: A 19-year-old woman is being treated for a serious kidney disease. She is currently on a dialysis machine, but treatment is steadily decreasing in efficacy. Before her condition declines any further, the physician suggests family members undergo tests to determine tissue compatibility to transplant a kidney. Only the brother shows a degree of compatibility high enough to be considered a candidate. The physician meets the brother alone to discuss the risks and benefits of the operation. Although agreeing to be tested, the brother decides not to donate a kidney after weighing the various alternatives because of the risks, and because, as he puts it, he doesn’t “feel he and his sister have ever been close enough that they would ever take that kind of a risk for each other.” The physician repeats a full explanation of the risks involved, and urges him to rethink his decision because of the serious nature of his sister’s illness with increasingly little time to spare. The brother remains adamant in his refusal.
- First, summarize in a few sentences the ethical issues involved in the case you’re writing about (i.e. why is there an ethical debate or issue here at all)? Make sure your answer is general, rather than simply repeating the facts of the case (remember the difference between a descriptive and a normative claim).
- How are we to resolve the ethical issue(s) you identified above, that is, what is your view of the matter and what reasons do you have for it? Here I want to see an argument of some kind, with an easily identifiable conclusion and supporting premises (reasons for your claim). I do not expect you to give me a valid argument (we would need more practice with logic to do that), but I think you’ve seen enough good argumentative style in the readings for you to give it a try.
- Of the ethical theories we have surveyed, which, if any, best accounts for your reasoning in (2)? This need not be a separate paragraph, but I need to see that you’re applying one or more of the theories surveyed in the text
Sample Solution
