PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO

College of Education, Arts, and Sciences

Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna

Course Code: ETH101

Course Description: ETHICS

Course Intended Learning Outcome:

1. Use ethical framework or principles to analyze moral experiences

Learning Material for Week #: 10

I. TITLE: REASON AND IMPARTIALITY AS REQUIREMENTS FOR ETHICS

II. OBJECTIVES
At the end of lecture handout 9, the student will be able to:

⚫ awaken awareness that genuine moral or value judgments ought to be backed by

pertinent reasons.
⚫ instill the desire to possess the value of impartiality demonstrating personal feelings
or inclinations that should be suppressed if necessary.
⚫ understand the philosophy of reason as the basis or motive for an action, decision,
or conviction, and be able to apply it in real life with a stable knowledge of what it is.
⚫ analyze how the 7-Step Moral Reasoning Model can help in the use of reason and
impartiality in deciding moral matters.
⚫ identify principles that have a bearing on the case.
⚫ determine the ethical issues.
⚫ assess the consequences, both negative and positive of each decision.

III. INTRODUCTION

⚫ Humans have not only feelings but also reason, and reason plays an important role
in Ethics as it is a moral truth.
⚫ Reason spells the difference of moral judgments from mere expressions of personal
preference.
⚫ Moral deliberation is a matter of weighing reasons and being guided by them.
⚫ Being defined by good reasons, moral truths are objective in the sense that they are
true no matter what we might want or think.
⚫ The idea that each individual’s interest and point of view are equally important is
impartiality.
⚫ Impartiality requires that we give equal and/or adequate consideration to the
interests of all concerned parties.
⚫ The principle of impartiality assumes that every person us equally important and no
one is seen as intrinsically more significant than anyone else.
⚫ The 7-step Moral Reasoning Model is good in the sense that it has room in it to
accommodate a whole host of different moral and ethical perspectives, considering
the ethnic and religious diversity of our society.

One of the reasons Ethical Subjectivism and Emotivism are not viable theories in
ethics is that they miss to make distinction between moral judgments and mere
expressions of personal preference. Genuine moral or value judgments ought to be
backed up by pertinent reasons. Moreover, they must possess the quality of
impartiality, which means, among other things that personal feelings or inclinations
should be suppressed if necessary.

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna

IV. BODY

Reason and Impartiality Defined

Humans have not only feelings but also reason, and reason plays a vital role in
Ethics. In fact, moral truths are truths of reason; that is, a moral judgment is true if it is
espoused by better reasons than the alternatives.
Reason is the basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction. As a quality,
it refers to the capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; for consciously making
sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying common sense and logic, and
justifying, and if necessary, changing practices, institutions, and beliefs based on
existing or new existing information.
A relevant definition of reason to our topic is “the power of the mind to think,
understand, and form judgments by a process of logic. However, one of the most
influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy, Immanuel Kant, argued
that reason alone is the basis for morality, and once the person understood this basic
requirement for morality, he or she would see that acting morally is the same as acting
rationally. In Kant’s view, the definition of morality alone shows that a person must
decide what to do. You, as person, are able to think and reflect on different actions and
then choose what action to take. That a moral decision means mere desires did not
force you to act in a particular manner. You acted by the power of your will.
As a student, you are constantly in turmoil on whether to study or not to study.
You know the importance of studying and the consequence of not studying. However,
you also know the importance of taking a break from the daily grind. So, when exams
are coming and you feel so stressed from fulfilling all school requirements and you feel
the need to take a break- in Kant’s argument that morality is based on reason, what is
the moral choice?
Impartiality on the other hand involves the idea that each individual’s interests
and point of view are equally important. Also called evenhandedness or fair-
mindedness, impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions ought to be based
on objective criteria, rather on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit of
one person over another for improper reasons.
Impartiality, in morality requires that we give equal and/or adequate consideration
to the interests of all concerned parties. The principle of impartiality assumes that every
person, generally speaking is equally important; that is, no one is seen as intrinsically
more significant than anyone else.
Other ethicists however, suggest that some clarification is required. From the
impartial standpoint, to say that no one is seen as intrinsically more significant than
anyone else, is not to say that there is no reason whatsoever for which an individual
might demand more moral attention or better treatment than others. Many ethicists
suppose that from the impartial point of view, properly conceived, some persons count
as more significant, at least in certain ways. A virtuous and respectable religious leader
may be supposed to be more significant than a mere maid; so in an emergency (say a
building on fire) the decent religious leader ought to be rescued first. The reason,
nonetheless, is not that the religious leader is intrinsically more significant; rather, it is
that he makes greater contribution to society.
How is impartiality a requirement for morality? For example, during an exam you
saw your friend (who is sitting next to you) secretly open he notebook to look for an

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna
answer on one of the test questions. Your teacher
noticed that your classmate was doing something suspicious. He called your classmate
and asked if she was cheating. She surreptitiously closed her notebook and answered,
“No”. Your teacher did not trust your classmate’s answer so he asked you. What will you
say? According to philosopher and professor Dr. James Rachels, for your decision to be
moral, you should think how your answer will affect your friend, your teacher, the rest of
your classmates, and how it will affect you as a person. An impartial choice involves
basing your decision on how all the person in the situation will be affected, and not to
the advantage of a particular party that you favor.
Thus for the question, “ Are reason and impartiality a requirement for morality?”
Let’s go back to what Dr. Rachels said: morality “ at the very least is the effort to guide
one’s action based on the most logical choice (reason) while giving equal importance to
the interests of each person affected by your decisions (impartiality).
The Seven Step Moral Reasoning Model
Contemporary author Scott B. Rae, Ph.D. proposes a model for making ethical
decisions. To say the least, his suggested 7-step model introduces the use of reason
and impartiality in deciding on moral matters.
Dr. Rae starts presenting his model by telling the case of a twenty year old
Hispanic male who was brought to a hospital emergency room, having suffered
abdominal injuries due to a gunshot wounds obtained in gang violence:
“He had no medical insurance, and his stay in the hospital was somewhat shorter
than expected due to his good recovery. Physicians attending to him felt that he could
complete his recovery at home just as easily as in the hospital and he was released
after only a few days in the hospital.
During his stay in the hospital, the patient admitted to his primary physician that
he was HIV positive, having contracted the virus that causes AIDS. This was confirmed
by a blood test administered while he was hospitalized.
“When he was discharged from the hospital, the physician recommended that a
professional nurse visit him regularly at home in order to change the bandages on his
still substantial wounds and to ensure that an infection did not develop.’
“Since he had no health insurance, he was dependent on Medical, a government
program that pays for necessary medical care for those who cannot afford it. However,
Medicard refused to pay for home nursing care since there was someone already in the
home who was capable of providing the necessary care.’
“That person was the patient’s twenty- one- year old sister, who was willing to
take care of the brother until he was fully recovered. Their mother had died years ago
and the sister was accustomed to providing care for her younger siblings. The patient
had no objection to his sister providing this care, but he insisted that she not be told that
he had tested HIV positive. Though he had always good relationship with his sister, she
did not know that he was an active homosexual. His even greater fear was that his
father would hear of his homosexual orientation and lifestyle. Homosexuality is
generally looked upon with extreme disfavor among Hispanics.’
Now, here lies the moral dilemma. The patient’s doctor is bound by his code of
ethics that puts a very high priority on keeping confidentiality. This code mandates that
information about one’s medical condition that he or she does not want known cannot
be revealed by the physician. Some would even argue that the obligation of
confidentiality is even greater with HIV/AIDS since revelation of somebody’s

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna
homosexual orientation usually carries devastating
personal costs for the person who is forced “out of the closet.”
On the other hand, the patient’s sister, without knowing the truth, is putting
herself at risk by providing nursing care for him. Some would categorically argue that
she has a right to know the risks to which she is subjecting herself, especially since she
willingly volunteered to take care of her brother.
So, if you were the physician, what would you do in this case? Would you break
the rule of confidentiality to safeguard the patient’s sister, or would you keep
confidentiality to protect the patient from harm that would come to him from his other
family members, especially his father.
For Rae, as good a question as “what would you do” in this situation is probably
the question, “how would you decide what to do” in this situation? He believes that the
process of making a moral decision can be as significant as the decision itself, and
many ethical decisions that people encounter” are so complex that it is easy to exhaust
oneself talking around the problem without actually making any progress toward
resolving it. The response to many moral dilemmas is “where do I start?’ and the person
who is faced with these decisions often needs direction that will enable him or her to
move constructively toward resolution and see the forest for the trees.”
To sufficiently address the ethical dilemmas that people encounter regularly, Rae
offers model which can be used to insure that all the needed bases are covered. He
admits that the model is not a formula that will automatically generate the “right’ answer
to an ethical problem but a guideline in ascertaining that all the right questions are being
asked in the process of ethical deliberation.

The following are the steps or elements of a model for making moral
decisions:
a. Gather the Facts. Gathering the facts is the indispensable first step prior to any
ethical analysis and reflection on the case. In examining a case, we want to know
the available facts at hand, as well as any facts present not known but that need
to be determined. We thus have to ask not only “what do we know?” but also
“what do we need to know?” in order to generate an intelligent ethical decision. In
the case of the Hispanic male in the story of Rae the following are the relevant
facts:
• The patient is a young man, infected with HIV and an active homosexual.
• He suffered fairly severe abdominal wounds but is recovering well.
• Homosexuality is looked down upon in Hispanic communities.
• The patient has insisted that his physician maintain confidentiality about
his HIV status.
• The patient is afraid of rejection by his father if his homosexuality is
discovered, an understandable fear given the way homosexuality is
viewed in the Hispanic community.
• He was wounded by gunfire in gang violence. It is not clear but is a
reasonable assumption that he is a gang member. As a result, he likely
fears rejection and perhaps retribution from his fellow gang members,
especially if they discover that he is HIV positive.
• He is uninsured and cannot afford home nursing care by a professional.
• Medical refuses to pay for professional home nursing care.

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna
• The patient’s sister is wiling and able to provide the
necessary nursing care for her brother. She is accustomed to providing
maternal-like care for her brothers and sisters.
• The patient has specifically requested that his sister not be told of his HIV
status. She does not know that his brother is an active homosexual.
• The patient’s sister would be changing fairly sizable wound dressings for
her brother and the chance are high that she would come into contact with
his HIV and infected blood. The probability of her becoming infected with
the virus from this contact is difficult to predict.

b. Determine the Ethical Issue (s). In the case, the competing interests are those of
the sister who will provide the care and the patient who will receive it. Both of
them have interests in being protected from harm. The patient fears being
harmed in a psycho- social way if his homosexuality and HIV status were
discovered. In effect, he has put the physician in a difficult situation by
demanding that his right to confidentiality be kept. Though she does not know it,
his sister fears medical harm due to the risk of contracting the HIV virus from
contact with her brother’s blood.
The case be stated as a conflict between confidentiality for the patient vs.
the right to know the patient’s condition for his sister due to the risk she would be
taking in giving him nursing care. By way of summary, the conflict is the need for
patient confidentiality vs. the duty to warn the sister of risk of harm.

c. Identify the Principles that have a Bearing on the Case.

So, what principles have bearing in the case? Two ethical principles that
speak to the case come out of the way in which the moral issue is stated. The
case is about a conflict of rights, a conflict of duties that the physician has toward
his patient and toward the sister. He is morally obligated to exercise compassion
toward both, but what compassion ( or the duty to “do no harm”) requires
depends on which individual in the case is in view.
Two principles are thus dominant. First is the widely acknowledged
principle that patients have a right to have their medical information kept
confidential, especially the information that could be used to harm them if it were
revealed. But a second principle relevant to the case is the duty of the physician
to warn interested parties other than the patient if they are at risk of looming and
considerable harm.
A difficult aspect of any ethical decision is deciding what weight to give the
principles relevant to the case. No doubt, the principle of confidentiality is
deemed virtually sacred in the medical profession and most physicians will argue
that it is necessary to keep confidentiality if patients are to trust their physicians
and continue coming for treatment. However, confidentiality is often measured as
subordinate to the duty to warn someone who will likely be harmed if that
information is not revealed. For example, if a psychologist believes that his
patient will kill his wife, or beat her severely, he has a moral obligation to inform
the wife that she is in danger from her husband. The duty to warn someone from
imminent severe harm is usually considered a more heavily weighted principle
than confidentiality in case like these.
In the case, the crucial question is weighing the two conflicting principles
is the degree of risk that patient’s sister is taking by providing nursing care for her
bother. If the risk is not considerable, then that weighs confidentiality a bit more

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna
heavily. But if the risk is substantial, then the duty to
warn is the more heavily weighted principle.
Considering that the sister has volunteered to perform a very sel-
sacrificing service for her brother, it can be argued that her self-sacrifice is an
additional factor that weighs the duty to warn principle more heavily. Some would
even claim that the patient’s HIV is an example of “reaping what one sows”, and
that all the more minimizes consideration of the patient’s desire for confidentiality.
Another element that should be considered in the deliberation is that the
risk to the patient, though it may have a higher probability of happening, is not as
severe as the risk to the sister. After all, if the worst scenario happened to the
patient, his father will disown him and the gang would throw him out. He would
recover from all of that. But if his sister contracted HIV, she would not recover
from that. Though the probability of the worst- case scenario is higher for the
patient, the results of the worst case are clearly higher for the sister.
d. List the Alternatives
This step involves coming up with various alternative course of action of
as part of the creative thinking included in resolving a moral dilemma. Though
there will be some alternatives which you will rule out without much thought, in
general, the more alternatives that are listed, the better the chance that your list
will include some quality ones. In addition, you may come up with some creative
alternatives that you had not considered before.
In the case, one option is to tell the sister that her brother is HIV positive.
This alternative comes out of considering the duty to warn principle as higher
priority. A second option is to refuse to tell her that information, considering the
confidentiality principle is carrying the most weight, thereby upholding the
patient’s request for confidentiality.
However, there are other alternatives that do not involve compromise and
they each reflect a weighing of the two principles. One alternative is for the
physician to warn the patient’s sister in general terms about taking suitable
precautions for caring for these types of wounds. At all times, she is to wear
gloves and a mask when handling the bandages. If she gets any blood on her
clothes or body, she has to wash instantly with a disinfectant soap. Meaning, she
has to take universal precautions that any medical professional normally takes in
caring for patients.
Another alternative is to request that the patient inform his sister of his
condition. The patient could then request that she not tell any other family
member or any of his friends. If the patient declined, then the next step might be
to say to him in effect, “If you don’t tell her, I will.
e. Compare Alternatives with Principles
This step involves eliminating alternatives according to the moral
principles that have a bearing on the case. In many cases, the case will be
resolved at this point, since the principles will remove all alternatives except one.
As a matter of fact, the purpose of this comparison is to determine whether there
is a clear decision that can be made without further deliberation.

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna

f. Assess the consequence

If the principles do not produce a clear decision, then ‘a consideration of
the consequence of the remaining available alternatives is in order. Both positive
and negative consequences are to be considered. They should be informally
weighted, since some positive consequences are more beneficial than others
and some negative consequences are more detrimental than others.
The undertaking here is to take the viable alternatives that attempt to
predict what the likely consequences ( both positive and negative) of each would
be. Furthermore, it should be tried to estimate approximately how beneficial are
the positive consequences and how severe the negative ones are, since some
consequences are evidently more substantial than others.
Usually when two opposing alternatives are offered, the consequences of
one are the mirror image of the other. This is exemplified by our case’s
alternatives of telling the sister, or refusing to tell her of her brother’s HIV status.
The option of telling the sister (or insisting that the patient tells his sister)
has the following likely consequences:
• The sister would be properly warned about the risks of taking care of her
brother minimizing the risk of her contracting HIV, and saving her from the
risk of developing a fatal illness.
• The brother’s HIV status would be out in the open, leaving family and
gang friends to draw their own conclusions about the homosexuality.
Should they draw the right conclusion, which is likely, he suffers significant
psycho-social harm from his gang members, and possibly (though not
certainly) from his family.
• Trust with the physician and the patient suffers and he may refuse to see
that physician, or any other one again until a dire medical emergency. This
would be unfortunate since due to his HIV status, he will need ongoing
medical care.
In the alternative of the physician refusing to disclose the information, the
following may be estimated as the likely consequences:
• The sister would not know about the risks she is taking, making her
vulnerable to contracting an infection for which there is no cure. The
degree of risk that she is taking is open to debate, but some would argue
that if the degree of risk is any more than minimal, that justifies warning
her since the virus produces fatal disease.
• The patient’s HIV status is a well-kept secret,as his homosexuality can
be kept a secret forever, since as HIV develops into full-blown AIDS,
both are likely to come out at some point in the future.
• Trust between the physician and patient is maintained.
g. Makes a decision. Rae leaves us the following further questions in making decision:
What would you decide in this case? Which principles are the most weighty? Are there
others that you would include? Which alternatives are the most viable? Are there others
that you would suggest? Which consequences seem to you the most severe? Are there
others that you think will occur?
For one thing, Rae’s model is good in the sense that it has room in it to
accommodate a whole host of different moral and ethical perspectives, considering
the ethnic and religious diversity of our society. Finally, it promotes the primal
consideration of reason and impartiality in ethics without necessarily eradicating the
role of feelings in ethical deliberation.

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 PAMANTASAN NG CABUYAO
College of Education, Arts, and Sciences
Katapatan Subd. Banay-Banay, City of Cabuyao, Laguna

V. REFERENCES

VI. ACTIVITY / ACTIVITIES

ACTIVITY: Case Study

Analyze and study this case.
Here is the case: Jen and her messenger husband Lito, along with their three
young children, live as informal settlers in a compound in Halaan City. Jen works as the
stay-out house help for Ms. Carla, who is the administrative assistant of Mayor Balasic
of Halaan City. One day, Miss Carla approached Jen to offer her a source for extra
money. What Miss Carla wants Jen to do is to sign up as a ghost employee in a city hall
project Ms. Carla is overseeing. Ms. Carla tells Jen she does not have to do anything
except to put her signature in an employee contract. Ms. Carla will give Jen half of the
expected Php 8,000 monthly allowance for the six-month long project. Jen who is an
active member of her local parish, is now feeling conflicted. Miss Carla wants her to sign
soon.
Using the 7-step model for ethical decision-making, What must Jen do and why?