Plato argues by analogy that a leader is someone that must act in the best interest of her subjects in The Republic. He says a ship captain takes care of her crew, a farmer of her sheep, and a doctor of her patients. In this article, we will look at the claim that the first…
Category: Dental Bioethics
Altruism
In this article I will explore the concept of altruism, giving to and helping others. Altruism will be critiqued based on one of the leading ethical theories on motivation, egotism. We will will explore ethical and ontological defenses, as well as, give a Kantian understanding of altruism. Egotism Egotism is the ethical theory that one…
Disclosing Office Financials to Employees
In the Ethical Moment feature “Ethical issues when a dentist with an active practice dies,” Dr. Jill M. Burns, referencing the ADA code of ethics, suggested that dentists are obligated to inform staff of practice debt due to the “ethical obligation to ‘provide a workplace environment that supports respectful and collaborative relationships for all those…
Seeing Emergency Patients of Non-Record
The following was a question submitted by a student at Northern Michigan University. Please use the “contact us” page to make a submission of articles or questions that will be posted on this blog website. Question: If a person has a dental procedure (extraction and bone graft) by an “out of town” surgeon, returns home and…
Understanding Autonomy vs Personal Choice
This blog post will help to develop understanding of the concept of autonomy and its importance to ethics. We will juxtapose it with the concept of personal choice. Respect for autonomy is a very important principle in dental bioethics but it is often conceived as respect for personal choice. While modern day ethics is colloquial…
The Importance of Language Selection in Dentistry
Philosophy of language is the third tripartite in the hierarchical foundations of philosophy. Every philosophical subject (ethics, religion, etc.) can be expressed as a “what is…?” question, “how do we know what is…?”, or a “how to express our knowledge of what…?”. Mindfulness of language selection is important in dentistry when it comes to dealing…
Dentistry Matters – A Transcendental Defense
Why People Think Dentistry Matters It becomes all too obvious that you need to go to the dentist when you have tooth pain or have a broken front tooth. This, however, makes dentistry matter conditionally. This means that something only matters based on specific subjective conditions and situations. Something that matters conditionally does not necessarily…
Being Good is Practical
Many people claim that when I bring up ethics that my head is “in the clouds.” I take this as a compliment rather than an insult just as Socrates may have viewed the play The Clouds by Aristophanes. Socrates is portrayed as a sophist (someone who argues to confuse but has no substance), literally in the clouds…
A Defense of Kindness
This article will cover the metaethical foundations for kindness. We have to be carful not to confuse helping others or being nice with being moral. People help others do bad things and people are nice just to manipulate. This is being kind but not in any moral sense. A philosophical analysis will give a rational…
Why be a Good Dentist?
A Good Dentist What makes a good dentist? The first thing that comes to mind is how skilled and smart the dentist is. However, a dentist may do very good crown preparations but may lie to patients for financial gain (skill vs virtue). The blog is not concerned about technical dentistry but ethical dentistry. Dentists seem to…