What would you do if your clinical preceptor or supervisor asked you to do something that was legal but outside your ethical code?

After reading the case study Preventing Physical Maturation in a Brain Damaged Girl on pp 713-714 of our textbook, please submit a case resolution.  You must read the Case Resolution Procedure document before doing your case resolution.  This document in located in "General Information" or you can click here Case Resolution Procedure  Also, look at the sample student case resolution to see how the assignment is formatted, and so on; click here Sample Student Case Resolution For section 3 of your case resolution, please use the (act) utilitarian ethical theory.   Please do the two things required in section 3--explaining the theory and then applying it (as explained in Case Resolution Procedure) In section 2, you must formulate and state what you think is the most pressing moral question of the case study.  Your question will be related to, but not necessarily identical to, the questions that occur at the end of the case study.  Also, make sure that your question is indeed a moral question, and not merely a factual question.... Also, we have learned in Module 1 some important aspects of moral reasoning.  In particular, you should have an idea of the elements of a moral argument (in particular, that a moral argument has a moral conclusion AND also has a major moral premise).  Keep these things in mind when doing section 5 of your case resolution. Case Resolution Procedure The Case Resolution Procedure is a tool that provides a logical and clear structure for thinking through a bioethics case, no matter what principles and theories are at issue. There is nothing magical about this structure—it is simply an easy and efficient way to organize our thoughts about a particular case. But note—it itself will not improve a bad piece of reasoning! Using this procedure does not automatically make moral thinking “good” but it does allow moral reasoners to structure their moral thinking in ways that are organized, logical, and clear to others. So hopefully by doing these case resolutions, we can all be ready to participate in discussions with others about the cases—we will have already addressed the foundational questions regarding the facts of the case, the problems at hand, etc., and so can spend more productive time with each discussing the interesting stuff! Think of doing them as prep work for fruitful discussions... Here are the steps of the Case Resolution Procedure: 1. Facts. Summarize the relevant facts. List what details are important, who is involved, and so on. Be sure all the relevant facts are included—this means deciding what information is crucial to the ethical situation. Don’t simply re-copy the entire description of the case study—list all and only the important facts relevant to the ethical issue in the case. And make sure only facts are listed, rather than stating moral judgments. 2. Problem. State the specific moral question or problem to be solved. In other words, state the moral question that will be answered. This step is accomplished by a single question. Do not complicate things by posing several problems or questions. And make sure that the question you pose here is the question that is addressed in the remaining sections. Finally, the question posed here MUST be a moral question, rather than a factual question. 3. Theoretical Perspective. In this step, you will be making use of a philosophical theory/approach to resolving the moral question/problem identified in 2. These philosophical theories/approaches are covered in Chapter 1of our text and in the Lecture Notes. To streamline our learning of the various ethical theories, and how they may be applied to concrete cases, I am going to require only one such theory be discussed/applied per case. So for the first Case Resolution, you will adopt a utilitarian perspective in completing this section, for the second Case Resolution, you will adopt a Kantian perspective, and for the third case you will be using the 4 Principles Approach, and so on. Which theory to discuss in section 3 is explicitly mentioned in the individual instructions for each case resolution. So, for Section 3, there will be two things to do: first, you must fully explain and discuss an ethical theory. Make sure to that your explanation is developed and thorough— pretend you have to explain the theory to someone who has never heard of the theory. The second thing you must do is then apply the theory to the case. This means you will adopt the viewpoint of the theory and explain how the theory would answer the moral question you posed in section 2. Please note that how a theory goes about determining an answer to a question is unique to the details of the theory at hand. The sample case resolution provided is using a utilitarian theory in section 3, and so the way the moral question is answered is unique to utilitarianism. For other ethical theories, a different approach to figuring out what is right to do will have to be figured out by you (with help, of course, from our readings). Also make sure this discussion of the application of the theory is thorough and precise. 4. Decision. State your decision. According to you, what is the best option, the moral decision? That is, how would you yourself answer the moral question you posed in section 2? This step requires only one statement of the decision made without a listing of the reasons involved. 5. Defense. Defend the decision you have reached. Use principles or values, theories, moral perspectives, and rules to give support for your own view. Try and make a strong case in defense of your decision as being the best possible decision. You will want to make use of the material from Module 1 here. There is a lot of material in Module 1 that explains what a moral argument is—what it needs to contain. Module 1 material is thus the foundation for being able to construct a moral argument, and if need be, you might want to review the material on the nature of moral arguments from this module. I have made available a sample Case Resolution for you to look at, written by a former student. So, to recap: for section 3 of the case resolutions, you will be asked to address the ethical dilemma from a certain ethical theory that is explained in the text and the Lectures. The idea is this—pretend, for Case Resolution 1, you are a utilitarian, you believe that all moral problems ought to be addressed by using the Principle of Utility. Then say how that perspective will resolve the ethical problem or answer the ethical question identified in section 2 of the case resolution. However! For sections 4 and 5, you are now trying to think about how you yourself would address the ethical issue—what do you think is the right way to answer the ethical question? Try and develop good reasons for your view, that is, try and develop an ethical argument for your position. You may not agree at all with the theory you discussed in section 3 and that is fine; if you do agree with how the theory discussed in section 3 addresses the moral issue, then say something in this last section about why you agree (rather than just repeating what was discussed in section 3...). That is, section 5 is not to be merely a restatement of what was done in section 3. Also note how the sample case resolution document is formatted—clearly identified sections, with the proper headings. Please follow that sort of format for ease of reading.