Module 1

Week 1

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 OBJECTIVES
• GENERAL OBJECTIVES: After 1.5 hours of
interactive discussion the BSN 2 student
nurses will be able to gain knowledge, develop
skills and positive attitude in the preliminary
concepts of bioethics.

• Specifically the BSN 2 student nurses will be able

to:

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 SPECIFIC OUTCOMES:

1. Explain and describe the meaning of the following terms:

1. Bioethics
2. Biology
3. Ethics
4. Healthcare Ethics
5. Professional Ethics

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 SPECIFIC INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES:

2. Discuss the significance of Nightingale Pledge to

healthcare providers especially to nurses.
3. Describe the following:
1) Healthcare profession
2) Professional ethics
3) Client

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SPECIFIC INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES:

4. Appreciate the role of the nurse in providing

effective, efficient and safe nursing care.

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Let’s Start…

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 ETHICS
❑ MORAL PHILOSOPHY
❑ Derived from the Greek word ETHOS,
which means CUSTOM or CHARACTER
❑ Philosophical science that deals with
morality of human conduct
❑ Systematically establishes the standards
or norms of human acts
❑ Determines human acts as good or bad
and right or wrong
❑ Provides the principles on the morality
of human acts.
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 ETHICS
❑ 4 Major areas of Study:
1. Descriptive ethics
– this is the division of philosophical
or general ethics that involves the
observation of the moral decision-
making process with the goal of
describing the phenomenon.
– Describes the nature, essence or
substance of reality.
– reports what people believe, how they
reason, and how they act.
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 ETHICS
❑ 4 Major areas of Study:
2. Normative Philosophy
– concerned with criteria of what is
morally right and wrong.
– It includes the formulation
of moral rules that have
direct implications for what human
actions, institutions, and ways of life
should be like.
– 3 types of normative theories:
• virtue theories, deontological (moral
obligation) theories,
and teleological theories 9
 VIRTUE-BASED THEORY

• Virtue based theories focus on the character of the person.

• According to virtue based theories, ethics is about what sort of
person one should strive to become.
• The qualities that one should develop in oneself are called
virtues (ex. honesty, fairness, kindness, faithfulness, generosity,
prudence, integrity, bravery, etc.).

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 VIRTUE-BASED THEORY
• For example:
• Aristotle claimed that in order to become an
honest person, one should tell the
truth. (Aristotle) Eventually it becomes a habit.
• One learns how to tell the truth appropriately,
without being brutally honest all of the time
or lying whenever it is easier to do so.
• It is a learning process that continues
throughout your life.
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DEONTOLOGICAL THEORY
• This type of theory claims that there are
features within the actions themselves which
determine whether or not they are right.
• These features define the extent to which the
actions conform with recognized moral duties.
• Deontological theories do not consider
consequences to be important when
determining whether or not an action is ethical.
– It doesn’t matter if the drunk driver made it
home safely.
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DEONTOLOGICAL THEORY
• Immanuel Kant's ethical theory is deontological.
– He claims that actions are only morally right
when they are done out of duty.
– He sees moral duties as unchanging laws for
human conduct.
– Always act out of duty, in accordance with a
good will
• I.e. One does the right thing because one
recognizes that it is the right thing to do, not
because it pleases you to do it or will promote
good consequences.). 13
TELEOLOGICAL THEORY

• This describes an ethical theory which judges the rightness of

an action in terms of an external goal or purpose.
• According to a teleological theory, consequences always play
some part, be it small or large, in the determination of what
one should or should not do.
• Theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from
what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved.

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 ETHICS
❑ 4 Major areas of Study:
3. Practical Philosophy
– A division in philosophy which reflects
on truth with due recourse of action.
– the attempt to work out the implications
of general theories for specific forms of
conduct and moral judgment;
formerly called applied ethics.

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 ETHICS
❑ 4 Major areas of Study:
4. Critical Philosophy (Epistemology)
– is the study of the nature and scope of
knowledge and justified belief.
– It analyzes the nature of knowledge
and how it relates to similar notions
such as truth, belief and justification.
– asks questions like: "What is
knowledge?", "How is knowledge
acquired?", "What do people know?",
"What are the necessary and sufficient
conditions of knowledge?"
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 MORALITY

❑ Derived from the Latin word MOS or

MORIS
❑ Applied Ethics
❑ Actualizes/ applies the theories and
principles provided by ethics

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 Postulates in Ethics
(Presumed to be true)

(1) The existence of God.

(2) The existence of intellect and free will.
(3) The spirituality and immortality of the
human soul.

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 Moral Assumptions

(1) As a rational and free grade of animal,

man knows that there are actions that
are right or wrong, and good or bad.
(2) Man knows that there are actions that
he is not obliged to do.
(3) Man knows that he is responsible for
his actions.
(4) Man knows that those actions are
considered wrong are punishable and
that those actions that are right are
rewardable. 19
 Humans: The Sole Moral Agents

• It is their being rational that makes humans humans.

• The human person’s perceptual knowledge helps him/her draw
judgements as he/she compares ideas.
• The human person, therefore, does not just perceive things but
also analyzes, assesses, criticizes, or intellectualizing things.

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 Intellect Compared with Will
• What does intellect do?
– It knows.
– Acts as the thinking faculty of the human
person.
– Enables him/her to search for truth
• What about the will?
– It chooses.
– It implements what it has chosen.
– Enables him/her to choose which is
good. 21
 Concrete Basis of Morality
• Morality becomes vivid when one encounters
a moral experience.
• This moral experience leads him/her to a
moral problem.
• The human person is duty-bound to face
his/her obligation.
• Ex.
– Should a person who has no money, steal?
– Should a person who has no answer in an
exam, cheat?
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 BIOLOGY

❑ Natural science that deals with the issue

of life
❑ Important in bioethics because it deals
with the multifarious (DIVERSE)
dimensions and domains of all life forms.

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 BIOETHICS

❑ This term was introduced by DANIEL

CALLAHAN in 1969, together with
WILLARD GAYLIN when they founded
the HASTINGS CENTER
❑ Popularized by VAN RENSSELAER
POTTER in 1970

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 BIOETHICS

❑ A discipline that deals with the ethical

implications of biological research.
❑ The study of ethical issues that emanate
from the changes and developments in
the life science technologies.
❑ A branch of ethics that deals with the life
sciences and their impact in society.
❑ A branch of ethics that analyzes moral
values in the context of biomedical
sciences.
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❑ A branch of the ethics of biological
science and medicine.
❑ A systematic study of the human
conduct in the areas of the life sciences
and healthcare.
❑ It belongs to the auspices of medical
ethics and is loosely anchored in the
avenues of life sciences.
❑ The study of the moral problems in
medicine and biological technology.

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 BIOETHICS

PREVAILING ISSUES SURROUNDING THE

AUSPICES OF BIOETHICS:
❑ Human life
❑ Health
❑ Research
❑ Science
❑ Technology
❑ Philosophy, theology, law and medicine

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 HEALTHCARE ETHICS

❑ A domain in the practice of the

healthcare profession that sets the
standards or guidelines relative to
studies, inquiries, and decisions on the
part of healthcare professionals in
relation to the delivery of healthcare.
❑ Deals with ethical issues such as: life-
support system, testing of diseases,
access to healthcare services, brain
death, clinical death, suicide, euthanasia,
vices and virtues, conscience and law.
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 PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

❑ The normative moral system that

injuncts a kind of behavior that is
expected of a professional.
❑ NOT ONLY OF AN INDIVIDUAL BUT
ALSO AS A GROUP.

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 NIGHTINGALE’S PLEDGE

❑ was composed in 1893 by Lystra E. Gretter

and a Committee for the Farrand Training
School for Nurses, Detroit. It was called the
Florence Nightingale Pledge as a token of
esteem for the founder of modern nursing.
❑ It was first administered to the 1893
graduating class of the Farrand Training
School, Harper Hospital, Detroit, Michigan. It
is as follows:

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