Resolving moral dilemmas: A case-based method

✍ Scribed by Becky Cox White; Eric H. Gampel

• Book ID: 104628433
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 900 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0956-2737
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00119173

✦ Synopsis

Resolving Moral Dilemmas: A Case-Based Method Should Ms. A be told her child has died? This is a moral dilemma because both options are morally worrisome. Since Ms. A's condition is unstable, telling may cause her condition to worsen --perhaps to the point of death, thereby violating the moral obligation not to cause significant harm. Conversely, lying surely violates the moral obligation to tell the truth, especially to one's patients.

Faced with this dilemma, some health care professionals would be quick to take a position based upon their own "gut level intuitions." But several good reasons argue against using intuition as a problem-solving approach.