PHIL 241 Test #1 Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering core bioethical principles, ethical theories, and relevant philosophical arguments from PHIL 241 Test #1 Study Guide.

Moral norms

Standards that dictate how people ought to behave when their actions affect the rights, welfare, dignity, or interests of others, carrying greater authority than customs, laws, or etiquette.

Autonomy

Respecting a person’s ability to make informed, voluntary decisions about their own life and body.

Beneficence

Acting to benefit others and promote their welfare.

Nonmaleficence

Avoiding causing unnecessary harm.

Justice

Treating people fairly and distributing benefits and burdens fairly.

Utility

Producing the most favorable balance of benefits over harms.

Prima facie principle

A principle that should guide decisions unless another principle gives a stronger reason in a specific case.

Utilitarianism

A consequentialist ethical theory judging an action as morally right if it produces the greatest overall balance of happiness or welfare over suffering for everyone affected.

Jeremy Bentham

A philosopher who believed pleasure and pain could be measured by factors such as intensity, duration, certainty, and extent, holding that pleasures differ mainly in quantity.

John Stuart Mill

A philosopher who distinguished between higher (intellectual, moral, emotional) and lower (physical) pleasures, and proposed the harm principle.

Act utilitarianism

The view that an individual action is right when it produces the best consequences in a specific situation, allowing rules to be broken if doing so yields greater utility.

Rule utilitarianism

The view that an action is right when it follows a general rule that would produce the greatest good if people widely and consistently followed it.

Mill’s harm principle

The principle stating that society may restrict a person’s liberty only to prevent harm to other people, while harm only to oneself does not justify coercion.

Deontology

An ethical approach in which morality rests on duties and the nature of actions rather than their consequences.

Categorical imperative

A moral command that requires an action regardless of personal desires or goals, based solely on moral duty.

Hypothetical imperative

A rule that applies only if one desires a specific goal or outcome.

Universal law formulation

Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative to act only according to a rule that one could rationally will everyone to follow without contradiction.

Humanity as an end formulation

Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative to treat every person as an end in themselves and never merely as a means.

Perfect duties

Duties that allow no exceptions, such as duties against lying or breaking promises.

Imperfect duties

Duties that allow flexibility in when and how they are fulfilled, such as helping others or developing abilities.

Peter Singer’s proposal

The argument that if we can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we have a moral obligation to do so.

Supererogatory action

A good action that goes beyond moral duty and is generous but optional.

Paternalism

Overriding another person’s decision or freedom for that person’s own welfare.

Weak paternalism

Intervening when a person's autonomy is absent or seriously limited to protect them until they regain decision-making capacity.

Strong paternalism

Overriding the decision or informed choice of a substantially autonomous person.

Atul Gawande’s general approach

A shared or interpretive decision-making framework where medical guidance helps patients connect medical options with their personal values.