Are human rights infringed in treatments for mental health?
Ethics are moral values that govern us as individuals and a group on the appropriate conduct in society. Ethics lay down the foundations of how we should live our lives, treat others and ourselves; giving everyone an understanding of what is morally right and wrong in society.
Ethics give us a baseline for understanding the concept of right and wrong. Help us to have a ready understanding of how to react to a certain situation before it has happened. As individuals we learn about ethics growing up from our home, school and social interaction. More often than not ethics don’t give us a definitive answer to ethical questions, sometimes ethics give multiple choices leaving an individual to choose the correct path to take. In essence they provide us with a system for attempting to come to a morally right decision.
Ethics are applied to all aspects of our lives and society, and there are a number of ethical approaches. Medical ethics are ethical models, which are more specific or more applicable to medical situations.
Medical ethics have evolved overtime, however the oldest form of medical ethics still in use to day is the ‘Hippocratic Oath’, recited still by many graduating Doctors. Hippocrates was a Greek Philosopher and Physician, and the oath has been seen as the basics of medical ethics. (Patient, 2011).
Approaches to Medical ethics are many, but commonly include Utilitarianism, Deontology (Kant), (DLC Ethics information pack 2011), and the more modern ‘Four Principles plus scope’ approach to ethics (BMJ, 1994).
The Four principles introduces the concepts of Beneficence, Non – Maleficence, Autonomy and Justice. (BMJ, 1994).
All medical professions have their own governing bodies, outlining codes of practice to which they are expected to adhere to. These vary slightly from profession to profession, however the above ethical approaches are over arching
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