Stage One of the Ethical Analysis Essay
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Stage One of the Ethical Analysis Essay
Benjamin R. Chitenje
Applied Ethics - 0123-PHL2205-00022-ONL
Dr. James Taylor
02/25/2023
A brief film synopsis that includes the medical ethical dilemma present in the film The movie highlights a social issue in the medical field. The challenges of John Archibald, a young man who need urgent surgery for a serious cardiac illness, are depicted in the movie. The hospital decides against being a nice neighbor and fails to do the surgery because John lacked the
required health insurance to pay for the cost of the procedure.
So, John Q would have to decide between accepting his son's fate and making preparations for his funeral as advised by Rebecca Payne, administrator of Hope Memorial, and gathering money for the cardiac operation, which is
a difficult undertaking considering the urgency of the miserable situation his son is in.
John opted to kidnap the doctors and other ER patients. An ethical dilemma is a situation where a person must decide between two moral answers both of which would have adverse results.
Now, John must decide whether to let his son die peacefully or sue the hospital to get his son put on the
transplant roster and obtain a no-fee procedure. He decides to hold the hospital's patients hostage.
Hospitals should not refuse to treat a patient if they lack appropriate health insurance to cover the
necessary costs.
It is not enough to decide whether you can afford surgery. The possibility is high
that the patient would suffer substantially because of the hospital's decision to withhold the required medical attention.
These two principles put John Q in a morality tough spot because he told his beloved that he would act as a fighter to rescue his son's life at whatever costs. This puts John Q in a difficult situation. In addition, what problem with health insurance did John Q have with his boss? A disgruntled father, played by Denzel Washington, takes control of a hospital emergency room in the movie because his employer's health plan, referred to as "a 2nd HMO," will not pay for his son's urgently required heart transplant (Cassavetes, 2020).
Moral Sense Theory (Conscience)
One of the six pillars of virtue, trust, is a topic that the movie also makes myself consider. However, committed a person may she or he be to their business or group? A person has a duty to uphold his group's morality, but when their values are threatened, they frequently step down from their positions or stay on the job but beginning to "whistle blow."
Consequentialism, a pragmatist theory that holds that we may infer the morality of an action or deed using just our intuition, is a philosophy that usually encompasses whistleblowers. Several sick people in the emergency unit have beliefs that are dissimilar compared to those at "Hope Memorial Hospital."
During the detainee in the Emergency, John and hospital staff were talking about Healthcare Maintenance Organization (HMO) insurance coverage (Dimmock & Fisher, 2017).
Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant thought that moral virtue comes from having good intentions.
It is generosity if it
upholds commitments. What needs to be done is what obligation is all about. According to Kant, humans are logical agents with goals and plans. This part of human nature is intended to be protected as well as upheld by Kant's ethical philosophy.
As John's son Michael developed a serious illness and needed an urgently heart transplant treatment that neither John could afford
nor his healthcare insurance would approve, John was eager to take every step he was necessary to keep his child alive. He frantically grabbed the hostages with every individual in the emergency room, even those who themselves needed medical assistance.
To give his son the transplant he needed to survive; dad also nearly gave his life. Kant believed that we should not act unless we are sure that doing so will set an example that everyone else can follow. John was fulfilling his obligation as a parent to his son. To make a maxim into a universal law, he claimed that one must simultaneously put it into practice. The pertinent questions in the case of John are:
Would all fathers respond impulsively to try save his son's life in the same way that John did?
Furthermore, should every father try to sacrifice himself to save his son rather than just kidnapping innocent people? Hence, I believe it does not become universal, and for Kant, if you believe that it would become. The third rule that Kant has is that "you must act in such a way that
you always respect humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never only as a means but always at the same time as an aim.
When John decided to offer his own heart
in exchange for his life in order to receive a heart transplant in order to save his child, he essentially saw himself as a way as opposed to a goal. Human agency must never be given up in favor of anything less valuable because everything is of equal or lesser importance (Dimmock & Fisher, 2017).
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Reference:
Cassavetes, N. (2020, August 28). John Q - Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, James Woods,
Anne Heche, Eddie Griffin - Full HD. YouTube. Retrieved February 25, 2023, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8-a9ss_8RM.
Dimmock, M., & Fisher, A. (2017, July 31). Ethics for A-level. Google Books. Retrieved
February 25, 2023, from https://books.google.com/books/about/Ethics_for_A_Level.html?
id=jdsvDwAAQBAJ.