Basic Ethical

Principles
LESSON 3
A. AUTONOMY- A form of personal liberty,
where the individual is free to choose and
implements one's own decisions, free from
deceit, duress, constraint or coercion.

Three basic elements involved in the

process
1. The ability to decide
2. The power to act upon your decisions
3. Respect for the individual autonomy of
others

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TWO TYPES OF AUTONOMY:
1. Individual Autonomy- individual should make
their own choices about how to live their lives,
and should be independent from the group.

2. Collective Autonomy- autonomy belongs to the

group. Communities such as cities, tribes, families
should be allowed to govern themselves and make
their own collective decisions, however, the
individuals within those groups should not be
autonomous-individuals should make decisions
based on what is best for the group.

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B. VERACITY
- Binds both the practitioner and the patient in an
association of truth.
- The patient must tell the truth in order that
appropriate care can be provided.
- The practitioner needs to disclose factual
information so that the patient can exercise
personal autonomy

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C. CONFIDENTIALITY
– is an important aspect of trust that patient in
healthcare professionals

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D. SOLIDARITY
- Understood as a commitment to accept costs to
support others with whom people recognize
relevant similarities, a definition that we consider
particularly fruitful in using solidarity as a guiding
principle for policy and practice.

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E. STEWARDSHIP
- This principle is grounded in the presupposition
that God has absolute Dominion over creation,
and that, insofar as human beings are made in
God’s image and likeness, we have been given a
limited dominion over creation and are responsible
for its care.
- The principle requires that the gifts of human life
and its natural environment be used with profound
respect for their intrinsic ends.

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F. TOTALITY
- This principle dictates that the well-being of the whole
person must be taken into account in deciding about
any therapeutic intervention or use of technology.

- Totality refers to the duty to preserve intact the physical

component of the integrated bodily and spiritual nature
of human life, whereby every part of the human body
exists for the sake of the whole as the imperfect for the
sake of the perfect.

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G. DOUBLE EFFECT
- An action that is good in itself has two effects –
an intended and otherwise not reasonably
attainable good effect, and an untended yet
foreseen evil effect – provided there is a due
proportion between the intended good and the
permitted evil.