Ethics

MASH remains one of the biggest television hits in the history of television. It was a hotbed of Ð''moral issues' and moral disregard, so it seems appropriate that this question is based on an episode. The "Hawkeye" character does operate on the battalion commander, while the "BJ" character takes the moral high ground, of course, to no avail.

If the cost of this action taken by Hawkeye is the unnecessary surgical procedure on a healthy body, no matter the manner of the man, and the benefit is the "probable" saving of the lives of 100's of soldiers, it, at first glance, would appear that the morally correct action to take would be to operate on the overaggressive battalion commander. The procedure may have been invasive but the risk for the commander was minimal and lives would be saved. Act Utilitarianism maintains "that actions and policies are right when they produce the greatest net benefit/lowest net cost". The rightness or wrongness of individual actions is defined in terms of the good or bad consequences realized by those actions themselves. The commander definitely suffered undesirable consequences; the unknown benefit cannot really be considered because we will never know if any soldier's life was saved. Perhaps someone more aggressive could have been sent to take his place while he was recovering from the surgery. The results would have been the opposite and far worse consequences may have resulted than those he had intended. Given that the benefits are vague, the action cannot be considered from cost/benefit analysis perspective.

This straightforward dramatization fails to offer sufficient information to truly determine if surgery was a moral choice or not. Having seen this particular episode many times, I always understood Hawkeye's motives. I, however, always agreed with BJ. Operating on a healthy body must be regarded and deemed unethical. A society must have a certain amount of trust and faith in the medical community; it is assumed all doctors will honor their obligation to use their skills and knowledge wisely, keeping their patients' best interest in mind at all times. Without that trust, we would quickly succumb to many illnesses and diseases and rapidly cease to exist.

As an avid fan since the show's 1970s inception, it was interesting to watch Hawkeye, from the beginning to the very end, wrestle with his deep hatred for war and all its evils. His greatest battle was in his inability to make Ð''it' stop, it being the war, something that was completely out of his control. He never stopped fighting to bring the killing to an end.

I feel that war is such a difficult time and many people find themselves doing a multitude of things that they would never have considered doing had there not been a war. I appreciate the "Just War Theory"; however, I still find it difficult to reconcile myself to the purposeful slaughter of any sentient being. Mind you, violence of any nature, in my opinion, should not be something we do to one another and presently; we live in a world wrought with wholesale violence, whether it is insidiously worming itself into our psyche through the vast media machine or in the name of Ð''political struggles'. Hawkeye's vengeful approach to "leveling the playing field" (or in this case, the killing field) was aggressive and invasive and more likely resulted in the possible saving of 100s of soldiers lives, not probable, or perhaps resulting in saving only a few lives. So, the end that justified the means was certainly good for those lucky few and their families and friends. But, on the other hand, who is to say they did not die on another day? If this were to be the case, then the whole exercise was moot.

Unlike the example I use later, a good question to ask would be, did Hawkeye have any other choices that would have been less invasive and yielded, if not the same, but also more significant and/or longer lasting results? Actions performed out of anger and frustrations are seldom fruitful, and in view of the probable outcome, Hawkeye's actions did not justify the means. Additionally, Hawkeye violated the man's in personam rights; he had a right not to be harmed by Hawkeye. His negative, passive, and active rights were also violated. This places serious doubt on the morality of Hawkeye's actions.

Having said that, there are often times when a good end justifies the means used to attain it. On September 11, 2001, a hijacked airliner was flying across an open Pennsylvania field. It was brought down by brave strangers coming together to prevent the aircraft from reaching its intended target, the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. A far greater number of lives would have been lost if not for the actions of those heroic people. The end, in this case, justified the means used to attain it, and few have courage to disagreed.

Essay #2

I know two things for certain: 1) there is seldom a single cause or corresponding single solution for any given problem and 2) there is always an exception to a rule. Therefore, I must disagree with Kant and Ross when they state that there are certain moral absolutes that should never be violated (rules against killing, mutilating, stealing, and breaking promises).

Consider this: a drug-crazed man wielding a knife grabs your beautiful daughter and they are about to jump into a waiting car. Your daughter is crying and screaming for you to save her. In a single breathe of time, you realize you must stop him or you will never see your precious child again. The only way to stop him is to kill him. Would you do it?

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