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Ethical Issues

Ethical Issues

Nurses are essential in patient care, upholding the ethical principles of their profession and effectively navigating ethical dilemmas. Neglecting ethical issues can lead to inadequate patient care, compromised therapeutic relationships, and moral distress among healthcare workers.
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Ethics and Bioethics

Ethics and Bioethics

Ethics is a philosophical study of moral actions. Ethics attempts to determine what is valuable for individuals and society. It examines the rational justification of moral judgments and analyzes what is morally just, fair, and right. Bioethics is a sub-discipline of applied ethics that analyzes the philosophical, social, and legal issues in life sciences and medicine. Ethical theories serve as a foundation for decision-making and represent the viewpoints from which people seek direction. They...

Ethical Dilemmas II

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 15, 2026

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Voluntary euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and the right to do wrong.

Jukka Varelius¹

¹Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy, University of Turku, FI-20014, Turku, Finland, jukvar@utu.fi.

HEC Forum : an Interdisciplinary Journal on Hospitals' Ethical and Legal Issues

|January 23, 2013

Summary

This study examines whether patients have a moral right to voluntary euthanasia (VE) and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) even if these acts are morally wrong. The analysis concludes that existing philosophical arguments do not adequately support such a right.

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Area of Science:

Medical Ethics
Philosophy of Medicine
Bioethics

Background:

Voluntary euthanasia (VE) and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) are subjects of ongoing moral debate.
Some argue that gravely suffering patients may possess a moral right to these procedures, even if considered morally wrong.
Philosophical discourse includes the concept of an agent holding a moral right to perform morally wrong actions.

Purpose of the Study:

To critically assess the argument that a suffering patient can have a moral right to VE and PAS.
To evaluate this claim in light of contemporary philosophical arguments supporting a moral right to do wrong.
To determine the adequacy of these arguments in justifying a moral right to VE and PAS.

Main Methods:

Philosophical analysis of ethical arguments.
Examination of the concept of a moral right to do wrong.
Application of these concepts to the specific cases of VE and PAS.

Main Results:

The main argument for a moral right to do wrong does not provide sufficient justification for a moral right to VE and PAS.
The philosophical literature on the right to do wrong does not adequately support the claim that suffering patients have a moral right to these procedures.

Conclusions:

The argument for a moral right to voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, despite their moral wrongness, is not adequately supported by current philosophical reasoning.
Further philosophical inquiry is needed to establish or refute such a moral right.