The moral dilemma presented in this case would involve the active parties of the parents of the patient, and the doctor, in this case Dr. S. The parents present a moral dilemma to the doctor by insisting on making an unnecessary medical decision for their child, who is of course underage and cannot legally make his own decisions. These parents want their child to be prescribed Ritalin, which is a medication that is determined by this doctor to not be medically necessary for this child. They simply want it because they are worried about their child's school behavior, as well as his ability to focus better during assignments and preparing for tests. For the most part, this case could be aligned closest with the harm principle, but it pushed against its original intent by way of the parents overstepping their boundaries and pushing for preventative care against something that doesn’t really need prevention.
The first author being cited in discussion of this case of Mills. This author discusses the issue of Ritalin being prescribed solely as a method of enhancement, rather than for medical treatment for an ailment. Her specific grievance has every bit to do with…show more content… This author argues that performance stimulant drugs such as Ritalin, or the example from his article Prozac, may not be such a bad thing to prescribe for the sake of character building and the like. His argument is that "self-creation projects" which are the processes of changing one's biomedical makeup through drug therapy are perfectly authentic modes of developing one's character and personality. Thus, it would not be so tragic if one took such medication without a firm diagnosis of a psychological disorder. However, this still is not an argument that supports the positions of little Mike's parents, because DeGrazia wants these crucial decisions to be left to the sole consent of a competent adult, such as the case of the woman who asked for
