(1) From Chapter 6: Beneficence (Beauchamp & Childress): For this question, please answer the following:
(a) What is the author’s definition of paternalism?
(b) What do the authors take to be the distinction between soft and hard paternalism?
(c) Under what conditions do the authors think that hard paternalism is justified in health care?
(d) How do the authors see the relationship between paternalistic intervention and acts of attempted suicide?
(2) From Chapter 8: Medicine at the End of Life (Curlin & Tollefsen): Please offer some personal reflections (i.e., a few short paragraphs) on which argument(s) or point(s) stood out to you the most or that you found most intriguing in this chapter.
(3) A Real-Life Case Study: Suppose that you are a clinical ethicist at a local hospital. You get an ethics consultation from an observation unit nurse whose patient has a self-sanctioned DNAR code status (Do Not Attempt Resuscitation) and is also on suicide watch. The nurse has contacted you because, on the one hand, she knows that she is observing the patient in order to prevent acts of attempted suicide. Yet, on the other hand, she also knows that the patient has a self-sanctioned DNAR status because of their terminal condition and deteriorating health. The nurse’s questions to you in the consult are as follows: “What should I do if the patient engages in an act of attempted suicide? Do I stop them? And what if I’m too late and their act is successful? Do I resuscitate them despite their DNAR code status?” Utilizing what you’ve learned from this week’s required readings, what would you say in response to this ethics consult? What recommendations would you give to the nurse? Explain.