PHIL 235 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Health Care In Canada, Normative Ethics, Applied Ethics
11 May 2018
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Lesson 1
Morality of Ethics
• We will all potential be a patient or even stand by someone who will
encounter the Canadian health care system
• When you’re sick sometimes it is hard to make sound decisions
• We have HCPs to help us in difficult times
• But how can you trust a HCP when you only come into contact with them fore
10 mins at the clinic?
• 4.4 million Canadians have no family doctors and have to rely on walk in
clinic with doctor that are strangers to them
• ppl that lose trust in HCP may take longer to go see a doctor if they are sick→
which can be dangerous
1.2 Morality and Ethics
• Morality= consists of views about how one ought to behave in society, about
what is right and wrong, and about what is good or bad behaviour
• Moral values do not have to be written down, usually generalized→ do not
kill, let alders take seat on bus…
• Morality is the grease that allows social relations to occur with little friction
as possible
• Ethics= is the systematic, academic study of morality as a concept of
behavioural guidance
• Ethicists→ philosophers who specialize in studying morality and its practical
application→ try to ensure that whatever it is that morality tells us to do is
strongly justified and therefore worthy of acceptance as morally appropriate
• Ethics is divided into 3 categories
1) Metaethics
2) Normative ethics
3) Applied ethics
• Metaethics= study of morality as a concept→ if morality can exist, whether
morality can be justified, what is the nature of morality, what the sources are
and the nature of moral statements
• Normative ethics= Comprises statements and principles that tell ppl how to
behave to live a moral life.
→ Considers the content of morality by evaluating the justification given
for various statements of moral behaviour → ex) take your shoes off outside
your host’s home
• Applied ethics= study of morality and the problems associated w/ very
specific practical contexts like medicine.
→ ex) if it morally permissible for a physican to kill a patient
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
The Purpose and Aim of Morality
• Morality is a formal system of rules obligating & prohibiting particular
actions within a society for the purposes of
1) Generating co-operative behaviour
2) Regulating interpersonal relations in such a way as to achieve that
purpose
• Practical action guidance & the predictability of others’ behaviours→ allow
individuals to live co-operatively together
• Work together co-operatively= trust them that they won’t harm you, or
disadvantage you….
• We have to have rules of common accepted behaviours that allows us to
predict how they will act
• Predictable & co-operative → future behaviour
• Big challenge for morality → balancing self-intrests with the intrests of
others → we think of ourselves first and how our actions can effect others…
• Ppl are egoistic → the group I identify with is the best
As an egoist, i want to promote my interests unimpeded.
The more others, including the government, interfere with my interests by telling
me what to do, the more harm i experience.
However, rules are necessary to create co-operation and resolve conflicts, which
cannot occur unless (almost) all individuals follow them.
Thus, i accept minimal interference in the form of moral/legal rules in order to
create an environment of maximal freedom.
• Thus, compromise and acting co-operatively might interfere a little biy but in
the long term whatever she has planned will be more smooth (in dealing w/
society) than if she cheats the system bc she wants it right now
• Enlightened Egoist → recognize yourself as an important person among
many important people, all with interests potentially in conflict
Law and Morality
• Generally viewed as separate but related realms but this is superficially true
• Most moral rules don’t have laws enforced on them
• Laws are not always moral
• But all laws aim for moral justifications→ social co-operation, protecting the
vulnerable, resolving conflicts…
• Human relations were just relied on morality (older times)
• Laws can be passed by any leader that’s in power, if they are nice, or evil
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• If we all as a society agree that something is permissible then there should be
a law that reflects it
Human Rights
• Go intro 3 categories
1) Moral Rights →justified by the reasoning of enlightened conscience
regarding human needs & welfare-based interests
2) Political Rights → validated by laws, which must be justified morally
3) Legal Rights → validated by laws, which must be justified morally
• A right → entails a duty or obligation that entitles the rights-holder to
demand, not merely petition or ask for, performance of correlative duties
• Basic human rights→ objectively true moral behaviors required to facilitate
co-operative behavior → universally acceptable
• Political rights→ ensured by law and require individuals to receive
recognition & right to participate in legal proceedings
• Negative rights= are rights to non-interference
Ex) your right not to be harmed or killed generates an obligation that others
must refrain from hitting you or shooting you
• Positive rights (welfare rights) = are rights to be provided with some item or
service you require for your welfare
Ex) an elementary school education or health care
→ Positive rights hard to identify who owes the duty or obligation since the
duty-holder is not specified
The Source of Morality: Egoism, relativism & Objectivism
• We agree that morality helps us behave & resolve conflict but what is the
problem is when we try to determine, which possible sources of morality
will provide the rules
1) Subjectivism
2) Moral or ethical relativism
3) Objectivism
a) an authority
b) reason/rationality
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Considers the (cid:498)content(cid:499) of morality by evaluating the justification given your host"s home: applied ethics= study of morality and the problems associated w/ very specific practical contexts like medicine. Ex) if it morally permissible for a physican to kill a patient. As an egoist, i want to promote my interests unimpeded. The more others, including the government, interfere with my interests by telling me what to do, the more harm i experience. However, rules are necessary to create co-operation and resolve conflicts, which cannot occur unless (almost) all individuals follow them. If we all as a society agree that something is permissible then there should be a law that reflects it. Ex) an elementary school education or health care. Positive rights hard to identify who owes the duty or obligation since the duty-holder is not specified. When in italy, act like romans within homogenous culture action guidance is possible but when cultures conflict (heterogeneous culture like.
