Dishonoring a Persons Moral Rights - Essay Example

The question of moral rights is a long-debated issue. Many have argued about the extent of moral rights but the issue still remains a moral and ethical dilemma in the present society. When a dying person’s chance to live is almost gone and hospital bills keep running without assurance that the patient can be revived. Dishonoring the right to live in lieu of practical reasons, the situation presents both moral and ethical dilemmas.

 In his book, Gazzaniga (20) points out that since there is no consensus on when consciousness actually begins, there is likewise no definite time as to when consciousness ends. Following this, he raises the view that determining the end of consciousness should then serve as an indication that a person has no chance to live, hence giving others the right to dishonor the patient’s moral rights.

Many neuroscientists agree that there is a certain state when a person loses consciousness. In particular, brain trauma or severe dementia could lead a person to be entirely unconscious of what is happening around him. The meaning of consciousness could lead to a better view of the issue. By consciousness, we mean, “attentiveness,” or “a state of arousal.” A person who is unable to attentively do mental processes is therefore considered unconscious. Gazzaniga further explains that a person who is unable to process cognition is considered “incapable of morally or ethically being engaged in anything” (27-28).

The patient loses his human characteristics owing to the inability to use the brain. This leads to the impossibility of exercising moral rights, leading them to be considered irrelevant and useless. A person’s moral rights should then be revoked because they are useless in the given situation. To elucidate, if a plant seizes to grow and has withering leaves, it will soon decay, even if one waters it every day and exposes it to sunlight. If it dries up and all its leaves fall, leaving the branches, it will have no use so it would be better to unroot it and plant another tree in its place.

If the owner wishes to retain it, with all its dryness and sullen appearance, he is not keeping it for its purpose as a tree but for sentimentality, which could be both impractical and unreasonable. Similarly, if a person ceases to function normally, the person will eventually die, thus prolonging hospitalization or clinical treatment will not matter or have an effect on him. Moreover, if the family decides to keep the patient with severe dementia in bed without the latter living a normal life, they are only behaving like the tree owner who wishes to keep the person for sentimentality or moral decency.

In this case, the purpose of life is gone, and morality can be all the more questioned. Further to the issue of when a person loses the ability to control brain processes, Gazzaniga elaborates that this happens when “the nervous system can no longer sustain the cardiovascular function on its own” (28). Although some may contest that consciousness ends before the nervous systems reach such a point, it is rational to believe that the chance to live is similarly gone. The person will die no matter what, and the only incentive is that relatives can see him longer. In such a situation, it will also be unfair to the patient because he is kept for a different purpose. To make it worse, the family will have to pull up resources in order to afford clinical services. 

Relevantly, if the patient is in a charity ward, he will be wasting resources that should be spent on other patients. Such a situation may be more immoral and unethical to bear for both family members and physicians.

 Another issue that needs to be addressed is, “Up to what point should society honor the will of a person?” This is applicable when a person has given will before the severity happened. In this regard, it should be emphasized that the will of a normal-thinking and behaving person is different from that of a severely demented person. Those of the latter are only brought about by stimulus-response processes. Meaning, they are not products of rationality or human brain processes. Such can be compared to the brain processes of animals. Therefore, they should neither warrant consideration nor should they affect moral and ethical standards.