Basic Ethical

Principles
Group 3

Basic Ethical Principles

Stewardship
- Human life comes from God
- We have the responsibility to protect and defend it
- We have the obligation to seek appropriate medical care to ensure its proper functioning
Totality
-

"According to the philosopher Thomas Aquinas, all of the organs and other parts of the body exist for the
sake of the whole person. Because the purpose of the part is to serve the whole, any action that damages a
part of the body or prevents it from fulfilling its purpose violates the natural order and is morally wrong.
However, a single part may be sacrificed if the loss is necessary for the good of the whole person.

For example, the principle of totality would justify the amputation of a gangrenous limb, because the person
could die if the gangrene spread.
Double Effect
- an action with both good and bad results may be undertaken on four conditions.
First, the action must be morally good or neutral in itself. Providing medicine to a sick patient
meets this requirement.
Second, the bad results cannot be the means for achieving the good results. In this case,
negative side effects don't cause the medicine to work more effectively.
Third, the motivation for carrying out the action must be solely to achieve the good results.
Doctors prescribe medicine to help their patients, not to expose them to side effects.
Fourth, the good result must be at least as significant as the bad. So prescribing medication
with side-effects is acceptable if the health benefits to the patient will be at least as significant
as the harm from the side-effects.
Cooperation
- developed in the Catholic moral tradition as a way of helpingindividuals discern how
to properly avoid, limit, or distance themselves from evil(especially intrinsic evil) in
order to avoid a worse evil or to achieve an important good.

Solidarity
- The principle of solidarity invites us to consider how we relate to each other incommunity.

Respect for person Autonomy

- agreement to respect another's right to self-determine a course of action; support of independent decision
making.
Example:
In clinical situations nurses respect a patients autonomy, where the patient is allowed the freedom of
choice regarding treatment, such as in deciding whether he/she wishes to be intubated during an exacerbation
of COPD, or deciding when he/she wishes to forgo further dialysis. If a patient lacks capacity for such a
decision and has an advance directive, the person who has the durable power of attorney can make the
decision.
Justice
- Derived from the work of John Rawls, this principle refers to an equal and fair distribution of resources,
based on analysis of benefits and burdens of decision. Justice implies that all citizens have an equal right to
the goods distributed, regardless of what they have contributed or who they are. For example, in the US, we
all have rights to services from the postal service, firefighters, police, and access to public schools, safe water,
and sanitation.
Example:

A hospital organization wishes to donate low or no-cost pediatric dental services to the community.
There are openings for 45 children per month. Justice requires a fair method, that is free from bias, to
determine who will receive these services.

Inviolability of Life
- Inalienable right to life
- God has ultimate power on human life
- According to Catholic Moral Theology, the "taking of life" may be justified in cases of self-defense and 'just
war'.
- However, direct killing of an innocent person on one's own authority is always wrong.

Non Maleficence
- avoidance of harm or hurt; core of medical oath and nursing ethics.
Often in modern times, nonmaleficence extends to making sure you are doing no harm in the beneficent act
of using technology to extend life or in using experimental treatments that have not been well tested.
Example:
When this elderly person above received pain medication (an act of beneficence) there are
complications that could arise. Practitioners recognize that using a narcotic may cause confusion. When
obtaining the consent for her hip surgery, we want to make certain that the patient is alert enough to
understand the risks and benefits of the procedure. We must balance the beneficence of providing the
medication quickly with the possible maleficence of obtaining a consent when patient does not have the
capacity to make the decision for surgery
Beneficence
- compassion; taking positive action to help others; desire to do good; core principle of our patient advocacy.
Example:
An elderly patient falls at home and has a fractured hip. In the emergency room, the nurse acts to
provide pain medication as soon as possible in an act of beneficence.
Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Mean
-

The distinction between ordinary and extraordinary treatments was once widely invoked, both to justify and
to condemn decisions to use or forgo life-sustaining treatments. The traditional rule is that extraordinary
treatments can legitimately be forgone, whereas ordinary treatments cannot legitimately be forgone.

Used to determine whether an act that results in death counts as killing.