Philosophy Commons^™

The "Give And Take" Of Medical Morality, Caitlyn Tabor

Honors Theses

Doctors face situations within the medical arena in which their conscience -- as a person and as a professional -- conflicts with patient autonomy. Consider the terminally ill patient who wishes to end all treatment and elect to receive assisted suicide, and his physician who believes that aiding in death is a moral wrong. This creates a conflict of interests between physician and patient.

Historically, a paternalistic model of physician-patient interaction was employed to deal with dilemmas, contributing to infringement of patient’s rights and a lack of understanding of ethics on the part of the physician. This manifests as the …

The Tragedy Of Punishment: An Insight Into Why Doing Something Good Feels Bad, Trevor Martin

Honors Theses

My motivation for writing on what I have come to call “the tragedy of punishment” is the seemingly paradoxical state of affairs associated with punishment. The first state of affairs is the general understanding that punishment is not just a necessary practice but also a morally good one that serves not only to give criminals their just deserts but also generally benefit society and those in it. The second state of affairs is the realization that, despite the understanding that punishment is painted as a moral good, when thinking about all the harm caused by punishment one cannot help but …