DAY 67 - Ashley Article

Step 1
Please take 5 minutes to respond to this question:
How do we determine the rightness or wrongness of an action?


Step 2
Please choose ONE option from each category for your future unborn child and write an explanation about why you chose that option.  Two minutes for each choice, total of five minutes!

Physical Features
Make my child beautiful
Make my child athletic
Make my child tall
        
Health
Remove all genes for inherited diseases
Add a gene strengthening my child's immune system
        
Intelligence
Make my child shrewd in business
Make my child a musical prodigy
Make my child an artistic genius
        
Emotions 
Remove the gene for feeling emotional pain
Remove the genes for lying, cheating, and stealing
Add a gene for honesty
    
Social Skills  
Make my child the life of the party
Make my child compassionate
Make my child confident


Step 3
Please read the Ashley Article handout.  

And check out the family's suggestion for the ethical treatment of patients in Ashley's condition Ashley Treatment Summary.

Please answer these Ashley Article Questions fully in your notebook:

1.  Who is the moral agent who exhibited the virtues or extremes of behaviour?

2.  Describe the moral agent's behaviour.

3.  Do you think the moral agent's actions were morally right or morally wrong?  Why?

4.  Draw a continuum similar to the one show in Fig 12.2 on p. 245 of your text.  Label it with a virtue exhibited (or not exhibited) by the moral agent and add the extremes at either end.  Locate the moral agent on the continuum .  Please comment on what you've drawn.

5.  Were the actions of the moral agent good?  Were they right?  Explain the difference.

6.  Please comment, using quotes, on what two different philosophers might say about the situation in which Ashley and her family find themselves.  Pick one philosopher who would agree with the hospital's actions when they operated on Ashley and one philosopher who would oppose that action.  Add your own commentary about why you agree with one of those philosophers and why you disagree with the other and explain fully why you take that position.

We'll take these up tomorrow.