tgFinally, you will be required to submit a final essay, due the Friday of the 8th week of class, on applied ethics. Please use the same formatting guidelines as the above paper and submit it to the dropbox created for the assignment. This final essay will focus on applying our theory to actual scenarios and defending a particular course of action within the confines of the chosen scenario. You will have an option of answering any one of the following three essay questions:
1) A patient enters the emergency room with stomach pain. She undergoes routine analysis and is diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a weakening in the wall of the aorta which causes it to stretch and bulge. The physicians inform her that the only way to fix the problem is surgically, and that the chances of survival are approximately 50%. They also inform her that time is of the essence, and that should the aneurysm burst, she would very likely be dead within a few short minutes. The patient is a swimsuit model and she has expressed concern about the scar the surgery will leave that may negatively affect her work. Even after much pressuring from the physicians, she continues to refuse surgery. Feeling that the woman is not in her correct state of mind and knowing that time is of the essence, the surgeons decide to perform the procedure without consent. They anesthetize her and surgically repair the aneurysm. She survives, and takes legal action against the hospital.
Do you believe that the physician’s actions can be justified in any way?
2) In 1992, NBC’s Dateline was caught having lied numerous times while attempting to prove that GM trucks manufactured with gasoline tanks mounted on the outside of the frame were unsafe. Later that year, ABC’s Prime Time Live was found to have fabricated employment records while attempting to expose a national chain supermarket for allegedly selling tainted meat. Of course, breaking a story and exposing the truth about unsafe vehicles or food being sold is good. Lying however, is bad. Oftentimes journalists will create lies that support their preconceived conclusion to uncover a story.
Is it ever acceptable for a journalist to lie to uncover a story that may benefit many people?
3) Although Hillary Clinton now occupies position 2 on the list of the world’s most powerful women, and position 16 on the list of the most powerful people created by Forbes, she encountered countless barriers that made her rise to such a position tremendously difficult. Simone de Beauvoir has famously written on women’s lack of solidarity with one another. She has suggested that oppression does exist in the workplace, and that when women overcome this systemic oppression to occupy a position of power, they tend to ignore the many plights of other women attempting to rise to a similar status, and instead, begin to relate more closely to their male colleagues who have long occupied such positions of privilege.
Do people like Hillary Clinton (or all of us more generally) have an obligation to promote fairness to the fullest extent possible within our profession/workplace?