Ethical Decision-Making

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The way in which people handle a situation depends on their ethical principles. Everyday people are faced with decisions and how they handle them is based off how they approach the dilemma and utilize their basic tools of knowledge and traits. Some ethical decisions that we make daily are automatic and don’t require serious thought however, other situations are sometimes far more severe in nature and will make one stop and think about the ramifications of their actions. To better understand the principles used in ethics one must examine certain ethical theories that a person will utilize to determine how an ethical decision should be made. In Health Law & Medical Ethics James Allen states there are nine theories that play an influential role with decision making, however only four of them will be addressed that I believe to be the most significant which are: 1) altruism, 2) consequentialism, 3) deontology and 4)Least Harm (Allen, 2013, P.142). Each one of these theories play a vital role on how a person will handle a variety of different decisions and how each approach varies when dealing with dilemmas because the outcomes they produce are completely different from one another. …show more content…
The ethical concepts with altruism are that a person must make a personal sacrifice that benefits the needs of others over their own. Values, morals, and beliefs all play a role in the thought process of a person who practices this theory because it is only through personal sacrifice that one knows for certain what they are doing is right for the other person. This can be seen with toddlers who will spontaneously help someone in need because they are genuinely concern with their welfare. An example of altruism is donating ones organs to a complete stranger because another person’s life outweighs your own. Moreover, it is by sharing one’s organs with another that you save a