Essay 1- Bioethics

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University of California, Davis *

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015

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Philosophy

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Apr 3, 2024

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pdf

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6

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The Last of Us Introduction In this paper I will be discussing the ideas that are highlighted in the show called, “The Last of Us” using principlism. I will take into consideration the questions poised like, “What should the doctors in this situation do?” and “What should Joel do?”. After going over the ideas using principlism, I will conclude that the doctors and Joel did not abide by the rules of principlism towards Ellie and that due to the situation the doctors and Joel did not do the right thing morally speaking, but they also did not completely do the wrong thing too. The essay will be broken down into parts as follows. Part 1: Applying Principlism to “The Last of Us” Case The principles of Principlism consist of the Respect of Autonomy, Nonmaleficence, Beneficence, and Justice. (Beauchamp, pg 5-7) The principle of Autonomy is Respect for persons, where this let's humans have the right to be free to make choices for their own body. In the “Last of Us” case this principle was somewhat upheld as Ellie heavily implied that she would sacrifice herself in order to save others. However, the way Ellie was brought to the doctors is what contradicts the Respect for Autonomy, since she had been smuggled by Joel against her will and had not given consent to the doctors for possibly ending her life. In other words, the doctors had not given or asked for her decision of what she wanted to do, even though throughout the show she was willing to sacrifice herself. The other principle is Beneficence, which is the obligation to contribute to a person’s welfare. In this case, Beneficence and Autonomy overlap with each other because Ellie's choice to sacrifice herself is what can benefit others. Beneficence is also upheld in a way because of how the doctors are trying to find a cure in order to help save the people. However, the doctor's choices lead them to contradict with another principle which is
Nonmaleficence. Nonmaleficence is the principle of the obligation to not inflict harm on others. The doctors do not uphold this because of how they are conducting a fatal surgery on Ellie without her Autonomy. This shows how the doctors violate the principle of Nonmaleficence because of how they are inflicting harm in order to gain Beneficence for their other patients. The last principle is Justice, which is the distribution of health in a fair and equitable manner. For this case, I am not entirely sure if Justice is upheld since Joel had saved Ellie. So it is unknown whether her sacrifice would even result in a cure and be distributed to all people. In this case, none of the agents, like the doctors or Joel, abided by principlism because of how there is no respect for Autonomy. Without the respect for Autonomy, the other principles are not abided as a whole because of how Ellie needed to be actively involved in what happens with her body and life. Part 2: Question asks “What should the doctors in this situation do?” In this situation, the doctors should have done anything in their power to find a cure because of how the fungus was destroying their civilization. In other words, the doctors had the right way of thinking when looking at the situation from a “do or die” point of view. For example, a situation that is closely related to this thinking is the trolley problem. Since the doctors are thinking in a manner of killing one person to save a whole civilization or risking the civilization in order to not harm this one person. (Merriam-Webster, p# 1) It shows that even though the doctors violated the principle of Autonomy, they acted accordingly to the situation overall because of how they were at a point where they had limited time and resources. In this situation, the doctors did what they had to do in a way because if they just stood by and did nothing, then there would be no hope at all. Everyone would just die because of how there is no one who is willing to find a cure.
Part 3: Question asks “What should Joel do?” With Joel what he shouldn't have done was lie to Ellie, because of how big the situation was. In a way, it affects her Principlism because of how Joel is making her believe that she is not the only one immune to the infection, which is not the case at all. By lying to her it can potentially affect her judgment because of how she could believe that because the tests run on the other immune people did not work, then that would be the same case for her. Or she could have possibly thought of the “what ifs” on if the doctors would be able to find a cure through her. For example, with Dax’s case it goes over how the patient who has the decision-making capacity has the legal right to refuse or accept any and all treatment. (Burton, pg 1)This shows, with Ellie and Joel, Joel basically made Ellie’s decision when he lied to her because of how even though Ellie is capable of making her own decision, she doesn't know the full story which can affect the call she wants to make for herself. This also violates the principle of nonmaleficence and autonomy because of how Joel is harming Ellie with his lie in a way where her autonomy is affected where she feels like her sacrifice could be for nothing. Part 4: Possible Objections And Responding to Them In Part 2, I argued that the doctors did the right thing in the situation they were in because of how under these circumstances it was necessary to think in a way that can benefit the majority. But one may argue that this is wrong because of how the doctors should not have abandoned their morals and principles completely. Since at the end of the day the doctors are still considering taking someone’s life. I respond to this by saying, how under these circumstances where your whole civilization is on the line there is not a lot of time to think rationally as more people become infected. Another may also argue that this is wrong because of how the doctors were not respecting her Autonomy since they did consult what the plans were or had her actively
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