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Benevolent Deception

            The principle of respect for autonomy does not apply to people not in a position to act in an autonomous manner. This means that infants, suicidal people, and drug-dependent patients may be validly controlled on the grounds of beneficence to protect them from harm.1 Under the principle of beneficence, the nurse may legitimately restrain a patient from exercising his or her autonomy by trying to jump out a window.3 But people judged mentally incompetent are still capable of making autonomous choices about what they want to eat or what clothes they wish to wear.1 .
             Constraint of a person's autonomy is permissible when the person's choices and actions infringe on the rights and welfare of others.8 Public health officials have detained patients with infectious tuberculosis to prevent spread of the disease.9 More controversial was the holding of more than 200 non-infectious people because they were noncompliant with treatment for periods of up to two years as late as 1993 in New York.9 .
             The intentional limiting of patients" autonomy "for their own good" is the definition of paternalism.5 This is the old-fashioned "doctor-knows-best" attitude of physician to patient. One form of paternalism is benevolent deception, in which the clinician purposely withholds information because, in his or her judgment, the information may be too upsetting for the patient.5 Physicians in the 1970s made unilateral decisions to not treat deformed newborns without consulting the parents because they thought they were saving the parents from the emotional burden of decision. But public outrage when this practice was exposed led to including parents and others in the decision-making process.4 .
             Clinicians may use benevolent deception if they think patients wouldn't want to know their diagnosis. But a number of studies have shown that patients do want to know the truth.10 Clinicians may refrain from telling patients difficult truths because they feel uncomfortable doing so.


Essays Related to Benevolent Deception

1. Deception vs Magic

... famous stories in any culture is the tale of Cinderella. Her tale is one of enchantment and adventure, but the aspect of Cinderella that enthralls people the most is the deception factor. Not only did the antagonists play the part of sly and devious people, but the protagonists deceive also. In the Fox's movie Ever After and in various written versions ... her, the stepmother is most likely more interested in living comfortably. The stepmother has to con Cinderella's father into loving her. She needs to present herself and her daughters as benevolent and gentle woman. Their social stand...

  • Word Count: 1941
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Cassius Conspiring

... extremely clever Cassius. However he has still not provided any evidence that Caesar would make a bad ruler. Caesar does not deserve to die based on the faulty reasoning and cunning deception Cassius uses against him. Cassius" just cannot accept the fact that a power greater than him could rule. Even Caesar himself informs Antony that he would rather be surrounded by men ... Cassius nor anyone of the conspirators ever had any concrete facts or evidence that would foreshadow Caesar's behavior as a King. Caesar would be benevolent since he had had power for quite a while and he had always...

  • Word Count: 830
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Why does God allow us to suffer

As Schmitt appears at the pearly gates he demands to know how an all powerful and benevolent God could allow the innocent to suffer in such a way. As expected, if I was in the exact position I would think about the situation ... and ask the same and similar question to try to understand God's actions. For example, if God is all-powerful and all-benevolent, how could he allow these atrocities to happen? In addition, since God is also supposed to be the creator of the universe and everything in it, how ... of good. It states that first order evil exists as a prerequisite for second order good....

  • Word Count: 1762
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Does God exist?

... veracity of our long-held beliefs. What we can believe in and comprehend is often only shaped by what we can perceive and experience, although we are aware of the deception of human sensations. For example, a special arrangement of lines may appear to be curved; or, if our fingers have been dipped in ice water for a period of time, when we ... the problem of evil. Simply stated, why is there evil in the world? Some would hold that evil should have been eliminated when God is of supreme goodness and is a benevolent presence for us. Otherwise, is God capable of doing evil for it is one of...

  • Word Count: 1528
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Meditations on DesCartes

... being God. He now know that God exists and might deceive him at every turn. But he argues that since all perfections naturally go together, and deception is characteristics of imperfection, it follows that a truly benevolent being has no reason for deceiving him. So God does not deceive. In Meditation V, Descartes argues that it is quite easy to understand that existence is ... to possible error. Descartes notes that any errors that he accepted in the past were the result of his own imperfections and limitations and not through an act of divine deception. We can avoid future errors comp...

  • Word Count: 1273
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

6. The Early Unification of Italy

... Piedmont over the other parts of Italy. Italian nationalism helped him to beat Garibaldi in the political battle for Italian supremacy. Thus, it may well be that there was more deception involved in Cavour's negotiation with Napoleon III than what was apparent. On the other hand, it may be said that Cavour's efforts to acquire the Papal States and southern Italy ... Paris and thought that war in Italy was first step. Finally, on 3 March 1859, France and Russia signed a secret treaty in general terms. In the Italian war, Russia would 'display a benevolent neutrality towards France'. Alth...

  • Word Count: 10644
  • Approx Pages: 43
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7. The Medical Legacy of Henrietta Lacks

... Richard TeLinde did not ask her permission to take her tissues. Even if he had, Henrietta would not have been able to say no. Skloot describes this as a time of "benevolent deception " (63), where doctors withheld information from patients and patients didn't question doctors, especially when the doctors were white and the patients were black. This is what made Henrietta so vulnerable ... ...

  • Word Count: 2284
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

8. Hawthorne's Portrayal Of Puritanical Hypocricy

... between personal integrity and a responsive social relationship is vital given the novel's basic conception of the human subject. Being "true" is dependant on being known, and this must involve mutual, benevolent acknowledgment - sympathy not just in the sense of the faculty that makes for knowledge, but sympathy in a morally positive responsive sense. (Easton 235) Hester appears to be the one who ... will occur later in the book or story that will prove that the conjecture was true. "From first to last the tension between this sort of "truth" and the "self-deception" that resists such ...

  • Word Count: 3188
  • Approx Pages: 13
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

9. Football

... fate" (book22 pg351) as opposed to knowledge and power which, although useful, are not an obligatory attribute- we see Zeus being deceived in book 14 line153. They also engage in deception, adultery, theft, rape, the production of evils for humans and are enslaved to their desires: "the murderous work of manslaughtering Ares" The significant feature of the gods amorality is, however ... three goddesses and stole her from Menelaos. Zeus is supposedly the protector of supplicants- the "upholder of justice" and invoked as protector of Oaths. There is no indication of the benevolent Zeus in...

  • Word Count: 1739
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

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