Utilitarian Ethics in Healthcare
نویسنده
چکیده
There are two moral ethical dichotomies in healthcare: consequentialism versus deontology and individualism versus collectivism. When the physician is faced with the dilemma of deciding between one versus many, he often has to resort to the principle of promoting the greatest good for the greatest number, or the principle of maximizing utility. Utilitarianianism is the creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, the greatest happiness principle. It holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. It embraces the four component of consequentialism, maximization, aggregation and welfare. This paper analyses the moral implications of applying utilitarian principles in healthcare decisions and illustrate how they relate to the concept
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