The Questions of Morality of Abortion and Euthanasia - Assignment Example

PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY ASSIGNMENTS Assignment 21 21) Read the introduction to chapter 1 and the first essay by Mary Anne Warren. Answer questions 1 & 3 at the end of the essay and send it to the instructor. The concept of personhood by Warren’s analysis is taken to be as equal as the humanity in the moral sense concept. There is no fetal development stage at which a fetus looks alike as a person to support that there is a reason of having an essential right concerning life. Simply because a person is developed from a potential fetus, it does not mean that the fetus has an important right to life when providing a basis for the claim in context. In this case, an abortion is appropriate and any woman has a right to do it in the society. It is morally justified that abortion can be practiced at any fetal development stage and a woman should be granted a right to abort without any legal restrictions applied. A new born infant is also entitled as a person and there are no any circumstances in which killing of innocent infants would be morally permissible in the society. An argument that it is wrong to kill human beings who are innocent has been established. Therefore, since fetuses are human beings, they ought not to be killed aimlessly. Assignment 22 22) Read the essay by Don Marquis, "Why Abortion is Immoral." Write a personal reaction paper and send it to the instructor. Abortion is seriously considered as an immoral act in very rare cases according to Marquis. The wrongness of killing a fetus is not defended and presented in the society. When a human being is innocently killed, he or she is denied a chance to perform his or her future plans such as experiences, enjoyments, projects and activities in order to make him or her comfortable. Killing a fetus which is typical is immoral and equivalent to killing another human being who is an adult. This comparison is made since a fetus is a person and we all developed from there. In the recent philosophical literature, the view of abortion has not been fully supported hence any type of abortion is entitled as immoral and should not be allowed. Abortion is immoral because it leads to a loss of many people in the society who are innocent. Assignment 23 23) Read Thomsons "A Defense of Abortion". Answer question # 2 on p. 34 and send it to the instructor Thomson does not in any way provide a defensive account of the right to life. She argues that abortion is not killing a fetus unjustly hence it does not in any manner violate its right to life. She also argues that in cases where a woman is raped, she does not extend a right to life for the fetus. This implies that if it happens that a woman is raped, she has the right to kill the fetus through abortion. In this manner, Thomson does not support nor provide any defensive account of the right to life of fetuses in context. Assignment 24 24) Read Lee and George on "The Wrong of Abortion". Write a response and send it to the instructor. Arguments in favor for abortion have been opposed by the traditional conservative case as discussed by George and Lee. The authors have defended the point that human organism which begins at conception, in a sense of the term is very essential to a human being. The fact that practicing abortion means killing a person with his or her own rights makes it immoral. They argue that the killing cannot in any way be justified or be non-intentional. Most of the abortions are practiced through killing fetuses intentionally so as to avoid responsibilities directed to them. George and Lee argue that parents should accept their responsibilities of taking care of infants and children among them. Both fathers and mothers should not take pregnancy as a burden and take abortion as an option in order to do away with their problems. Assignment 25 25) Read Little on "The Morality of Abortion". Write a personal reaction and send it to the instructor. Abortion is considered to be a morally matter which is weighty even if we ignore the claim that the fetus is also a person according to Little’s argument. She puts her view that, when looking at the degree values in respect to morality, abortion should not be practiced since it tampers with human life. According to the moral values there should be a practice of respect to creation through birth. Another thing is that motherhood should be considered and respected since human beings (persons) emerge and grow from there. In the society, she argues that, women should individually develop their commitments, personal ideals and fundamental identities in considering the morality part of abortion. By doing this, individual women will realize that abortion is immoral. Assignment 26 26) Read the introduction to chapter 2 in Social Ethics. Then read the paper by James Rachels, "Active and Passive Euthanasia." Write a personal reaction paper in response to the two examples Rachels uses on p. 69. The two example cases are presented by Rachels and both involve human beings. One involves killing whereas the other involves letting someone die in order for another to survive. In the first example, a person called Smith secretly sneaks into the bathroom and drowns his six-year-old son and kills him. He then arranges things in order the scene to look like an accident hence no truth revealed. Smith does all this so that he can gain a large inheritance which will be presented to him alone. In the second example, Jones plans to drown his six-year-old son in order to stand the gain of inheritance. He enters the bathroom where the child is bathing and watches him slip and hit his head accidentally and dies. He tries to help him but all goes in vain and lets him die. Both Smith and Jones from the start have the motive of killing for their own interests of personal gain. There is no moral important lesson between the two since there is no difference between killing and letting die. Assignment 27 27) Read the essay by Daniel Callahan, "Killing and allowing to die." Answer the questions at the end of the essay and send your responses to the instructor. A valid distinction in reference to moral, medical and metaphysical perspectives between killing and allowing dying has been developed by Callahan. He insists that the world from an external view is very distinct hence it has its own dynamism which is causal. There is a great difference between moral culpability and physical causality in context. There is no valid distinction between killing and allowing dying since they both result to death. I do agree with Callahan that the power of the physician must be “only to cure or comfort, never to kill”. This is because a physician is supposed to support life and maintain one’s physical ability but not cause death of people. Assignment 28 28) Read the essay by Dan W. Brock, "Voluntary Active Euthanasia." Answer the questions at the end of the essay and send your responses to the instructor. Considerations of self-determination and individual well-being to establish the moral legitimacy of voluntary active euthanasia are sufficient. Many people through self-determination have ever wanted to live in accordance with their own conception of a good life. Many individuals want to live within the consistent and justice bounds. By doing this, individuals practice self-determination by taking responsibilities for their lives and get concerned about what kind of people they want to become in future. Provision of voluntary active euthanasia by physicians is incompatible with their professional roles as healers. This is because its immoral to cause death of an individual in the name of removing a burden from him or her. If voluntary active euthanasia were to be legalized, patients would lose trust in physicians since they would fear about their lives. Assignment 29 29) Read the essay by Stephen G. Potts, "Objections to the Institutionalization of Euthanasia." Write a personal reaction paper and send it to the instructor Any scheme or strategy that would help institutionalize euthanasia is opposed by Potts. He argues that there are many risks being posed if euthanasia is legalized. He says that of course a person may indeed have a right to die by himself or she but that does not mean that he or she has a right to receive assistance from others in practicing suicide or a right to be killed aimlessly. He therefore opposes that euthanasia should not be legally institutionalized. Assignment 30 30) Read the essay by David T. Watts and Timothy Howell, "Assisted Suicide is not Voluntary Active Euthanasia." Answer the questions at the end of the essay and send your responses to the instructor. The social consequences of legalizing physician-assisted suicide will be less problematic than the social consequences of legalizing voluntary active euthanasia. This is because physicians if allowed to legally practice euthanasia to patients, they would kill many people compared to when individual patients volunteer to practice it. Therefore, physicians should not participate in supporting in patients’ suicides in any way nor allowed to directly help patients in suicide committing in the society. Assignment 31 31) Read the essay by Miller and Meier. Write a reaction and send it to the instructor. Terminal dehydration should be exclusively recognized as an alternative to suicides which are physicians-assisted and supported according to Meier and Miller’s arguments. Patients who are infected with incurable diseases are allowed to forgo hydration or nutrition in order to cause their deaths freely, rather than allowing physicians to aid the victims in committing suicides. There is an argument that deaths caused by terminal dehydration hold a stronger moral basis other than those that are supported by physicians in context. Assignment 32 32) Read the introduction to chapter 3. Read the essay by Igor Primoratz, "A Life for a Life". Answer the questions at the end of the essay. Send your responses to the instructor. The idea of introducing death penalty really violates a murder’s right to life. There is no law which should be passed to support that criminals should be executed or posed a death penalty because each and every human being has a right to life. Therefore death penalties are considered to be inappropriate in dealing with crimes associated with murder. Death penalties should be totally abolished if blacks are more likely to receive the death penalty than whites when they both commit capital crimes. This is because a lot of favor and bias would be practiced in this matter. On the other hand, death penalties should be abolished if at all the poor and uneducated people are more likely to receive death penalty than the educated and affluent ones. This is because each and every human being has a right to life regardless of a murder’s educational or material possession background. Assignment 33 33) Read Stephen Nathansons essay, "An Eye for an Eye?" Write a personal reaction paper and send it to the instructor. There is a clear distinction which has been presented by Nathanson when looking between proportional retributivism and equality retributivism aspects. In respect to equality retributivism, it is argued that the punishment induced to a criminal should be at all means is equal to the crime committed. On the other hand, in respect to proportional retributivism, it is suggested that the punishment should be proportional to the crime. Assignment 34 34) Read Pojmans "Deterrence and the Death Penalty". Answer the questions at the end of the essay and send them to the instructor. Anecdotal or common sense evidence is not a compelling basis for one to conclude that the death penalty is uniquely effective actions that need to be practiced to murderers. There is an argument that death penalty should be retained since the risk of needlessly doing away with the lives of convicted murderers is better than running the risk of innocent people who become future murder victims. This is based on the argument that death penalty is a humane punishment to murderer victims. Life of a convicted murderer is not worth as much as the life of a potential murderer victim because they almost fall under the same bracket. There is no one’s life which is considered to be more important than the other in murderers’ context. Assignment 35 35) Read Reimans essay. Write a reaction and send it to the instructor. In respect to commonsense argument, the abolition of the death penalty can largely have an effect which is civilized concerning the society and individuals as countered by Reiman. He says that it there are no effective proves that the death penalty deters more murders than life imprisonment among individual victims. He also states that individuals should follow common sense which will help them go for effective morals other than the immoral ones. Assignment 36 Assignment 36 36) Read Dolinkos paper. Answer questions # 1, 2, 3 on p. 154 and send them to the instructor If it is true that the race of the victim is a significant factor in the imposition of the death penalty, they therefore should be discarded and abolished in that matter. The abolition of death penalty should be practiced because no one is supposed to die simply because he or she comes from a certain race regardless of the murder crime committed. All races are equal and should be universally treated fairly when it comes to matters concerning life of human beings. The mistake argument about death penalty is sufficient in making it be discarded or abolished in the society. The argument is sufficient since it states that everyone, including murderers, at one time make mistakes hence they are not supposed to be subjected to death as a punishment. There are other means which can be applied as a punishment to individual victims rather than death penalties. Another thing is that, procedural arguments against death penalty are sufficient enough to make the case abolished or not allowed. When an effective procedure in respect to moral values is followed, death penalty will not be taken as a proper solution to crime in the society. Assignment 37-Case Study Report II Write a case study report on Abortion. There is an appendix in Applied Professional Ethics that describes how to write a case study report and another appendix that gives examples of case study reports. I will upload it also In respect to a rape case which is experienced in New York City whereby a sixteen-year-old girl is raped, is a form of immorality. The girl is raped by a gang of thugs hence impregnating and leaving her unconscious in the alley. The police later discover her and take her to hospital where a doctor realizes that she is pregnant. Her doctor then goes to an extent of advising her to abort which is an immoral thing. The girl should keep moral values and respect lives hence keep the pregnancy. It will be unethical and immoral if the girl takes abortion as an option to relieve herself from anger and depression. She should support life of the innocent fetus who is a person in that matter. In conclusion, abortion is one way or another supported as well as opposed by individuals in the society, depending under which circumstance it occurs. Immoral actions such as abortion, murder, suicide and rape should be greatly condemned in the society since they go against human beings morality backgrounds. References Nagel, T. (1974). The rights and wrongs of abortion: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Read More