Journal 4

Matt Bruns
5/3/06

Journal 5: Just War, Business and Medical Ethics

1.) One paragraph summary of the key idea summarizing the major idea of the section.
The main topics of this section were ethics in war, business and medicine. All three of these topics are present in our modern world and are dealt with around the world everyday. We dealt with Just War Theory, specifically with the Vietnam War and the massacre at My Lai. In terms of business we dealt with SAS founder and CEO Jim Goodnight and other business leaders who lead successful businesses while still treating their community and employees with respect. Lastly, we studied medical ethics by watching a video that depicted four moral cases at University of Chicago Hospital. By studying all of these, hopefully it will help us understand the morality that is involved in our jobs or events we may experience later in life.

2.) List and explain three of the most important ideas you want to remember from this week.
      A) First of all, I want to remember Jim Goodnight, founder and CEO of SAS, a world renowned and still private software engineering company. Goodnight has built a software engineering company that is world renowned and whose products are used by major businesses and banks around the world. The reason I should remember Goodnight is that he has provided for his 10,000 employees a company subsidized community where families can have their children attend school, receive medical service, and even belong to a country club all in the community. Analysts also say that if SAS went public, Goodnight could make so much more money for himself. But, Goodnight keeps the company private so that way he can be in charge of treating his employees fairly.
      B) Secondly, I want to remember the ethics team that University of Chicago Hospital has to aide doctors in their moral decisions. The ethics team helped the doctors decide the fate of a little girl with a failing liver, a premature baby, and an older homeless woman who recently had a stroke. With the abundance of technology that can be used to prolong life, ethics are helpful in decisions concerning someone whose life could be saved through technology but may not return to anywhere its previous state. The ethics is also helpful as it can serve a position between the family and the doctors of a patient. Because medical questions like these are not uncommon, and we may encounter them later in life, I think it is important that we remember these ethics teams.
      C) Lastly, I want to remember Discrimination. Discrimination is defined as “noncombatants must be immune from direct attack.” I think this is important because in order for Christians in war to prevent unnecessary loss of life, we should discriminate between the the innocent and the guilty. I think that it is bad enough that we have to resort to killing to reach peace. For Example, the soldiers at My Lai did not exemplify discrimination in their acts. They killed innnocent South Vietnamese women and children mercilessly when they should have been hunting down the North Vietnamese soldiers and the VietCongs.

3. One image of that reminds you of the topic. Attribute, link, your source.

Img Src

4. What the most relevant question for you from this section?
I think one of the most obvious and relevant questions that I can ask myself from this section is "Am I living an ethical life?" I think this question applies to my treatment of the poor, my academic life, and my family life. Am I trying my hardest to make my decisions according to these ethics that I supposedly believe in?

5.What should you try to do to make you a better person, a more moral person, from this study of these three key issues?
For me to be a better person, I need to be more aware of the ethical decisions that I make. Until we started this tudy, I didnt really think about how many ethical decisions can arise in everyday life. If I pay attention to the arousal of ethical decisions, I think I can do a better job of making these decisions.

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