Moral Issue

Part I It’s Not Easy Being Good

In this part, you will explore your connections to other people, your

family, friends, or members of your community, and your own sense of

personal responsibility to these people.

Dialogue 1: Alternative Pain medicineWord bank: marijuana, pain relief ☺ 1. What is the ethnical problem these people

are having? 2. What are the two sides of this issue? Side one: ___ Side two: __

3.What do you think of the alternative pain

medicine? Would you try this? Do you think the doctor is right to suggest this alternative to a patient? Hypothesis

It’s possible that I would recommend marijuana, especially if I thought I could prevent real suffering.

Maybe if you read them and get some more information about many different forms of alternative pain relief, you’ll find something that feels comfortable to you.

Even if I choose not to use marijuana, it’s possible that I would consider using other alternative methods.

hypothetical situation

Dialogue 2: What’s Best for Grandmother☺Word bank: hip, nursing home

1. What is the ethnical problem these people are having?

2. What are the two sides of this issue? Side one:___ Side two:____3. Would you consider placing an elderly

relative in a nursing home? Why or why not? Hypothesis

hypothetical situation If we put her into a nursing home, I would

feel absolutely terrible. That way, we could arrange to go over every

couple of days, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

Mutual responsibility Discuss with your partner the mutual

responsibilities of the people in the relationships listed below.

1) doctors & patients 2) teachers & students 3) parents & their children 4) footballers/rock stars & their fans 5) police & the community 6) politicians & the electing community

Then list 4 most important jobs which demand great responsibility. Give your reasons.

A. A mother who smokes while pregnant.B. Parents who let their children watch pornogra

phic and violent films.C. Someone who drives at 220 kph on the motor

way.D. People who have big dogs and live in flats.E. A group of people climbing on a difficult mou

ntain despite a bad weather forecast.F. People who leave cans, plastic bottles etc. on

beaches and other place of natural beauty.G. A teacher who never prepare his / her lesson

s.H. Someone who drinks a bottle of wine and the

n drives.I. Producers of arms / weapons.

Ranking Rate the following cases in terms of how irresponsibl

e these people are (from the most to least irresponsible). Then discuss how you got the answer.

A. A mother who smokes while pregnant.B. Parents who let their children watch pornographic an

d violent films.C. Someone who drives at 220 kph on the motorway.D. People who have big dogs and live in flats.E. A group of people climbing on a difficult mountain de

spite a bad weather forecast.F. People who leave cans, plastic bottles etc. on beache

s and other place of natural beauty.G. A teacher who never prepare his / her lessons.H. Someone who drinks a bottle of wine and then drives.I. Producers of arms / weapons.

When I was a small boy, the motto of our school was “ Do It If It’s Right”, and what I have been doing since now, that motto has been lingering with me; um, I was looking for a philosophical and a spiritual framework that included these ethics without getting hung up in a dogma of worshipping a divine figure. I could never buy into a Christian idea of divine spirit that would judge our foibles and our failures and our successes. I have never believed that those judgments were best left to the individual and that there was always a choice for redemption, not from some higher figure but actually from our own actions. Buddhism is one philosophy and practice that helps me to beware of my own failures and helps me to be aware of how to re-. Continually repeat and continually address, you know, mistakes I might make in treating other people.

Listen: Chris’s Experience ☺

It also helps me understand the idea of causation and how my actions affect others, and how a single action from one individual will effect another individual’s reaction, and brings home the importance of having correct speech, correct actions, correct intonations, and correct wisdom in dealing with situations and with other people. In think it’s very important to deal with people and give them toys and hope and confidence and compassion in every circumstance because that helps carry them alone and helps make the word in a very small way a much better place.

I can always be a better person, and Buddhism helps me reflect on that so I can be a better person. It shows me that my comprehension for other human beings can be without limits, and the only limits that exist are ones that I set myself. And it always, it goes back to that motto that stuck in me to “Do It If It’s Right”, and if I have a framework where I can check my acts and check my intentions and check how I behave with other people, I can always make sure that I do it because it’s right, and that’s why I am an avid practitioner.

Video: What would you do? ☺ 1. According to the host, what happened one

day on a Miami freeway?2. What happened after truck turned over?3. What is the first woman’s opinion?4. What’s the second woman’s opinion?5. What’s Oprah’s opinion?6. According to Oprah what’s going on in

Miami?7. What would you do if you were in that

situation?

Word bankAn act of God 不可抗力Chance of lifetimeBottom lineSunday school 主日学校( 基督教教会为了向儿童灌输宗教思想 , 在星期天开办的儿童班 )Dimeok, being on the street and returning the money is a little different than the Brinks truck turning over in front of you.

Brinks armored truck FreewaySpew 喷涌snatched up 夺取Hallelujah （赞美上帝用语）哈利路亚snatch up 夺取MortgageDueOverdueOverturn

Clips from friends

Satan 撒旦 , 魔鬼 Minion 奴才 , 宠臣

Should Doctors Ever Lie?

To tell or not to tell? Doctors continually debate various aspects of this question.

Is it ever acceptable for doctors to mislead patients about their condition or about the treatment they are receiving? Who should have access to the patient’s

medical history and treatment ? Do family member have the right to know?

Placebos—How Effective Are they?Listen for the main idea

Section1a. Patients feel less anxious and worried when they know they are receiving a placebo.b. Doctors recognize that placebos have a true therapeutic value.c. Doctors believe common drugs are no longer effective in curing many diseases.

And so a doctor may prescribe a placebo in cases where reassurance for the patient is far more useful than some name-brand pill taken 3 times a day. In fact, studies show that up to 90% of patients who seek medical help are suffering from self-limiting disorders that are well within the range of the body’s own power to heal.

Section 2:a. Studies show that belief in recovery is a

powerful force in helping a patient get well.b. Placebos don’t work in curing certain types of

terminal illness.c. There are many strange cases of recovery from

an illness that science can’t explain.

He was hospitalized with tumors the size of oranges, and during this time he heard that scientists had discovered a horse serum that appeared to be effective against cancer – serum, by the way, is the watery part of an animal’s blood, and it’s often used in immunizations against disease.

Infection, suffered a relapse

Section 3:a. Medical studies have been unable to determine w

hy placebos are effective.b. For a placebo to work, a doctor must have a neut

ral attitude towards the patient.c. The doctor/ patient relationship can influence the

effectiveness of a placebo.

The doctor’s attitude toward the patient, his ability to convince the patient he is not being taken lightly, his success in gaining the full confidence of the patient – these are important factors in maximizing the effect of a placebo.

So it appears that the doctor really is an agent for optimism and hope and a great inducer of beliefs.

Listen for More Information: Write T (true) or F (false) in front of each sentence.

Section 11. Doctors don’t like to give placebos2. Placebos contain no drugs.3. A patient’s belief is as important as the actual drug

received.4. Most people who see a doctor need serious medical help.5. A doctor sometimes prescribes placebos to make patient

less worried.

Section 2:1. Mr. Smith asked for a blood transfusion to get rid of his

tumors.2. After receiving an injection of horse serum, Mr. Smith’s

health improved.

3. After Mr. Smith read a second article saying the horse serum didn’t work, his doctor convinced him that the information was unreliable.

4. The doctor gave Mr. Smith a second injection of horse serum.

5. Most people respond to placebos at one time or another.

Section 3:1. A doctor’s attitude can make a treatment work better.2. The patients in the ulcer study had different symptoms.3. The patients in the ulcer study were given the same

instructions and information.4. One group of patients was given a placebo, and the other

group was given an experimental drug.5. The patients who did better had more enthusiastic

doctors.6. A drug’s usefulness depends on what drugs is contains.

Note taking and reconstruct the short talk

QUESTIONS/ IDEAS

1. What is a Placebo?2. Reasons Doctors Give placebos3. Power of Belief (Mr. Smith Story)4. Doctor’s role in Placebo

Effectiveness5. Ulcer Study6. Conclusions

NOTES

1. ---------2. ---------3. ---------4. -----------

---------5. -----------6. ----------

Interview with Michael ☺1. Why did the old man come to Michael for

help?

2. Why did another doctor suggest that Michael give the old man a placebo?

3. What does Miriam think is the conflict for a doctor in Michael’s situation?

4. How often do doctors lie to their patients?

5. What kind of treatment did Michael end up giving the old man?

Tips get a refill of a prescription for was addicted to little white lie The problem was that there was no way that I could use the

placebo without deceiving the patient. It’s called informed consent, and what it means is that befo

re a patient can agree to a given treatment or procedure, the doctor is obliged to inform them about the risks and benefits of that treatment, and most doctors are aware of that.

What I’m trying to suggest is that they work through an effect on the mind rather than on the body, say, on the diaphragm or in the lung tissue or muscles themselves.

Doctors don’t give them the chance to ask the questions that would get them that information.

The downside of that decision is that the man is still addicted to the medicine although I’m slowly weaning him off by using some behavior modification techniques.

Should Doctors Ever Lie? ☺You’ll listen to the two doctors discussing the pros and

cons of a doctor lying to a patient, after you listen, complete the chart.

WHY A DOCTOR MIGHT DECEIVE A

PATIENT

WHY A DOCTOR SHOULD DECEIVE

A PATIENT

Tips But when it comes to the relationship between a patient and d

octor, the word trust should be a given. There are actually several situations when a doctor might be tempted to deceive a patient.

paint a more optimistic picture than is really the case paint a more rosy picture in order to convince a patient to undergo a more aggressive treatment, chemotherapy

between withholding information from a person and outright lying

being paternalistic overburden them with Every piece of information that a doctor gives a patient is filte

red through the doctor’s filter, a filter that includes cultural bias, religious bias, economic bias, and their own personal values.

compelling data

Assignment“Should Doctors Ever Lie?”

Extra reading: In a recent controversial case, a doctor refused to treat

a patient whose heavy smoking had caused his health problems. The doctor felt that money was much better spent on non-smokers whose chances of long-term survival were much greater. Some doctors may have also considered refusing to treat overweight people who need heart transplants: their excess fat means that their life span may only be extended by a year or so, which, the doctors claim, hardly merits the high cost of the operation.

Academic Dishonesty in Higher Education

Dishonesty, cheating, lying, corruption. These are words that we hear day after day about politics, business and education too. In this chapter, we’ll explore the types and extent of cheating in education.

Listening 1

Educators say cheating is rampant these days, and all of our electronic miracle tools only seem to make things worse.

Guess the meaning of rampant: _____________________________

Give the examples of “ electronic miracle tools” that might help students cheat:

____________________________________________

Listening 2:Write down one point that you remember

most clearly.Tips

…shows that the concern is well-founded An article on the Reuters newswire last

year told of an epidemic of cheating in India.

the situation is appalling for …This is not an expose. It’s a how-to-guide

for would-be cheaters.

1. How many students had admitted to cheating?A) 1/4 of the student body B) 1/2 of the student

bodyC) 1/3 of the student body D) 2/3 of the student

body 2. What is “the student body”?3. List the kinds of cheating that the speaker

mentions by completing these phrases: Stealing _____________ Copying ____________ Groups of students joining together to _______4. What happened in India?

Assignment

Prepare unit 5 and do the quiz.