Moral foundations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Moral foundations - Essay Example It's easy to see where a moral misstep could be disastrous for any health professional. In order to mitigate these ethical conflicts, health professionals are held to strict codes of conduct and etiquette, as well as general laws about the treatment of patients and the protection of patient rights. However, there are many places where personal beliefs, codes of conduct, and law and policy are in disagreement. Beauchamp and Childress describe two major types of moral dilemmas that occur within the medical profession. The first type of moral dilemma occurs when there exists evidence that a specific action could be considered either right or morally reprehensible, but there isn't enough evidence to make the distinction. Beauchamps and Childress suggested abortion as an example of this type of dilemma; another example would be flag-burning (10). The second type of moral dilemma can arise when there are two possible courses of action for a health care professional. The obligations both ha ve equal moral weight under normal circumstances; however, in emergency situations, a set of obligations that must normally be obeyed can be ignored. The health care professional must choose a single course of action from multiple differing obligations. Because of the equal moral weight of the opinions on the action, whatever choice is used will always seem morally wrong to someone in some way, and seem right to others. (Beauchamp and Childress 10). The second type of moral dilemma given above leads directly to the idea introduced by Beauchamp and Childress that such dilemmas should be examined in order to determine the overriding set of moral actions in a given situation. It is up to the physician to decide the course of action which carries the greater moral weight and dismiss the other. These situations do not require that the physician must perform both actions, because, in many cases, that would be impossible, but they do cause an action that would otherwise be considered moral ly correct to be set aside. These sorts of conflicts between two sets of moral codes can seem impossible to work out if the relative moral weight of the two arguments is the same (Beauchamp and Childress 11). One reason for moral dilemmas in medical practice is the fact that many medical professionals are often given an exception from what would be considered correct behavior under the common morality. A special standard of morality applies to them which is sometimes in direct conflict with the general rules of morality (Beauchamp and Childress 3, 7). This double standard exists at least in part because medical professionals are professionals in a traditional sense, requiring special training and education in subjects that most of the public never receives. . This disagreement between general morality and special morality could cause the general public to believe that a medical professional is acting unethically for allowing some course of action that the public would not be able to also allow. Secondly, this discrepancy could cause a moral dilemma between a health care professional's private ethical and moral convictions, and the behaviors in his or her professional life that may differ from those private opinions. With regards to differences in moral standards for certain types of professionals, it is not that physicians and other health professionals are outside moral rules, but merely that they are held to standards appropriate for their status, also known as role obligations (Beauchamp and