An official website of the United States government. This site uses cookies to recognize users and allow us to analyse site usage. These can be thought of as rules or duties that we have to ourselves and to others regardless of their consequences. The .gov means its official. One problem with the theory is that it can be hard to measure different benefits to decide which one is morally preferable. But if telling a lie would help save a person's life, consequentialism says it's the right thing to do. An example of consequentialism is utilitarianism. Consequentialism is the position that morality is determined by the outcome of good or bad consequences caused by a person's actions. Is it okay to do bad things for a good cause? John Stuart Mill, one of the foremost Utilitarian moral theorists, sums up Utilitarianism as follows: "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." 80 Any account of Utilitarianism will have two central tenets. Applications of facial recognition technology (FRT) in health care settings have been developed to identify and monitor patients as well as to diagnose genetic, medical, and behavioral conditions. Conclusion: 2000 Mar;2(1):29-41. This helps prevent a surge of infected patients in the existing healthcare facilities. iEthics: An Interprofessional Ethics Curriculum. Q: Roe v. Wade may soon be overturned by the Supreme Court, while at the same time other countries are loosening restrictions around abortion rights. Examining hospital staff members' preferences for allocating a ventilator to a COVID-19 patient with and without Alzheimer's disease. Many forms of consequentialism have been proposed that attempt to deal with the issue of comparing moral value. health. The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Tap here to review the details. The committee evaluates the impact of relationships on health care. For a summary of consequentialist ethics check out the videos below: Our next stop in our tour of the ethical lay of the land is utilitarianism. Consequentialists may try to respond by arguing that alienation and taking an impersonal standpoint can be a virtue, but this seems a high price to pay if the agent is expected to disregard her most fundamental relationships, leaving her deeply unhappy. In this way, consequentialism ethics provide criteria for the moral evaluation of actions, while also recommending rules or decision-making criteria for future actions. The more good consequences an act produces, the better or more right that act. Accessed April 8, 2017. Instead, it is being driven by patients, who are increasingly turning into consumers. Stud Health Technol Inform. ISSN 2376-6980. The ethics of clinical innovation in psychopharmacology: challenging traditional bioethics. Epub 2022 Apr 9. According to consequentialism, the right act is that act which has the best consequences. A person should do whatever leads to the best consequence. Equality is certainly one of the key principles behind Utilitarian philosophy. The same could be said for Jim who by doing nothing is responsible for the lives of the twenty Indians. It emphasises four key ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice, which are shared by most ethical theories, and blends these with virtues and practical wisdom. The consequentialism theory suggests that the correct moral response is related to the . Perhaps it can in some way be quantified, so that if carrying out some act would damage the integrity of the individual so grievously that the maximum utility could be reached only if they failed to act, then not acting would be the right thing to do. As Peter Railton says: The alienation of some individuals or groups from their milieu may at times be necessary for fundamental social criticism or cultural innovation (Alienation, Consequentialism and the Demands of Morality, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1984). Int J Lang Commun Disord. He noticed morality as an important part of daily life but also noticed there was no logical reason for following moral rules except for recognition from others or fear of punishment. Consequentialism is sometimes criticized because it can be difficult, or even impossible, to know what the result of an action will be ahead of time. Implementing machine learning in health careaddressing ethical challenges. In this example: A hospital has limited capacity to deal with Covid-19 patients and is having to decide between admitting a 20 year old patient, who is fit and well, and a 75 year old patient, who has a history of heart disease, to their last available ventilator. Borsos Z, Gyori M. Can automated facial expression analysis show differences between autism and typical functioning? 124). Utilitarianism is one of the forms of consequentialism that states that everything has a consequence. This makes consequentialist theories very demanding on the agent involved. Cohen IG, Amarasingham R, Shah A, Xie B, Lo B. Mazura JC, Juluru K, Chen JJ, Morgan TA, John M, Siegel EL. December 9, 2017. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320316.php. Ethical decision making in nurses. As considered here, numerous applications of FRT in health care settings suggest the ethical, clinical, and legal importance of informed consent, data input and analysis quality, effective communication about incidental findings, and potential influence on patient-clinician relationships. Published November 9, 2017. A study of nurses' ethical climate perceptions: Compromising in an uncompromising environment. Julian Savulescu and Dominic Wilkinson 2019. The result justifies the means are based on a consequentialism. Select Accept to consent or Reject to decline non-essential cookies for this use. Samples. If this is demanded of all moral agents, then general unhappiness is likely to ensue rather than the opposite. J Med Ethics. Nicole Martinez-Martin, JD, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics in Stanford, California. The site is secure. If Jim refuses to kill anyone then he is therefore responsible for the deaths of the others. Abortion can be categorized as both a legal, and ethical issue. An objective measure of whether something is good or bad, and by how much. This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Facial recognition software success rates for the identification of 3D surface reconstructed facial images: implications for patient privacy and security. Consequentialism focuses on promoting the best consequences, but what kind of consequences are the best? Epub 2021 Sep 1. Daniel Schiff, MS and Jason Borenstein, PhD, Confidentiality/Duty to protect confidential information, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320316.php, https://www.wired.com/2017/01/computers-can-tell-glance-youve-got-genetic-disorders/, http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/fdna-launches-app-based-tool-clinicians-using-facial-recognition-ai-and-genetic-big-data, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/can-your-face-reveal-how-long-youll-live-new-technology-may-provide-the-answer/2014/07/02/640bacb4-f748-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html, https://medcitynews.com/2016/01/aicure-fundraise/, https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/ehr-provider-touts-mhealth-access-by-apples-facial-recognition-app, https://medium.com/ibm-watson-data-lab/keeping-your-machine-learning-models-up-to-date-f1ead546591b, https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/06/ten-things-everyone-should-know-about-machine-learning, https://undark.org/article/facial-recognition-technology-biased-understudied/, https://medium.com/@blaisea/do-algorithms-reveal-sexual-orientation-or-just-expose-our-stereotypes-d998fafdf477, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604087/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/, http://www.clinicalinformaticsnews.com/2017/10/06/3d-facial-recognition-gives-healthcare-data-a-new-look.aspx, https://oneworldidentity.com/google-takes-aim-controversial-stringent-illinois-biometric-privacy-law/, https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/special-topics/de-identification/index.html. Using the example of Jim and the Indians, Williams successfully illustrates that consequentialism fails to respect the integrity of the individual because in deciding what is wrong or right what really matters is not the action but the outcome of it. McCullom R. Facial recognition technology is both biased and understudied. The word deontology derives from the Greek words for duty ( deon) and science (or study) of ( logos ). Beneficence and non-maleficence to weigh out the benefits and the duty of doing no harm to subsequently consider what is in the patient's best interest. Medical law exists at the intersection between consequentialism and deontology. Now we will look at an example of how utilitarianism may be used in a medical context. December 13, 2021Ana Langer is professor of the practice of public health and coordinator of the Women and Health Initiative at Harvard T.H. Clinical Informatics News. Some of the moral philosophers associated with this theory include Jeremy Bentham, David Hume, Henry Sidgwick and many others. Accessed July 17, 2018. It means any ethical theory which judges the rightness or wrongness of an action on whether or not the outcome is good or bad. Maximizing Consequentialism = moral rightness depends only on which consequences are best (as opposed to satisfactory or an improvement over the status quo). In this particular case, a foreign power decides to hear the cries of the oppressed and begins to lend its diplomatic and political support to make a moral claim for whatever sort of intervention to resolve the conflict. It is not unreasonable to say that in this example you should pause your duck feeding and jump in to save the child. From a consequentialist point of view it doesnt matter who commits the murder, merely the amount of lives lost in the end, so Jim would be just as responsible for the deaths as the captain is surely an absurd outcome. In broad terms, a hedonist is someone who tries to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. 2014 Nov;40(11):1529-42. doi: 10.1177/0146167214551154. Epub 2019 Apr 11. Copyright 2023 American Medical Association. Use and Significance of Nursing Diagnosis in Hospital Emergencies: A Phenomenological Approach. In this chapter, we will begin by defining consequentialism, and contrasting it with deontology. It is a problem that consequentialism forces us to take an impersonal, objective view of situations and override some of our most cherished beliefs because of its requirement that we focus exclusively on the final result. This was his theory of rule utilitarianism. Events and interactive experiences exploring ethics of being human. (2). There are two broad schools of ethical theory: consequentialism and non-consequentialism. Submit a manuscript for peer review consideration. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help The nature and extent of these effects, and whether they will be harmful or beneficial, will vary regionally and over time. Consequentialism And Abortion. Also, it does not matter who performs the action, only the action itself as Williams example shows. Shedding Privacy Along with our Genetic Material: What Constitutes Adequate Legal Protection against Surreptitious Genetic Testing? JONAS Healthc Law Ethics Regul. Please enable it to take advantage of the complete set of features! According to non-consequentialism, the rightness of an action is not solely determined by its consequences. Automated depression diagnosis based on facial dynamic analysis and sparse coding. This site needs JavaScript to work properly. What Are Important Ethical Implications of Using Facial Recognition Technology in Health Care? FRT is being developed to predict health characteristics, such as longevity and aging.13 FRT is also being applied to predict behavior, pain, and emotions by identifying facial expressions associated with depression or pain, for example.14,15 Another major area for FRT applications in health care is patient identification and monitoring, such as monitoring elderly patients for safety or attempts to leave a health care facility16 or monitoring medication adherence through the use of sensors and facial recognition to confirm when patients take their medications.17. Accessed July 25, 2018. National Library of Medicine If all we are concerned with is getting good outcomes, this can seem to justify harming some people in order to benefit others. For the consequentialist it is obvious that the right choice for Jim would be to kill one Indian in order to save the lives of the other nineteen. You can read four articles free per month. Utilitarianism in this instance appears to give the morally incorrect answer. Therefore, the absolutist claim that war is wholly a bad thing, or that it cannot be for a good cause despite its undesirability, is reasonably refuted. This is the basis of duty based ethics, also known as deontology, which we will turn our attention to in the next post. Chen S, Pan ZX, Zhu HJ, et al. Reimagining Medical Education in the Age of AI, Steven A. Wartman, MD, PhD and C. Donald Combs, PhD. Managing ongoing swallow safety through information-sharing: An ethnography of speech and language therapists and nurses at work on stroke units. Computer-based recognition of dysmorphic faces. Our Biometric Future: Facial Recognition Technology and the Culture of Surveillance. Keeping to those rules ensures that. January 9, 2017. https://www.wired.com/2017/01/computers-can-tell-glance-youve-got-genetic-disorders/. We've updated our privacy policy. Published March 3, 2014. May 17, 2017. https://undark.org/article/facial-recognition-technology-biased-understudied/. And this is the central problem; that Jims values are seen as unimportant when it comes to deciding how he should act in the given situation. Updated October 19, 2016. The most famous version of this theory is utilitarianism. What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of each in addressing moral dilemmas in medical cases? Four major themes emerged: 'best for the patient', 'accountability', 'collaboration and conflict' and 'concern for others'. Benthams views are most closely aligned withact utilitarianism. The oppressors force is relentless to crush the minority rebellion, and the repressive measures adopted in retaliation is specifically for the purpose of forcing the minority to subjugation under its iron fist and crush the rebellion to render the minority weak in the future. 2017;8:1883. The consequentialism theory supports the decision because it has more benefits than harm. FRT is being developed to predict health characteristics, such as longevity and aging. Katy Baker studied Philosophy at the University of Kent and is now part of the Philosophy Now team. Accessed October 26, 2018. 104-191, 110 Stat 1936. Keywords: P2. Washington Post. Furthermore, whilst the consequentialist can agree that the individual agents integrity should not be ignored, as Williams explains, (h)is own substantial projects and commitments come into it, but only as one lot among others. (Ethics, 1994) As our integrity is one among many others and consequentialism expects us all to take an impersonal standpoint, it would follow that everyone would need to disregard their personal commitments, which is likely to lead in turn to overall unhappiness, a problem for a moral theory with hedonistic tendencies. Being such a controversial topic some might argue that abortion should be considered murder, while others simply see it as a way to get rid of a problem. PMC As what matters is only the end result, who is acting or how they arrive at the decisions they make is irrelevant. Acta Otorhinolaryngol Ital. The strong point of consequentialism is that it provides a clear and easy-to-understand guideline. 101-336, 104 Stat 327. Facial recognition technology (FRT) utilizes software to map a persons facial characteristics and then store the data as a face template.1 Algorithms or machine learning techniques are applied to a database to compare facial images or to find patterns in facial features for verification or authentication purposes.2 FRT is attractive for a variety of health care applications, such as diagnosing genetic disorders, monitoring patients, and providing health indicator information (related to behavior, aging, longevity, or pain experience, for example).3-5, FRT is likely to become a useful tool for diagnosing many medical and genetic conditions.6,7 Machine learning techniques, in which a computer program is trained on a large data set to recognize patterns and generates its own algorithms on the basis of learning,8 have already been used to assist in diagnosing a patient with a rare genetic disorder that had not been identified after years of clinical effort.9 Machine learning can also detect more subtle correlations between facial morphology and genetic disorders than clinicians.4 It is thought that FRT can therefore eventually be used to assist in earlier detection and treatment of genetic disorders,10,11 and computer applications (commonly known as apps) such as Face2Gene have been developed to assist clinicians in diagnosing genetic disorders.12, FRT has other potential health care applications. An official website of the United States government. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) of 2008, for example, does not apply to FRT for genetic diagnosis, as FRT does not fit GINAs definition of genetic testing or genetic information.39 The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which protects people with disabilities from discrimination in public life (eg, schools or employment),40 would also likely not apply to FRT used for diagnostic purposes if the conditions diagnosed are currently unexpressed. Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable. Nurses experiences of ethical dilemmas: A review. To this objection, the consequentialist can protest that alienation can be a virtue. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Pub L No. Philosophy , Volume 56 , Issue 218 , October 1981 , pp. Smart and Bernard Williams, 1973. Cloud-assisted speech and face recognition framework for health monitoring. The other concern people express is the tendency of consequentialism to use ends justify the means logic. The viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA. Instant access to millions of ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, podcasts and more. It presents Utilitarianism as characterised by the following five features: (1) consequentialism, (2) welfarism, (3) equality of moral status and impartiality, (4) maximisation, (5) aggregation. Should Watson Be Consulted for a Second Opinion? Sci Rep. 2018;8(1):9317. The use of FRT in health care suggests the importance of informed consent, data input and analysis quality, effective communication about incidental findings, and potential influence on patient-clinician relationships. So whilst both acts are morally abhorrent, the consequentialist will inevitably say that if these are the only options available then not only should we choose to massacre seven million, but that it would be right to do so. A consequence of consequentialism, however, is that it fails to respect the integrity of the individuals involved. Does the pain that Jim would feel not need to be taken into account when looking at the best overall outcome? Nurses use these in contributing to the resolution of these dilemmas. Machine learning and the profession of medicine. government site. The peace that seems within reach, the reduction of gun related crimes and homicides, the dream of borderless territories and the future of a society that bears the fertile ground of excellence and achievement, can now be balanced on the spectrum of consequentialism. Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are. 1828 Words8 Pages. What matters is not so much the horrific act in itself but the outcome of that act. Patient privacy. Bookshelf Especially in India the incidence of birth defects, cancers and diseases related to skin, lungs, brain, kidneys and liver are several times more dominant than any other communities.8 The river drainage has significant influence on the land use and socio-economic fabric of the basin. Protecting your patients interests in the era of big data, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics. 2017;242:797-804. Conseque. Tied up against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform. 2021 Sep 17;18(18):9786. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18189786. The best-known consequentialist ethical theory is utilitarianism, which says that the wrongness or rightness of an action depends on the amount of overall good or utility that is produced. Robert M. Taylor, in Handbook of Clinical Neurology, 2013 Deontology. Human behavior prediction using facial expression analysis. Epub 2011 Dec 6. The relatively small, single-site sample may not account for the effects of organisational culture on the results; the findings suggested that professional relationships were key to resolving ethical dilemmas. Much of medical law is consequentialist in nature. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. Utilitarians claim that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness and that what is desirable is pleasure and the freedom from pain. Non-consequentialism, the person as an end-in-itself, and the significance of status. While FRT systems in health care can de-identify data, some experts are skeptical that such data can be truly anonymized21; from clinical and ethical perspectives, informing patients about this kind of risk is critical. Utilitarianism (also called consequentialism) is a moral theory developed and refined in the modern world in the writings of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). An action that brings about more benefit than harm is good, while an action that causes more harm than benefit is not. According to non-consequentialism, the rightness of an action is not solely determined by its consequences. There are two broad schools of ethical theory: consequentialism and non-consequentialism. Chan School of Public Health. and transmitted securely. Front Psychol. Epub 2015 Jan 6. Brostoff G. 3D facial recognition gives healthcare data a new look. Rather than taking into account our own attitudes towards an action, by taking an objective standpoint we are able to remove ourselves from our usual social groups and ideologies which affect the way in which we act and look at a situation, and instead we should act without bias. It is therefore important to weigh the relative benefits and burdens of specific FRT uses in health care and to conduct research into how patients perceive its use. You can read the details below. Consequentialism entails that we can be held morally responsible for a lack of action, and whilst the case of the drowning child shows that it is possible to be indirectly responsible by not acting, in cases like Jims it involves going further than can be reasonably expected. Abbasinia M, Norouzadeh R, Adib-Hajbaghery M, Nasiri MA, Sharifipour E, Koohpaei A, Eskandari N, Aghaie B. Atlas of human malformation syndromes in diverse populations. Handb Clin Neurol. Like above, what sorts of consequences are morally good and what sorts are morally bad need to be . Looks like youve clipped this slide to already. Changes in the Earth's climate can affect public health, agriculture, water supplies, energy production and use, land use and development, and recreation. Why facial recognition is the future of diagnostics. Disclaimer. The .gov means its official. Federal Privacy Protections: Ethical Foundations, Sources of Confusion in Clinical Medicine, and Controversies in Biomedical Research, Mary Anderlik Majumder, JD, PhD and Christi J. Guerrini, JD. The standardized definition of Utilitarianism is that actions are defined as being "right" or "correct" based on the ability it has to promote happiness. This chapter outlines core characteristics of Utilitarianism and explores them with regard to their significance in healthcare settings. More specifically, it protects the privacy of biometric data, including full-face photographs and any comparable images, which are directly related to an individual.37 Thus, facial images used for FRT health applications would be protected by HIPAA.38 Entities covered by HIPAA, including health care organizations, clinicians, and third-party business associates, would need to comply with HIPAA regulations regarding the use and disclosure of protected health information.38 However, clinicians should advise patients that there may be limited protections for storing and sharing data when using a consumer FRT tool. Would you like email updates of new search results? 2022 Jul;57(4):852-864. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12725. Use of facial recognition technology for medical purposes: balancing privacy with innovation. Broader influence of FRT. Decision-making; ethics of care; interprofessional working; moral dissonance; moral distress; nursepatient relationships; professional ethics; qualitative research; virtue ethics. Automatic face classification of Cushings syndrome in womena novel screening approach. This is not the greatest amount of happiness for the moral agent but the greatest amount of happiness overall - this is known as the greatest happiness principle. Sooner or later, after all diplomatic and political channels are exhausted to reach a solution, they begin to take up arms against the oppressor. But in Jims case his pain at killing one person is a relatively minor consideration when the very lives of nineteen others (and the happiness of their families and friends) is at stake. With a little help from Batman, Hank explains the principle of utility, and the d For more information on consequentialism and utilitarianism follow the links below: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/utilitarianism-history/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill-moral-political/, https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-consequentialism/, All Content is the property of Keerut Oberai unless stated otherwise or an external link.Made with Squarespace.
