HU332

Bioethics
Week 8 Study Questions

1. What does Veatch identify as the three main competing standards for the determination
of death (436)?
cease of all brain function
cease of circulatory function
cease of cognitive function (living vegetable)
2. Why does Veatch believe that “selecting a point when it is appropriate to treat people
as dead” is properly a matter of public policy (437)?
many new feelings and action ar beginning to take place like;
mourning, reading of a will, cremation, social rules...widow etc.
3. Explain Bernat’s reason for regarding permanent cessation of circulatory function to be
an acceptable surrogate for irreversible cessation of circulatory function (452).
eventully it begins to lead to deteriation of other things like the barin and other
body functions. The example given was that ppl had brain activity but flatlined eventually the
brain deteriated and eventually it just lead to more death
if only if it is confirmed that it can not be reversed due to it will be reversable if
one does not try to

4. Provide one “perplexity” resulting from the identification of irreversible cessation of

cardiac function with permanent cessation of that function (453).

5. Briefly explain the ethical problem posed by people having blood type O for their
participation in living-paired organ exchanges (473).
universal donors ie. they are not required to really be there due to it poseing
a problem is it to ask a type O for donation the effects could effect the voluntaryness.

6. Summarize Radcliffe-Richards’ main objection to prohibiting a market in organs (493).

on behalf of the needy the this may make one worse off then they were before
with out it at times it may truly help

7. Once Radcliffe-Richards identifies the source of our disgust with a market in organs,
what is the problem she argues that that disgust poses for moral thinking on the issue
(500)?
This is the underlying issue that one may think that they are coersed to
obtain/participate in the market.

8. What is therapeutic misconception (Lecture 36 PP slides)?

Essentially the misconception that the intervention doen during clinical trials are for their
benefit.
 9. Explain equipoise as an ethical requirement of research involving human subjects, the
difference between theoretical and clinical equipoise, and the ethical problem that the
distinction is meant to address (Lecture 36 PP slides).

Equipoise is the condition that the investigator be genuinely ignorant of the truth of the
hypothesis they are testing thus justifying potential risk exposure to the subjects. The difference
is between the attitude of the individual investigator and that of the research community
respectively. Essentially providing conjecture are not accepted by the community until study is
successfully completed and validated.