Putman
Hours 3/5
15 November 2016
Argument Paper
Ethics is distinguishing between what is right and wrong and doing what is morally correct. Ethics are also about what humans should do in regards to rights, obligations, fairness and virtues. The short story, "Flowers for Algernon," is mainly about a 37 year old man named Charlie Gordon who has a very low intelligence. An operation is performed on him to make him smarter. Charlie Gordon's doctors did not act ethically when they performed the surgery to make him smarter.
Charlie's doctors did not act ethically when they performed the surgery because they didn’t inform Charlie of all the information that they should have. According to "Ethics in Medicine," the Patient Preferences …show more content…
This is not true because Charlie might not have been willing to continue with his decision if he had known what could happen to him. A few quotes from Flowers for Algernon show that he is willing to do the operation, but unsure to where it might lead. "There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin." (Keyes 77). It shows that Charlie knows that there could be opportunities, and wants to start. He doesn’t specify any of these metaphorical doors. The Hippocratic Oath of doctors says that you are not treating a disease, but a human being, and human beings have rights (Lasagna). These rights were somewhat violated in this operation. Charlie Gordon's doctors did not act ethically when they performed the surgery to make him smarter. This is because the doctors didn’t inform Charlie of all the information that they should have, and they did not follow the "Five Steps to Better Ethical Decision Making." Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur could have slowed down their experiment to get the best results and avoid problems. Overall, the doctors could have made a lot of better decisions that could have prevented many bad things, but considering the time period, a few of their decisions could have been