The Ethics of Benevolent Deception Essay

Currently, most people generally accept a doctor’s word as truth and do not question him or her. When it comes to the medical field, patients can often feel overwhelmed by all the confusing medical terms being thrown at them, so they tend to sit back and do as the doctor says. Healthcare professionals sometimes take advantage of this fact and withhold important information from their patients. For instance, a study conducted by Lisa Lezzoni, MD, and her peers states that more than half of physicians lied to their patients about their diagnosis to put a more positive spin on it (Lezzoni, Rao, DesRoches, Vogeli, and Campbell). Healthcare professionals should disclose to the patient any information pertaining to the patient.

A benevolent lie is when someone tells a lie, but not with the intentions of harming anyone in the process but to help the person to whom it is told. This type of lie is better known as the harmless little white lie. After reading chapter three I have concluded that to many unconscious benevolent lies are told at my house. Learning about this topic pointed out how often it happens without notice, for example my little girl just lost her front teeth and asked me if she will look pretty for her school pictures. My reply was “You’re going to be the most beautiful girl in the world!” Which she is beautiful to me no matter what but not to the world. I have told her the tooth fairy is real leaving money under her pillow in exchange for each tooth she loses. Also guilt for the story about Santa and how he gives presents when she’s been good or no presents if she’s been bad that year. This benevolent lie is to benefit me I guess to threaten her when she misbehaves. Another example is my second born goes around saying she is my favorite child so, I just agree that she is my favorite child but not to tell her sisters so their feeling won’t get hurt. They’re all my favorite in their own special little way not just her. These benevolent lies just keep coming. This one my oldest daughter had a pet fish that she cared for. The fish recently died so I had to replace it before she came home. She noticed it looked a little different and asked if I noticed anything dissimilar. I replied, “No

Within their paper, Childress and Siegler expand upon five models of physician-patient relationships that are omnipresent within the healthcare setting: Paternalism, Partnership, Friendship, Contract, and Technical Assistance (Childress and Siegler 74). By using these models, physicians often use these social frameworks to “appeal to ethical principles related to informed consent or shared decision-making or, at a deeper level, [the] goal of respecting patient autonomy” (Schwartz 2011). While the substantial purpose of using these models is to help alleviate the excruciating effects of disease, there are drawbacks to these models where efforts to respect patient autonomy may aggravate a patients’ suffering, specifically paternalism. Advocates

Autonomy includes three primary conditions: (1) liberty (independence from controlling influences), (2) agency (capacity for intentional action), and (3) understanding (through informed consent) (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 100). According to Beauchamp & Childress (2009) to respect autonomous agents, one must acknowledge their right to hold views, to make choices, and to take actions based on their personal values and beliefs (p. 103). Respect for autonomy implies thaturges caregivers to respect theassist a patient in achieving? Heed? the autonomous choices of their patients. From there, patients can act intentionally and with full understanding when evaluating medical treatment modalities. Autonomy also includes a set of rules, one of which requires that providers honor patient decision-making rights by providing the truth, also known as veracity (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009, p. 103). In this case, several facets of the principle of respecting autonomy, specifically veracity, informed

To argue the first premise, he appeals to common knowledge that doctors hold their occupations because they are more knowledgeable in a medical context on the options for improving health and longevity. With this in mind, he then establishes that individuals who consult physicians do so in order to prolong their life and improve their well-being. By establishing these foundational premises for paternalism in a medical context, Goldman can now argue that given a patient that is determined to be acting out of line with his true values and his actions might result in harm that is severe, certain, and irreversible, it is the physician’s professional to override the patients’ immediate rights in order to preserve that patients’ more long-term desires. But how can the physician determine whether the patient is acting in line with his true values in the case of withholding medical information from the patient?

According to Higgs, one reason why a medical profession might withhold the truth from the patient is that : it may actually do harm through anxiety and distress that's produced after disclosing the truth. At times, truth-telling can lead to major/acute distress or long term disability. There can also be times where distress and fear can lead to a more severe condition of an illness or even causing a patient to deny the treatment. In either way, there is a high chance that the worsening of the illness may occur after a physician disclosing the truth to his/her

The concept of autonomy in the medical practice brings many different views. Autonomy is the ability individuals have to be self-governing. In these different views there exist two schools of thought, one is the belief that people are born with the ability to do what they want their body and no organization can tell them what to do with their body, like the government. On the other hand, some people believe that it is more complicated and conditional on mental competency so that person can make rational decisions. However, the majority of people seem to advocate for autonomy. A particular largely uncontroversial discussion arises with the case of Dax Cowart, who had his right to autonomy taken from him in a tragic accident and is

The most important lesson learned from this case was the revising of medical treatment. Medicine should treat patients as autonomous subjects. Thus came about the development of autonomy based ethics principles. “Ethics needs principles – four can encompass the rest – and the respect for autonomy should be ‘first among equals”. (Gillon, 2003)

Although there are several debates against this view point, it is not up to anyone else to make decisions of the ill and infirm. As such it should be recognized that “patients have a right to make

The idea of the supernatural holds a lot of questioning because of its indistinguishable characteristics and lack of empirical evidence. However, the belief someone holds in the supernatural, or the belief that someone does not hold, does not mean it does not exist for another person. The personal connection to supernatural forces and the willingness to accept the unknown shows the power of the supernatural. The unknown or uncertainty of the supernatural is something that some people have recognized as something beyond their control, or “out of this world.” In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macbeth is confronted with the supernatural firsthand, however, it is viewed as a force of evil.

Michael H., a 68-year-old man, was admitted for exploratory surgery of his abdomen. He is frail, and his attending physician describes him as “emotionally labile.” Marcy R. is a social worker at BFL General Hospital, who is assigned to the unit that Michael H has been admitted. After Michael’s surgery, Marcy R. was approached by Michael H.’s daughter, Ellen B. in which Ellen has told Marcy that her father’s physician had just informed her that the lab report from the exploratory surgery shows that her father has terminal cancer. Ellen said that she and the family are in shock and they have decided that they not want the hospital staff to tell her father about the terminal nature of his cancer once he recovers from anesthesia. In this essay, I will discuss the ethical dilemma of “to tell Michael or not to tell him he has terminal cancer. He has the right to confidentiality by not withholding information from him when he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, informed consent, and self-determination.

The question of what constitutes morality is often asked by philosophers. One might wonder why morality is so important, or why many of us trouble ourselves over determining which actions are moral actions. Mill has given an account of the driving force behind our questionings of morality. He calls this driving force “Conscience,” and from this “mass of feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates our standard of right,” we have derived our concept of morality (Mill 496). Some people may practice moral thought more often than others, and some people may give no thought to morality at all. However, morality is nevertheless a possibility of human nature, and a

Deception According to Hyman (1989) deception implies that an agent acts or speaks so as to induce a false belief in a target or victim. Deception can occur in everyday life. Whether it is telling someone they look nice or not telling them that they look fat. This is an important process for forming relationships and general social interaction.

Individuals seek medical treatment everyday to stay healthy, treat an illness, or to stay alive. We all seek treatment whether it is voluntary or in an emergency basis. Some individuals suffer from severe illnesses, in which they might get to a certain point and decide to refuse medical treatment because they do not want to go through the pain anymore. Doctors face at least one ethical issue on a day-to-day basis due to patients refusing medical treatment, and possibly wanting to end their lives. Every year this has become a controversial debate whether or not it is ethical for patients to refuse treatment.

Soon the principle of autonomy gained primacy over paternalistic practices. The principle of autonomy gave patients the right to make decisions on their own behalf. This shifted power and control from physicians to patients, allowing them to refuse treatment and do things that might not be in their best interest. This brings up the debate of resuscitation. Autonomic practices obligate physicians to honor patients’ preferences, including their desire not to be resuscitated. This ethical dilemma often crosses paths with the principle of beneficence. This principle states that we should act in ways that promote the welfare of other people. However, in the event of no resuscitation, a physician is unable to help other people when given the