UNION CHRISTIAN COLLEGE

Widdoes St., City of San Fernando, La Union

School of Health Sciences

Reading Material in Health Care Ethics (NCM 119))

Human Beings and Morality

Of all vertebrates, a human being alone, being gifted with the power of reason, has a
sense of right and wrong. A human being has a sense of propriety, which an animal does not
have, inasmuch as only a human being is aware of moral oughtness, hence morality makes a
human being act as a human being and its absence makes an animal act as an animal.

It is in this context that morality is both a blessing and a curse to an individual, a

The point here is that a human being has a sense of propriety which a pig does not
have. A fool enjoys being foolish and asinine while a Socrates exalts a decent life that is worth
living. The big difference makes a person rational and moral. Filipinos aptly put it thus: Madali
ang maging tao, pero mahirap ang magpakatao (“It is easy to be born a man but it is hard to
become truly human”). For to become truly human is to be moral.

Being the only moral creatures, humans have survived the law of the evolutionary
process, namely, survival of the fittest. Without morality they would have destroyed and
exterminated themselves into extinction. It thus becomes increasingly clear that morality plays
a very significant role not only in maintaining a meaningful existence with others, but most of all,
for human survival as well.

In fact, the immeasurable value of morality finds itself in human relationships, precisely
because the human being is a social individual who lives with other individuals. Hence without
morality no social unit or human relationship can ever survive.

In a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, for instance, the boy as a male relates with the girl
as a female; in the family, an individual member lives, eats, plays, and sleeps with the other
members; in the school, an individual is a student who plays, studies, and make friends with
other students. In the state, an individual is a citizen who exists, lives, works, and associates
with fellow citizens. These basic human situations bring with them certain rights and obligations
which are necessary not only to maintain peaceful and well-ordered relations among
sweethearts, the family members, the students, and the citizens, but also for their own survival.

Such rights and obligations, be they written or unwritten, constitute morality, a group’s or
community’s code of behavior or, in some ways, the system of values by which the members
are supposed to behave and act properly. This system of values is sometimes referred to as
group morality or ethics, without which the group as such cannot long endure.
 A reflection on the aforesaid human relations will reveal the preeminence of morality in
every life situation. The boyfriend ought to respect the girlfriend’s rights and the latter should
likewise regard her boyfriend’s rights not only as human beings with dignity and freedom but
also as sweethearts. Any infraction of one’s duty to respect the other’s rights in the context of
the relationship will definitely destroy the love affair itself; hence it will just die a natural death,
so to speak.

The same holds true for a husband-wife relationship in which both have the mutual
obligation to respect each other’s rights in order to preserve a happy, orderly, and lasting family
life. A breach or violation of one’s duty to the other in this relationship will cause the loss of
one’s respect for the other, thereby resulting in a broken home or a shattered family. It goes
without saying then that morality can either make or unmake an individual, it can either foster or
destroy any human relationship.

It is here where we are faced with one of humankind’s most persistent problems
throughout the ages. How can we determine whether an act is good or bad, whether we
are acting rightly or wrongly? Answers to these disturbing questions have been in
abundance and they constitute the various ethical schools of thought formulated by man over
the years.

These ethical theories are usually classified as general ethics, which refer to all the
diverse ethical formulations of general and universal concepts and principles, which serve as
the foundation of morality

General ethics raises the problem of moral norms and attempts to formulate and defend
a system of fundamental ethical perceptions that settle which acts are good and which ones are
evil. For every moral theory these ethical principles are presented to be valid (hence to be
followed by everyone). This makes ethical study interesting and challenging; for just as there
are so many cultures, so are there so many moral norms.

When social relations have become so intricate, complicated, and sophisticated due to
the development of new roles and specific functions that an individual should play or perform in
a given workplace or profession, there exists a felt need for the general moral principles of
ethical theories to be applied to specific and particular situations in life in which they are found
to be legitimate. In other words, in an attempt to resolve specific moral problems resulting from
the advances of modern science and technology, general ethical precepts are applied, and are
now called special or applied ethics.

This explains the proliferation of various types of professional ethics, like business
ethics, legal ethics, medical ethics, dental ethics, teaching ethics, nursing ethics, among many
others. True to our thesis, morality or any code of ethics grows out of any kind of human
relationships, be it teacher-student, lawyer-client, employer-employee or labor-management
relations.

The same is true of health care ethics, which deals with the relationship between health
care professionals and their patients. Thus the author’s overriding objective . . . is to show
primarily that the heath care professional-patient relationship is a “community of persons in
relation” in which they are personally related to each other for a common goal, namely: health
care.

As enshrined in the Code of Ethics of the Medical Profession. “The physician is a

What is Health Care Ethics?

Health Care Ethics consists of certain ethical precepts and principles, which serve as
moral guidelines for the conduct of health care professionals in the treatment of patients,
particularly in taking care of their health. These precepts and principles are drawn from ethical
doctrines or theories and are applied to specific or particular situations in which they are valid
and legitimate. For this reason, health care ethics is a type of applied ethics.

Like any other forms of human relationship, the doctor-patient or nurse-patient

By duty is meant the moral obligation of the health care professional (physician or
nurse), either to do something or to omit something in favor of the patient according to the strict
demand of moral propriety and justice. And right is the moral and inviolable power vested in a
person to do, hold, or exact something as one’s own.

For instance, a patient has the right to decide on something, which he believes, is good
for him. And this decision must be respected (more on this point under patient’s rights in
Chapter 2).

Health care ethics embodies the noble and exemplary mission of the medical profession
that “Health is a fundamental human right and it is the obligation of the society to make it
possible for the individual to attain a level of health consistent with the resources of the
community in which he/she lives.”

Why is There a Need for Health Care Ethics?

In every human relationship (as pointed out above), there are certain duties and rights
that must be observed in order to maintain harmonious, just, and orderly relations. This also
holds true for a nurse-patient or doctor-patient relationship. On the one hand, the nurse or
doctor, as a heath care professional, has clearly specified duties to perform in the medicinal
treatment of the patient; on the other hand, the patient has certain rights to be respected in the
treatment process.

The observance of these duty-right correlates is the basis of justice and propriety in the
relationship, whereas its violation will result in injustice. It is in this context that health care
ethics is deemed to be very necessary and important. For unless the respective duties and
rights in the relationship are observed, the conduct of medical treatment would just be
mechanical and perfunctory, and at times unfair and even inhuman.

For sure, respect for these rights and acting by one’s own duties will be for the good of
both the doctor/nurse and the patient, whereas any infraction thereof is detrimental to the
relationship, which is often called an unfair treatment or medical malpractice. In this regard,
health care ethics provides the code of behavior or value system by which the doctor/nurse and
the patient are supposed to get along well with each other, and ought to treat and relate to each
other during the nursing treatment.

It is in this context that health care ethics humanizes the relational dimension of medical
treatment, between the doctor or nurse and the patient. It affirms their inviolability as human
persons with dignity and freedom during the curing process.

As provided in the Code (of Ethics of the Medical Profession: “The physician’s principal
responsibility is to the patient’s welfare, both insofar as his/her health need or medical state is
concerned as well as his/her status as a human being deserving of dignity and respect.” (Art. II.
I.).

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Taken from: Florentino T. Timbreza. 2007. “Human Beings and Morality,” Health Care Ethics.
Manila: National Book Store.