Professor
Professor Robert McCloud
Course Name
Computer Ethics
Course Number
CS 319
Document Type
Essay
Original Publication Date
September 20, 2018
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
For option A of this assignment, the prompt is that Harry, a manufacturer of medical equipment and an avid reader of medical textbooks, has developed a program that will allow its users to self-diagnose and self-treat their ailments, without a doctor’s help. Harry wants to sell his program to “ordinary folk” as a replacement for consulting licensed medical practitioners. An important point here is that Harry is not licensed to practice medicine and has only read books on the subject. The posed question is whether or not his program should be published (from an ethical standpoint—not necessarily a profit-driven one).
In this paper, I will propose a solution to this ethical question and offer a set of value-based reasons why that solution should be taken. After that, I will give a counterargument and explain why the counterargument would not be ethical compared to my first solution. From there, I will support my solution using three different ethical frameworks: an ethics of purpose, an ethics of principle, and an ethics of consequence.
Recommended Citation
Escott, Charles C., "The Ethics of an Unlicensed Medical Practitioner" (2019). Writing Across the Curriculum. 39.
https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/wac_prize/39
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
