Quantitative research study analysis and evaluation

¶ … ethics of organ donation incentives and mandates continue to challenge the perception and values of healthcare professionals, legislators and lawmakers, and most of all, the general public. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate three quantitatively-based studies that taken together serve to illustrate the paradoxes of the ethics of organ donor and the role of utilitarian ethics specifically. The ethical decision of allowing family members to allow for organ donation once a person has been declared brain dead puts the issue of utilitarian ethics at the forefront of any debate (Siminoff, Burant, Youngner, 2004). The overall trend in medical ethics surrounds a more deontological than utilitarian approach (the means are more important than the result). The combination of ethics of care and virtue ethics support relationships more than philosophical debate (Tschudin, 2003).

The ethical and religious factors from an Islamic perspective are made more complex when cash incentives are offered to organ donors while they are still in good health (Bagheri, 2006). Another aspect of organ donor programs is the perspective of seeing the problem from a supply chain standpoint, with methodologies that reflect a more forecasting-based approach to supply and demand (Guadagnoli, Christiansen, Beasley, 2003). This becomes even more complex when one realizes that the trends in healthcare point more towards a paradigm of inclusion and advocacy for patient's rights and the individual's ability and expectation to not just participate in their own healthcare paradigm, but to take an active role in whatever ethical or moral judgment might affect their ability to do so. The philosophical combination of advocacy and ethics, while still remaining true to the realities of budgets and the need for a medical institution to make a profit, is a contemporary medical health issue comprising three essential attributes, respect for patient value & individuality, education of patients, and cognition and respect for the realities of contemporary medicine (Burkhard, et.al., 2007).

Of these three approaches are analyzed from the standpoint of the research question asked, explanation of the research study design, a summarization of the methodology and discussion of results and conclusions. The fact that globally there are organ shortages further forces the issues surrounding ethics and policy direction (Harter, 2008). In response to the multifaceted approach the healthcare industry is taking to resolving this shortage, many healthcare companies are pushing the ethical boundaries and personal choice in this area (Ross, 2006).

Utilitarianism and Deotology - At the very center of the debate on euthanasia lies the core of individual and societal ethics. Philosophically, ethics is a rubric used to understand and explain the way humans morally organize events or actions. The focus is on understanding the way moral choices are presented than judging the outcome of the decisions made. Ethics can be situational, and certainly the dilemmas or morality and choice have different answers depending on the particular time and place they occur (MacIntyre, 2006).

Even prior to the formalization of the terms utilitarianism and deontology, the core ideas of each have been debated for centuries. The Ancient Greeks argued over the needs of the individual as opposed to the needs of the. Showing just how much this concept has permeated popular culture, the philosophical issue even made it to the modern motion picture screen. Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical thing one can do is any action that will maximize the happiness within an organization or society. At the center of this debate is the notion that many remain dissatisfied with the definition of "good" or "appropriate" being at the whim of a particular social order, or ruling elite. This debate may be found in Aristotle, Socrates, and Aquinas, leading to more contemporary political notions from Lock, Kant, and even Martin Luther King, Jr. Forming the core modern argument, for instance, Aquinas argued that there were certain universal behaviors that were either right or wrong as ordained by the Divine. Hobbes and Locke differed, and put forth the notion that there were natural rights, or "states of nature," but disagreed on the controlling factors of those natural tendencies. Kant took this further, reacting, and argued that a state or society must be organized by the way laws and justice was universally true, available, and, most importantly, justified by humanity. Yet, for Kant, these innate principles should be mindful of the freedom and choice (autonomy) of the individual. In this way Kant, prescribed that basic rights were necessary for civil society, and becomes a rubric by which we may understand modern utilitarian principles and their interdependence with the concept of human rights (Haydn, 2001). Actions have quantitative outcomes and the ethical choices that lead to the "greatest good for the greatest number" are the appropriate decisions, even if that means subsuming the rights of certain individuals (Troyer, 2003, 256-52). It is considered to be a consequential outlook in the sense that while outcomes cannot be predicted the judgment of an action is based on the outcome -- or, "the ends justify the means" (Robinson and Groves, 2003).