Ethics - What is Your Take on it?

Ethics... I am sure most of us know the meaning of the word ethical. But when you attempt to make judgements and decisions on what is considered ethical, more often than not you enter into a grey area. Well, at least that's my personal experience.

What the hell?! What is John going about here? Why the sudden interest in this debate of ethics?

Well, once again, you have to thank the MBBS programme in Monash. Yes, other than studying the mechanics of life and the anatomy of the body, we are grilled in the field of ethics as well. As part of the holistic approach of the course, Monash-trained doctors are supposed to be ethical doctors who make sound decisions that are in line with the ethical code of conduct.

Debates in ethics tutorial are often based on hypothetical scenarios. These scenarios are meant to frustrate the hell out of you as there are restrictions placed on what you can or cannot do. Either you do A or you do B. There is no C or any other options for that matter. So if you have a surplus of free time in your hands and really have nothing to occupy your mind with, you may be interested in thinking about these few scenarios that were discussed in my tutorials.

Scenario 1
- You are standing at a Y-junction in the railway track. A train is approaching you. Trapped at 1 junction of the track are 5 people. Trapped at the other junction of the track are 10 people. The train is headed for the junction that is trapped with 10 people. You have the ability to change the direction of the train so that it will travel to the other junction that is trapped with 5 people. You cannot stop the train from approaching. Do you A) switch the direction of travel of the train so that only 5 instead of 10 people will be run over by the train? or B) do nothing and let nature take it's course.

If you switch the train's direction, you may save 10 person's lives. But you have inadvertently participated in the killing of 5 person's lives. If you do nothing and let nature take it's course, you would not have been directly involved in any wrongdoing. Question: Is the act of omission (means no doing anything even if you have the power to do so) any less ethical than doing something that is wrong?

Scenario 2
- A person is in a critical condition with no cure in sight. He has 1 more month to live before doctors predict his ending. He is suffering in pain now and has requested you to take him off his life support system to end his sufferings. The essential fluids in his life support system needs replenishing every week. Without these fluids, the patient will die in a 2 days. Question: Will you A) stop replenishing the fluids or B) take the patient off the life support?
Which is the lesser of 2 evils? Or do you think that there is an ethical option among the 2? If you stop replenishing the fluid, you are not doing anything. An act of omission. If you shut down the life support system, you are killing the patient with your actions. Either way, the patient will eventually die.

Scenario 3
- This is about a pair of evil uncles who are twins. Imagine them in 2 screens side by side, with each screen playing out the same scene but with different proceedings. Evil Uncle A brings his nephew to take a shower in the bathtub. The bathtub is filled with water. The nephew accidentally slips and fall into the bathtub with his head submerged into the water. The nephew drowns. Evil Uncle A could have helped the nephew out but did not as he realised at the spur of the moment that he can inherit the boy's wealth if the boy dies. Now to Evil Uncle B. This time, Evil Uncle B has the intention to drown his nephew to get his wealth from the start. Likewise he brings the boy to take a shower in the bathtub. Evil Uncle B pushes his nephew's head underwater until he is breathless.
Question: Which Uncle is more evil or less ethical? The uncle who watched while his nephew drown right in front of him or the 1 who acted to keep the nephew's head submerged underwater.

What a load of crap! Did I hear you say? Well, I was tempted to think likewise too. Just switch off and wait for time to pass. I'm glad I changed my mind. Thinking about ethics make you question where you get your moral conscience from.

How often have you been stuck in a situation where you either have to face the devil or the deep blue sea? Have you been caught in a grey zone with no clearly better option to take? How do you decide then? Do you act in an imperfect way but 1 that you think is the lesser of 2 evils? Or do you act blur live longer (to borrow the phrase from my buddy) and do nothing at all?

What is evil? And what is not? What is the lesser of the evils? And what is the more evil of the evils? OR are all evils the same as long as they are evil? Are these thoughts worth a moment to ponder over?

I guess in these grey ethical situations, you are not able to sit down in a rational manner and list out all the pros and cons that each evil has and make a decision from there for the reason that the list will be never-ending. There will be an endless what-ifs and arguments and counter arguments. Scenes that are not uncommon in these tutorials.

Well, what do you do then? If you leave it up to me, I think I would do something that I would be able to live with. In other words, to let my moral conscience lead the way. If this conscience says that option A is the better road to take, then let's go down that way. As long as you are able to answer back to your conscience confidently, that's good enough. As long as you can sleep soundly at night without being pricked by this conscience, then that's good enough.

People say that we live in a materialistic world nowadays. In this world, does ethics have a major role to play? Do you let ethics play a major role in your life? Or do you separate the 2? Are you living in harmony with your moral conscience? Or do you even have a moral conscience? Where did you get your moral conscience from? Your religion? Your upbringing? God?

Ethics - What is your take on it?