stronger public consensus exists on 14 other issues tested."
Go to the above link and think over the all the results and come back and write about what interesting statistics you learned or surprised you about what folks in America think is morally acceptable and what is not. ..Maurice.
No Right to Say "NO"as a Patient Research Subject?
Autonomy is an ethical principle applied to patients to the effect that the patient can make their own medical decisions of the options available with regard to their medical care and management. The patient has an autonomous right to say "No!".This principle has been followed both by ethical consensus and law for many years in how patients should be and are treated in the healthcare system.
The April 2011 issue of American Journal of Bioethics has an article by Sarah J.L. Edwards (page 3) provides a complexity to the application of that autonomy in the case where a patient volunteers to become a research subject in a medical investigation. The suggestion is that medical research subjects should be denied full autonomy during participation particularly in removing themselves prematurely from further participation in the study or reject or fail to follow instructions about the protocol, fail taking the study drugs or failing to permit some non-invasive or harmless procedures. The argument presented is that this behavior may harm the study, “harm science” and potentially harm future patients. The idea is to have the study participants sign a contract which they must follow or otherwise be subjected to penalties. What this means is that the subjects who are patients have just lost part of their autonomy at the outset to prevent “harm”. Yet as volunteers for research a reasonable assumption to make is that the nature of the studies usually provide no practical self-benefit (including monetary) to the patient except for the subject being and feeling altruistic. The reason for the true absence of benefit is that good studies are usually performed in a blind and randomized way so that no subject knows what treatment they are receiving. Also, the study is devised because science has not yet established whether one treatment is more effective than the other. One could argue that participation in the study makes the individual no longer a patient but simply an experimental subject and no longer fully autonomous.
So, my question here is: do you think there is "harm" and should all subjects sign away their full autonomy as a patient with a contract not to leave the experiment and to follow fully its details otherwise subject to penalty of one sort or another? ..Maurice.
One Man’s Art is Another Man’s Graffiti: What is Ethical vs What is Immoral?
Unfortunately, what is deemed ethical or not ethical is something like what is considered art or simply graffiti. It all depends. It all depends from which perspective you are looking at the issue. It all depends on how you define or characterize the elements of art or the ethical issue that you are considering. It all depends on the nuances that can be introduced into the decision and which may be important in the final decision. It all depends on whether you are looking at the paint through the eyes of an art aficionado or looking at the ethical question through the eyes of a religious follower. Graffiti can be defended as “street art” and what appears as immoral or unethical can be defended as “controversially ethical”.
For those of us who would like to obtain a simple answer to what is art or what is ethical, well.. we can’t. Since, in the final analysis.. “it all depends…”
Or.. are there some of my visitors who find my conclusion an unnecessary misrepresentation and find that both art and ethics have clear guidelines with regard to establishing their presence and worth? If so, tell me about your ideas. ..Maurice.
Graphic: Recent photographs, I took, of a sequence of paintings on a local flood control channel wall, 2011.
