Essay on Care Ethics

I would want to fudge the data for him because he is my family, and I would want to end his suffering. However, because my cousin is not my immediate family member, and also because his condition is not life-threatening, I would follow the principle of the Hippocratic oath that I took when I became a doctor, and not falsify data so someone who has a life threatening condition would not get the kidney. My answer would change if this was my best friend or siblings, but that is also why doctors should and do not normally treat family members or close friends; it presents a potential conflict of interest when it comes to making hard decisions. A care ethicist would answer this question by saying that they would absolutely fudge the data, personal obligations come before impersonal obligations every time, according to a care ethicist. Hume would say that a virtuous person would not alter the data because although your cousin is suffering, he is not going to die if he doesn’t get a new kidney. This would be unjust; to help your cousin out at the cost of someone else dying, there would be no justice in doing that. The specific virtues that would be required to help me in this situation would be the qualities useful to the self, and the qualities immediately agreeable to the self. The specific virtue under qualities useful to self I’d use here would be Discretion and Strength of Mind; Discretion because you’re doing something illegal so you don’t want to get caught and go to prison, and Strength of Mind because you need to come to terms with breaking the oath that you took as a doctor to do no harm, which you may be doing here by falsifying data to give a kidney to someone who is not dying just yet. I disagree with Care Ethics because it invites people to be kind and specifically prioritize anything that they do to benefit their friends and family. You should always use reason to make your decisions, not empathy. Logic and reason outweigh empathy in every way possible In