PHIL 2400

Paper #2 Guidelines

This assessment supports Course Objectives:

1. Apply major moral theories to moral dilemmas experienced in medical situations

2. Explain moral terms and concepts

3. Analyze cases in medical ethics

• 3-4 pages, 12 point font, double-spaced
• For this paper you’ll use two chapters from the Sandel text that pertain to the following ethical theories: (1) Utilitarianism (Sandel Chapter 2) and (2) Kantian ethical theory (Sandel Chapter 5).

  Relevant news articles (a lot from earlier in the pandemic). You don’t need to use all or any of these, they’re just meant to give you a starting point.

  3/23/21 CNN, Is it ever okay to jump the vaccine line? We asked an ethicist by Dr. Sanjay Gupta

  3/11/21 Psychiatric Times, “Whose Turn Should It Be? The Ethics of COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation by Cynthia Geppert

  3/21/20 New York Times, “The Hardest Question Doctors May Face: Who Will Be Saved? Who Won’t?” by Sheri Fink

  PDF of article

  3/22/20 New York Times, “She Had to Choose: Her Epileptic Patient or Her 7-Year-Old Daughter” by John Leland

  PDF of article

  3/29/20 New York Times, “Who Should be Saved First? Experts Offer Ethical Guidance?” by Austin Frakt

  PDF of article

  4/17/20 Freakonomics Podcast, Who Gets the Ventilator? Audio plus written transcript

  4/19/20 New York Times, “He Went to 3 Different Hospitals. When He Finally Got a Bed, It Was Too Late” by Andrea Salcedo

  PDF of article

  7/2/20 New York Review of Books “An Ethical Path to a Covid Vaccine” by Carl Elliott

  PDF of article

  10/26/20 CNN, “Utah hospitals could start rationing health care at overwhelmed facilities, hospital association says” by Alta Spells

   

  In approximately 3-4 pages, please explain how you think a Kantian ethical theorist and a Utilitarian would respond to some aspect of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

  Each section should be 1.5-2 pages (Section I: Apply Kantian Theory and Section II: Apply Utilitarian Theory). Please clearly label each section

• In reading your papers, I will look for the following:

   

  • That your paper is approximately 3-4 pages in length.
  • That you include references when quotes are provided.
  • That your paper is free of grammatical and spelling errors.
  • That you demonstrate a clear and correct understanding of Kantian ethical theory and utilitarianism.
  • That you apply these theories appropriately to some aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • That your paper is clearly written and easy to understand, and that I don’t have to make any assumptions about what you know or what you are trying to say.