Ethical Theories and Dilemmas in Health and Social Care, Semester 1

This essay delves into the complex landscape of ethical and moral dilemmas encountered in healthcare and social care environments, as well as in other work-based settings. It begins by defining morality and ethics, distinguishing between the two and highlighting the importance of ethical reasoning in resolving dilemmas. The essay then explores various ethical dilemmas, such as those arising during disease outbreaks like COVID-19, and the challenges faced in other professional contexts. It analyzes ethical theories including deontology, rationalism, utilitarianism, rights, and virtue, and examines key moral and ethical issues relevant to health and social sciences, such as patient rights, confidentiality, and resource allocation. The essay also explains ethical principles, particularly confidentiality and consent, and their importance in professional settings. The essay concludes by reflecting on the influence of ethical theories and principles on self-professional practices, offering a comprehensive overview of the ethical considerations that shape healthcare and social care practices. The document is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib. Desklib is a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

Assignment

Contents
INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
Ethical and moral Dilemma related to the issue occurring in health and social care environment as well
as in some other work based environment...............................................................................................3
Study of ethical theory’s, analysis of some key moral and ethical issue relating to health or social
science, explanation of ethical principle’s considering the professional rules such as confidential and
consent.....................................................................................................................................................7
Reflection of own morals and values, identify the influence of these modules in the self-professional
practices.................................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................................11
REFRENCES...........................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Moral and ethics are related to each other, moral is defined as rules and regulation for
every day behavior, it can be set by any one on the basis of their trust in some ethical believes.
ethics is a seats of standard for right and wrong on the basis of some moral philosophy and
history. Moral of every individual can be different but ethics of a howl community and society is
similar. (Resnik, D.B., 2018) This report involves the study of different moral and ethical
selection challenges (Dilemma) face by social and health care environment and in some other
work based environment. It also involves the analysis of different ethical and moral theory’s and
how the ethical principle’s consider the professional rules.
Ethical and moral Dilemma related to the issue occurring in health and social care
environment as well as in some other work based environment.
Ethical dilemma

It is defined as challenges face during the selection of one of the best right ethics from the group
of ethics and moral standards, options, for solving some of social and organization issues. (Lee, L.M.,
2017) The ethical dilemma is can be solve by using ethical reasoning.
Ethical reasoning
this can be done by the analysis of issues than the development of solutions the selection of one
of the ethical solution on the basis of morale principle. that means the selection of solution which more
relevant and satisfy the more principle highly. than the analysis of impact of solution. finally, the
application of solution on that situation.

social environment is the culture and atmosphere where people live, and their way of living, this
environments form on the basis of moral and ethical believes. it consists historical and modern believes of
peoples. social environment is known as society. (Haahr, A. 2020). In other hand health care
environment is part of social environment it’s a particular field of study and maintenance of health of all
the living organisms. work environment is can different on the basis of type of organisation and on the
basis of type of business, it is also a part of living environment related to social health care environment.
this can be area of work and the nature, rules, peoples, facility’s, guidelines and the properties of that
work place.
Ethical Dilemma of social health care and other work place environment is the confusing
situation which create during the issues created in that particular environment to select the one of the best
ethical and moral solution. short out by the ethical reasoning.

Dilemma face by Social and health care environment
For the explanations of social health care dilemma. we need to take one topic and asses some of
key issues occurs in that environment because it is difficult to cover all the topics as it’s a broad spectrum
and in the present time due to the pandemic Covid 19 the major issue is spreading of disease, and
sanitization. Now in that situation the health care and social dilemma is arising explain below.
Spreading of disease- In the issue of health and social environment the question arises that how to
prevent the spreading of that disease and safe the humans when the Covid 19 is at the stage of exponential
growth, then there are multiple idea and solution is developed by WHO and central government. such as
lockdown in the areas of higher cases and the other options is lockdown in the country and now the
dilemma is that which one of the solution is right and more ethical, (Reamer, F.G. 2017) the challenging
and confusing situation created to select one of the most ethical and moral solution is called as dilemma.
To come out from the dilemma it need to do ethical reasoning, and on the basis of ethical reasoning the
best solution is lockdown in the country because ethically it is more relevant as it saves the life of howl
country. this type of reasoning equally applies in the case of sanitization. this decision is taken by
analyzing the impact of that idea on economy, society, live. As this solution make the highest loss of
economic factors but it saves the life, money is important but life and health is more important than this
we can ern it later. Although the main thing is to inform in the smooth way about this situation so
everyone can plan according to it.
Other work environment ethical dilemma
For other work place such as for the reputed brand and company the ethical and moral dilemma is
can be related to internal and external factors. for e.g. in health care profession some time very serious
issues arise such as the difficulty in the delivery of pageant lady and there are the chances of death of
either baby or mother so the dilemma is that either we can choose to save mothers life or infant life. to get

over come from situation ethical reasoning will involves the analysis of different factors such as, which
one of them can get well soon and live healthy life, who can be easily get save, who’s death is effecting
the more, there is the chances of other baby. then if there is the higher chance to save the mother than the
priority will be mother.
In the business organization is arises at the point of brand image, profit, loss, customer trust. for
example, (Pishgooie, A.H. 2019). it has been analyzed that one of the food product of branded
company is causing same health related issues and death due to the addition of poison in some of the
product by some external victims. this is causing the death of customers and decreasing the brand image.
so solution is can be destruction of product from the particular aria of case or the distract the product from
howl world. Because it is international company and their product are spread throughout the world, the
target of victim is not clear, company is not able to find out the victim. so the dilemma is selection one of
the right option, by the help of ethical reasoning it is clear that second option is best because it saves the
life of customer and retain the customer trust, brand image.
Study of ethical theory’s, analysis of some key moral and ethical issue relating to health
or social science, explanation of ethical principle’s considering the professional rules
such as confidential and consent.
Ethical theory’s
Ethical theory helps in the selection between right and wrong by providing evidence of moral
philosophies. It helps to select the best decision for the ethical dilemma, (Banks, S. 2018) it can be
formal statements and ethical standard, which help to understand the right, wrong and the best from the
right options.

There are the multiple kinds of ethical theory’s related to the health care, social and
Buisson environment. such as deontology, rationalism, utilitarianism, rights, virtue etc.
Deontology- In this type of ethical theory it involves the duty and obligation (commitment)
according to this class of ethical theory person should be do their duties and commitments at time and
with higher involvement at the time of critical situation to make ethical decision. (Alvesalo-Kuusi A.
2018) It aims is to take the commitment for others society too. the correct ethic’s is to support others for
the completing of their duties, it states that the action is important then results, but action should be done
on the basis of some rules.
Rationalism- is the law which A moral and ethical rationalism says that reason can be a way of
view. So for solving any situation and analyzing the effect of solution, the important thing is to
understand the reason to create vision.
Utilitarianism- Is an ethical theory according to which, every action taken for any decision
should be beneficial for everyone. this theory is given by John Stuart Mill he states that for solving of any
situation action selection should make everyone happy. every ethical laws, rules and decision should be
beneficial for every citizen of life and make them happy.
Rights- According to this theory rights standards of society should be updated and ethically
correct for society. rights are protected and follow by society in order to maintain dignity and humanity.
Rules and rights can be a correct until the group of people oppose that.
Virtue- on the basis of virtue ethical theory the person can be define by its position and by the
analysis of result of their hard work not by the characteristics of hard work. To know the unethical
behavior of an individual and unethical result of things, it requires to undertake the morals, reputation of
that thing and person.
There are multiple types of ethical theory’s and moral philosophy, which helps to set ethical rules and
laws for good will of society. It helps to make right ethical belief’s in the society and it is very important
to make every one aware about the ethical principles and theory’s in order to improve the ethical culture
of society.
Moral and ethical issues relating to health or social sciences
In the social and in health care environment there can be a different kinds of ethical, moral issues
related to the various aspects of life, such as responsibility, age, sex, health, profit, loss, facility’s, culture,
some other factors which should not be the part of ethics but represent by society as an ethically right but

this can be biggest ethical issues of society such as cast discrimination, inequality in terms of rights, skin
colors, financial condition. (Sellers, C. Samuel G. 2020) It is ethical right of people to get equal
respect in society, no matter what is the sex, age, financial stability, cast, skin colure, area of living. But
some unethically developed moral beliefs are the maser reason of ethical issues in the social environment.
In health care environment the key ethical issue is related to diagnosis, treatment, work place hygiene
maintenance, age, sex, type of diseases. Issues can be ethical if they effect the society and group of
people. Moral and ethical issues of health care environment are explained below.
 patient rights
 resources equality
 Patient confidentiality
 safety of patient
 conflict of interests
 privatization
 information concepts
 opposite sex handling
 starting and end of life
 health care ethical rules management
Ethical principle’s which consider the professional rules: It can be performance and behavioral
standards set by professional association. Some of the professional ethical principal are explain below.
Confidentiality- Is the ethical principle according to which the important and personal
information, should be secure and safe, this vary on the basis of different environment of life. e.g. health
care patient, professional, customer information’s. (Beesley, P., 2019) In the professional organization
the most important role is confidentiality, this involves the maintaining of secrecy of company data, plan
and project strategies, new innovations of services until it launches, and so on. For professional’s
entrepreneur, employees there should be same guidelines to maintains the secrecy of organization, in
order to prevent, copy of product, services, business plans. o prevents the loss and sharing of some
important data and resources. In health care profession doctor should safe the information of patient
health. Accountant should make secure the information of their client, to prevent the interference of
external factors. Lawyer have to manage the secrecy of court cases. Journalist have make their

information sources secure. in professional organisation they save their information by making
agreements.
Consent- In the professional field consent is define as the law of taking permission for any
official and employment decision and it also related to the personal decisions of employees when they
have to take permission for personal leave from their higher authority’s. it’s a kind of agreement, when
one person gives the permission to other person, there are the four types of consent, express consent,
implied consent, informed consent, unanimous consent. mostly informed consent is use in the
professional field such as in the health care profession, doctors have to inform their patient about the
terms and condition of that procedure than getting the permission of that.
Reflection of own morals and values, identify the influence of these modules in the self-
professional practices.
In my life I prefer to be right at every point, in the terms of ethics and moral, I want to live my
professional, personal life, social life by implementing some ethics and morals which always help other
that mines I don’t want to heart any one from my side. (Greenstreet, W., 2017) In some case our family
get hurt by us because of the different ethical belief’s, everyone has their own sets of moral and ethical
believe. but according to my point of view sometime society make ethical believes just on the basis of
history related to the particular agenda they don’t try to analyses the ethical theory’s and update their
ethical belief’s according to it. That is very important to follow the ethical and moral theory’s and not
just the cultural history. I believe to respect everyone no matter what is the cast, region, age, economical
status etc. I follow the utilitarianism because I believe that our action should be helpful for every one and
make everyone happy, but in the society there are some believes which are vary unethical but they
represent it as ethically right, they just focus to take decision on the basis of those social believe and do
not think about the happiness of others. such as discrimination related to the cast, but I don’t follow these
unethical believes. I always try to compete my duty with in the time and help others (deontology). My
morals are honesty, kindness, hard work, equality, justice.
Morals and values of my life highly influence my personal and professional life. In my
educational practices it helps me to make the effective and kind image. helps me to give and get respect
from others. it helps me to make my importance in the group of student. it influences me to complete my
Daly routine by maintaining the hygiene. and also influence to help others in their duties, which in return
influence other to help me in my task of work. At my present professional life same as my educational
life it helps in the development professional practices such as in the improvement of my communication
and leadership skills which are the important part of professional management. Because I am already

having some morals and value related to the primary qualities of communication and leadership which
helps me in the present and also it will also influence my future profession practices by helping me to step
forward. My morals and values will also help me to make my best image in my future profession too. It
helps me to make the trust for me in the others heart.
CONCLUSION
from the howl study it has been concluded that ethical and moral believes effects every prospect
of life. But that should be construct on the basis of ethical theory’s and moral philosophies. ethical
dilemma is spontaneous situation; it can be arising in any field of life so everyone should be aware ethical
reasoning that is the way to get over come from the ethical and moral dilemma.

REFRENCES
Books and journal’s
Resnik, D.B., 2018. Ethical dilemmas in protecting susceptible subpopulations from
environmental health risks: Liberty, utility, fairness, and accountability for
reasonableness. The American Journal of Bioethics, 18(3), pp.29-41.
Lee, L.M., 2017. A bridge back to the future: public health ethics, bioethics, and
environmental ethics. The American Journal of Bioethics, 17(9), pp.5-12.
Haahr, A. 2020. Nurses experiences of ethical dilemmas: a review. Nursing
ethics, 27(1), pp.258-272.
Reamer, F.G. 2017. Social work ethics in India: A call for the development of
indigenized ethical standards. International Social Work, 60(1), pp.182-195.
Pishgooie, A.H. 2019. Ethical conflict among nurses working in the intensive care
units. Nursing ethics, 26(7-8), pp.2225-2238.
Banks, S. 2018. Ethics in participatory research for health and social well-being: Cases
and commentaries. Routledge.
Alvesalo-Kuusi, A. 2018. Researching the powerful: A call for the reconstruction of
research ethics. Sociological research online, 23(1), pp.136-152.
Sellers, C. Samuel G. 2020. Reasoning “uncharted territory”: notions of expertise within
ethics review panels assessing research use of social media. Journal of
Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 15(1-2), pp.28-39.
Beesley, P., 2019. Making the Most of Your Social Work Placement. SAGE Publications
Limited.
Greenstreet, W., 2017. Spirituality and Coping with Loss: End of Life Healthcare
Practice. CRC Press.