Moral and Liberty: Duty to Rescue - Essay Example

Duty to Rescue The Constitution granted the citizens of the U.S with the thing that is still considered to be one of the main achievements of American democracy. This right is personal liberty, the right to do what one wishes to do in case it does not cause harm to the people who are around. As it often happens with the ethical and legal issues, the concept of liberty often conflicts with moral principles and values that most members of our society share. From the early childhood the great part of the U.S citizens is taught that it is socially approved to help those, who are in need of it. In the same time the contemporary society promotes individualism, which often becomes a direct route to egoism. Thus when the person faces situation the Bible's proverb about the Good Samaritan describes, the dillema appears between the two motivations, which are the desire to receive social recognition, and approval and the desire not to cause inconvenience or danger to himself or herself. The doctors, jurists, human right defendants and social; activists argue severely for whether the duty to rescue should be obligatory, or it would be fair to leave citizens the right to choose whether they desire to commit this or that act and to provide help, assistance and care to this or that person. As with all the dilemmas that involve conflicts between the legal issues and ethical principles, the answer is ambiguous. "Whatever one might think of the morality of declining to rescue people in trouble, there no legal penalty for merely going about your own business." , says Donald J. Kochan, the author of the article called The Pervasive Duty to Rescue. The absence of this legal basis lets every person who faces this situation decide for himself or herself whether he is able to sacrifice some of his/her time, effort, or money in order to preserve the life or/and well-being of the other human being or just alive creature. On the one hand it gives people the opportunity to grow morally as they do something good, sometimes even heroic, without being forced to do it. When the person is obliged to save the life of the other person legally, doing so is not heroism; it is merely obeying the law. For the adepts of this viewpoint coerced benevolence devaluates the mere notion of it, as it is natural for them that those kinds of deeds should be performed by the free will. On the other hand the absence of this law contradicts to the proclamation that is constantly being made by the doctors, politicians and human rights defendants, which is about the main value of our society. They say that what is considered to be the highest value is human life. Those who are against the introduction of this law motivate it by the guarantees of personal freedom that were granted by the Constitution. In this case personal liberty is given more value than the human's life. An impression is created that some of those who are strongly against the introduction of this law care mostly for their personal convenience. For example, David Schmitdzputs puts a rhetorical question: "if we have a duty to rescue in a local emergency, must we also have a duty to rescue people from chronic famine in foreign countries" Those people are afraid to take even a small obligation, as they feel it would deprive them of the possibility to live the way they like it. For them such a law will seem to be an attempt of the government to take more control on their lives, or even take away some of their freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Increasing discomfort is the main fear of this category of people, as they value their personal comfort more than the lives of the greatest parts of dwellers of our planet. The fact that there is no legal duty to rescue is interpreted in different ways, and some of the social scientists still argue about the meaning of it. Regardless of the controversy of this issue a concept exists that successfully defines its meaning, which's expressed by Lester H. Hunt in his article An Argument against a Legal Duty to Rescue. He tells that: ""no duty to rescue" rule allows is the failure to save people from harm, not the failure to avoid causing it". While "no duty to rescue" concept may sound al least acceptable for the common citizens, the appliance of this rule towards the medical workers seems to be very controversial. After reading the first and second paragraphs of the Florida's Good Samaritan Act a question arises which is if there is no duty to rescue put towards the doctors, health practitioners and nurses, and they "shall not be held liable for any civil damages as a result of medical care or treatment unless such damages result from providing, or failing to provide, medical care or treatment under circumstances demonstrating a reckless disregard for the consequences so as to affect the life or health of another" (Florida's Good Samaritan Act), than what is actually their duty and how is its performance supervised The law is okay with the "failure to act in providing or arranging further medical treatment where the person acts as an ordinary reasonably prudent person would have acted under the same or similar circumstances", even towards those who practice medicine. The introduction of this act makes the task of controlling the agency of the medical workers the complicated one, as it may protect those practitioners whose qualification is not enough for letting them treat a patient. The Florida's Good Samaritan Act actually protects those emergency medical workers whose conduct towards their patients was negligent, as, according to the paragraph 1(b) of this statement the medical workers aren't held liable for any civil damages unless they demonstrated reckless disregard, which's, according to the Good Samaritan Act, "created an unreasonable risk of injury so as to affect the life or health of another, and such risk was substantially greater than that which is necessary to make the conduct negligent". So, as we see, negligent conduct is not punished by the terms of this act. Considering all of the stated above, it is clearly seen that the hospitals should not be covered under the Florida Good Samaritan Act, as the degree of protection from the doctors' imprudence or negligence provided by it is too small. In order to ensure the proper qualification of the medical workers the sanctions applied for this kind of mistakes should be much more severe. Vermont Good Samaritan Statue is a much more suitable document for covering the American hospitals, as it foresees the civil liability in case the actions of the doctor are qualified as gross negligence. Moreover, the Vermont Good Samaritan Statue actually imposes a duty to rescue on the health practitioners, who, due to the specifics of their profession should be liable to it. Regardless of the fact that the Florida's Good Samaritan Act is not very suitable for the health practitioners, it is a good compromise between the affirmative duty to rescue those, who are in trouble, and the preservation of the civil liberties. Due to the existence of this act there will be a little more motivation to actually help someone in need, as the person will know that he/she will not be liable for the civil damages in case he/she will make a mistake trying to provide help. Of course this act is not enough to ensure that every citizen will help the other one in trouble, but, as we see, the government doesn't look to it, as it would've restrained the civil liberties of the U.S dwellers. It seems that the introduction of the Florida's variant of the Good Samaritan Act is the best possible solution for encouraging the citizens to help and granting them the right to decide what they should actually do. As we can note, the issue of imposing duty to rescue on the citizens is very controversial. It is one of the bright examples of the cases where the ethical principles and legal issues come into contradiction. Most of the American states do not impose a duty to rescue on their citizens, which's reflected in a Florida's Good Samaritan Act, while there are two states that have the law that makes the duty to rescue compulsory. Vermont Good Samaritan Statue is an example of the documents that regulate this issue in those two states. In my opinion Florida's Good Samaritan Act shouldn't be introduced in the hospitals, but when applied outside the medical establishments it makes a good compromise between the affirmative duty to rescue those, who are in trouble, and the preservation of the civil liberties. Works Cited 1. Kochan, D. The Pervasive Duty to Rescue. The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, 1997, Vol. 47, No. 6 2. Hunt, L. An Argument Against a Legal Duty to Rescue. Lester H. Hunt's Website. http://philosophy.wisc.edu/hunt/duty2res.htm 3. Schmidtz, D. Islands in a Sea of Obligation: Limits of the Duty to Rescue. Independent Institute Working Paper #18. Independent Institute. www.independent.org/pdf/working_papers/18_islands.pdf Read More