Section 1: Explanation
Mercy Death (Ch. 10): This is a form of euthanasia; it is the termination of a patient's life with the patient's consent. This is also considered a physician-assisted suicide. In most cases, the patient is diagnosed with a terminal illness; so rather than enduring the days, weeks or months of pain and waiting for the end to come they’d rather say their goodbyes and request the termination of their life.
Mercy Killing (Ch. 10): This is also a form of euthanasia; it is the termination of a patient’s life without the consent of the patient. In such a situation, the consent to terminate the patient’s life is given by the spouse, a family member or a designated proxy. This usually occurs when the patient is in an irreversible unresponsive condition. This sometimes brings conflict among family members because the spouse may choose to cut off all plugs assisting the patient to stay alive and let the person go. Other family members may not agree with the decision to do that.
Persistent Vegetative State (Ch. 10): Also known as PVS is a condition that results in the damage of the cerebral cortex. Due to the damage of the cortex, the patient is a state of wakeful unconsciousness which means the patient is awake and breathing but is not aware of anything because of the disorder of the consciousness. This is not the same as brain death because a patient in PVS may have some kind of brain activity but has no cognition.
Advance Directive (Ch. 10): Legal document that allows one to convey decisions about end of life care ahead of time. It is a means for a person to inform family and health care provider treatment preferences if the person ever gets to a stage in life where consciousness is lost. This helps avoid confusion and saves family members from the burden of making a final decision on the patient’s life.
Polygamy (Ch. 13): This is a term that refers to having more than one spouse in a marital relationship. Other subcategories include polyandry (which is having more than one husband) and bigamy (which means having two spouses). This is observed in some cultures around the world. The Islamic and Mormon religion allows the males have multiple wives, as long as he can comfortably provide for each of them equally. Most cultures that embrace this form of marriage always preach equality for the wives so as to avoid jealousy among the wives. As humans it is hard to not feel jealousy or envy when you have to share your husband with another or other women. The Christian religion does not accept this form of marriage, because they believe God made one man and one woman. Marriage is a union of one man and one woman not multiples.
Section 2: Essays
5. Defend or attack the position that “little white lies” are not important or serious in any way and are in fact needed in our everyday human relationships. Explain your view with reference to some of the ethical theories from our text.
Little white lies are lies we tell on a regular basis they are not meant to harm anyone. People tell these lies to cover for something or sometimes to give a good impression of themselves. As long as they are not told to harm or negatively impact another person then I defend the position that it is important in our everyday human relationship. When a woman asks her husband “do I look fat in this dress?” It is very clear that if he tells his wife “yes you do”, it would cause a fight. To avoid this unnecessary fight, the husband says “no darling, you look beautiful”. His little lie just saved him an unneeded fight.
Some ethical theories like Kant’s duty ethics will not support the idea of lying. Utilitarianism and Aristotle's Virtue ethics will support the idea as long as it is for a greater good. Most job applications require people to have some kinds of experience in the open position. This is a situation most new graduates are faced with. A lie stating one has such experience does not harm anyone,