Biomedical Oral Exam Preparation

Please use the documents listed below to aid and answer all of the questions the answer should be no longer than 7.5 minutes each.

Questions
1) The goals of medicine. Leon Kass believes that healing is the correct goal of
medicine. Why does he think this and what implications does his view have
for health care? Contrast Kass’s definition of health with the World Health
Organization’s. How does this affect health care? How might a defender of
the best interest view or the value promotion view object to either version of
the healing view?

2) Physician-assisted death. How does James Rachels defend the morality of
active euthanasia? In what ways does he think it is like and unlike passive
euthanasia? What are some of Daniel Callahan’s objections to euthanasia?
How would Callahan criticize Rachels? How would Rachels respond or
criticize Callahan?

3) Abortion. What is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s position on abortion? How does
she argue for that position? Describe Don Marquis’s argument that abortion
is unethical. What are some potential issues with either view? How might the
authors respond to these criticisms?

4) Advance directives. Ronald Dworkin and Rebecca Dresser have different
views about the appropriate scope of advance directives in cases of
dementia. Describe this dispute. What is Dworkin’s argument? In what ways
does Dresser think Dworkin’s argument fails?

5) Paternalism. Libertarian paternalists believe that we should ‘nudge’ people
to do certain things, but we shouldn’t take away options. In contrast, Sarah
Conly argues for taking away options by defending coercive paternalism.
What are her main arguments? How would a libertarian paternalist respond?
What are some ways these points apply to health care?

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