Teaching Bioethics from Virtue to Kant

Rosemary Flanigan

May 26, 2009

Even though this week will be short, it will be a good one.

How can I tell? Because Terry Rosell is starting a new session with 2nd year medical students who are beginning their bioethics M.A. And he has asked John Lantos, John Carney and me to help him out this week.

John L is addressing “Bioethics and Babies” with the class even as I type; tomorrow John C will address “Aging in Community,” and on Thursday I get to do “Doing Ethics and Avoiding Common Fallacies,” (mixing a little logic in with their Beauchamp and Childress readings on Moral Theories and Method and Moral Justification).

At times like this, I wish I could remember everything I had learned in class—and hope that the students do! But, of course, I don’t and they won’t. But to get them at the beginning, to make them aware of how they think about issues—and how others may think differently—is to share a treasured moment with them.

And we shall close with an analysis of the Baby K case (an anencephalic baby whose mother insisted on ventilator support until the baby died). I want them to see that a utilitarian perspective isn’t the only one possible, and that a Kantian perspective can find us caught up in conflicting obligations—but how does one encourage the development of a virtue ethic without sermonizing!!

No ethical theory guarantees us that we shall be “right,” but arguing civilly with one another might just lead to the development of virtue.

And then a dose of fallacies! I hope all three of us leave some lasting impressions.

Judging Virtuously

Rosemary Flanigan
April 24, 2009

I am so lucky-I was invited this week to an ethics committee which was reviewing the Baby K case-remember, 1992, the anencephalic baby born in DC; the mother refused to give permission for a DNR order and the baby lived for 2 ½ yrs, going back to the hospital for ventilator support.

There were 7 of us there and an excellent analysis unfolded without a single reference to an ethical principle. The entire discussion hinged on virtue. I have always found that the argument from virtue is the most difficult to make.

Problem # 1: Before one has acquired virtue and is thereby able to judge virtuously by oneself (and thus be one's own ethical standard), one must following the guide of a person already virtuous.

And problem #2: in our culture it is oftentimes difficult to distinguish character traits that are virtues from those which are impressive because of certain contemporary cultural phenomena.

Oh, did I tell you that all 7 of us are female and 6 of them were mothers. I think that fact was important. There was careful weighing of the mother's feelings and desires over against what was best, in their argument, for Baby K.

Sensitive alternatives were proposed aimed towards respect for autonomy, beneficence and justice without those words being mentioned.

Shifting Ethics: Act Centered to Virtue Centered

Rosemary Flanigan

April 22, 2009

Over the week-end I was thinking of another article I had read—Richard Gula, a moral theologian who has written in the bioethics field for years. In it, the author sees moral theology shifting from act-centered to virtue-centered.

“When virtue ethics shifts the attention from acting to being, it does not do away with moral theology’s interest in action. Moral problems will not go away. After we have pulled the plug or dropped the bomb, what happens to the decision-maker? Virtue ethics takes seriously the proposition that who we are affects what we do, and what we do affects who we become.” (Richard M. Gula. 2009. (Richard M. Gula. 2009. “The Shifting Landscape of Moral Theology.” National Pastoral Life Center.)

And I thought: the same holds true with young people in medicine or in law or in teaching or wherever! They have been taught how to do whatever it is they do—but what they need, and continue to need, is the virtuous mentor showing them the “character” of medicine or law.

Idealism doesn’t have to die; moral fatigue is not a given. But without the example of good people trying to act well, virtuous practitioners, their splendid knowledge might have little effect on who they become.