Major Moral Dilemma: It Started with Viagra

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
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Major Moral Dilemma: It Started with Viagra

It is obvious even to the most casual observer (no Critical Thinking required) that we must quickly deal with the problem that medical technology has left on our door step. As a result of the success of medical technology we can prolong life ever more, every day, than the day before. I claim that this constantly extending the prolongation of life must quickly cease; we can no longer afford such a foolish unreflective behavior.

Bruce Hardy, a British citizen and cancer victim, was refused the funds, by British health officials, for a drug that could likely prolong his life for 6 more months. The drug treatment cost was estimated to be $54,000. His distraught wife said “Everybody should be allowed to have as much life as they can”.

“British authorities, after a storm of protest, are reconsidering their decision on the cancer drug and others.”

The introduction of the drug Viagra, by Pfizer, in 1998, panicked British health officials. They figured it might bankrupt the government’s health budget and thus placed restrictions on its use. Pfizer sued and the British government instituted a standard program, with the acronym NICE, for rationing health drugs.

“Before NICE, hospitals and clinics often came to different decisions about which drugs to buy, creating geographic disparities in care that led to outrage.”

“British Balance Benefit vs. Cost of Latest Drugs” New York Times
nytimes.com/2008/12/03/healt … =3&_r=1&hp

I have stated many times before that I was convinced that we have created a technology that is too powerful for our intellectually unsophisticated citizens to deal with. It seems to me that this particular dilemma does not require a great deal of sophistication to understand. This might be a perfect place to begin a nationwide (USA) Internet discourse directed at getting our intellectual arms around this problem and helping our government officials in an attempt to resolve this terrible dilemma.

Incidentally I am 74 years old, which I think qualifies me to push this matter without appearing to be a hypocrite.

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In these times of over-population, that is a very apt. point you have made - even when the terminally ill want to go with dignity, doctors feel it is their duty to prolong their patient’s lives by weeks let alone months.

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Quality vs quantity. The argument has yet to be resolved. What is the quality of life that deserves extension or does all life deserve extension? For me. If I am in a coma, pull the plug please. if I am bedridden let me die peacefully. If I have no mind, kiss me then say see you later and put me to the peaceful sweet sleep of death. I love this life too much to not live it with quality.

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”A 70-year-old woman in India gave birth to her first child, a girl, after undergoing infertility treatment, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

The mother, Rajo Devi, had been trying for 50 years to get pregnant with her 72-year-old husband, who had failed to become a father in two prior marriages. It was undetermined whose egg and sperm were used in the treatment, the newspaper reported.”

msnbc.msn.com/id/28112285/

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Well umm, I am glad for the parents but, the kid is going to have a rough time.

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Technology meets morality.
Morality meets almost all aspects of our life and that is why we must develop a science of morality. Morality, i.e. how we relate to one another, is too important to be treated in such a casual manner as to leave it to the priests, rabbis, preachers, and imams.

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Hah well its a shame that the questions you raise so quickly are so unbelievably complex. Questions like “Does so and so have a mind” would so and so want to die in THIS* condition, would so and so want to hope for coming out of it or a future cure.

I’d suffer a pain-ridden horror filled coma for 20 years if it meant i’d still have dozens of years of life left with some future cure.

For that matter if I was in a coma and when people talked about people/my house/etc and the areas of my brain light up for thinking about faces/manuevering my way through a room… well, life is all people have, it may be an easy decision for you and a bunch of religious people who think theres a golden carrot for making that decision.

lots of people aren’t so made-up about pulling the plug when life gets tough. Obviously I wouldn’t want to be kept on a ventilator if I was brain-dead, but if I wasn’t… thats a hard choice and depends on variables like extent of consciousness which is often-times near impossible to guess.

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being a prisoner of your own mind and unable to move for 20 years may be rough, but if thats what you have to do to live again, lots of people think thats a sacrafice worth making not that they might not pull the plug or ask it done if they could communicate, but the people that live after that shit would certainly regret thinking that after a few years of good life.

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Each to their own Cyrene, To some what you describe would not be acceptable to some it would. They are complex, I would not dare speak for another on such issues and no other person has the right to speak for me on them.

coberst: I take it you mean a universal morality code?

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No, I am talking about an empirical science. I suggest that we can no longer limp along on Sunday-school morality but we require a rigorous, empirical, systematic and disciplined study of this domain of knowledge which affects our attitude toward almost every domain of knowledge and activity.

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You do realize the major problems that will occur within it right?

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That is why a science is so imporant; to develop the rational foundation for resolving ambiguities. Morality is too important to leave it in such a state that it now rests.

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Alright but, you do realize that morality is a part of the person, one set of morals will not fit another. Folks tend to get defensive about others mucking around with what is inside. Forcing a set of morals that have been researched and aproved, on the human species will cause massive war. Folks can accept differences in morals easier than being forced to live by an alien moral code.

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That 's Sunday-school morality.

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:laughing: No its common sense if you study behavior.