Shared and Personal Knowledge

The connection between shared and personal knowledge of communities within a religion, science, or more broadly a belief system have systematically ruled over all aspects of life. From the minuscule decisions of picking an outfit in the morning to pulling the plug on a relative, our decisions base themselves upon the shared knowledge or personal knowledge we have built up. Belief in itself is defined as an often unsupported support of an idea. In this case the belief used in making decisions about whether shared or personal knowledge can be used to justify one’s actions. According to Kant, our decisions are deemed moral only when they follow his categorical imperative or universal law of morality which dictates our selfish desires do not take priority. Moving onto a discussion about specific shared knowledge I will discuss the medical community, which like other scientific communities is connected through a shared knowledge concerning the understanding of the human body. From Kant’s “respect for persons” theory, it is asserted that we are more than a physical entity but also are persons, conceived of as autonomous rational moral agents, that have intrinsic moral worth. This value of persons makes them deserving of moral respect.

Throughout this paper, there will be discussion concerned on whether our belief in shared knowledge and how one’s belief that their shared or personal knowledge overrule that of another due to their authority in certain fields. The stance taken will assert that though shared knowledge is able to evolve over time and seems as though it is most logical, according to Kant as well, an individual’s intrinsic value and the implications of such cannot be ignored under any conditions. To begin, Kant’s moral theory serves as a defense of individual thought in the face of strong belief systems grounded in history and logic, aka the scientific community and religious community. Through their is further specification under each group they each draw their shared knowledge from a collection of individual’s and have formed a justification for their actions. Like Utilitarianism, Immanuel Kant’s moral theory is grounded in a theory of intrinsic value. But where the utilitarian take happiness, conceived of as pleasure and the absence of pain to be what has intrinsic value, Kant takes the only thing to have moral worth for its own sake to be the good will. The aforementioned communities fail to recognize happiness as more than a chemical reaction or spiritual feeling. They have generalized happiness of the whole group rather than through a consideration of the individual.

Within the medical community, their can exist no medicine without the use of bioethics to dictate what actions in the name of science are justified by other than pure empirical evidence. For example, the decision to donate an organ without any complications would, to a doctor, seem like a logical thing is the patient is able. However to the patient, they may have a variety of factors that prevents them from doing so such as religion, emotions(fear), or self-interest in their own health. That last reason contradicts with Kant’s idea of a CI as an objective, rationally necessary and unconditional principle that we must always follow despite any natural desires or inclinations we may have to the contrary. So here the ability to donate an organ is a completely selfless act that would save a life but to choose to refrain from doing so just because of your personal knowledge in which a family member may have died donating should have no sway in your decision. Bioethics is evolving to include philosophy in consideration of the nonphysical “self” within the human body. Rather than viewing emotion as a human response, scientists have reduced emotions and mental states as a release of chemicals in the body.

Medicine and its associated bioethics have shifted away from a discussion about the conduct of physicians alone but also the practices itself which deem the patient inferior in matters concerning that vary patients body, which gives rise to issue such as informed consent to be discussed later. Through the lense of their shared knowledge the body is seen as solely a physical entity, similar to most living organisms except with a higher level of sophistication. Some philosophers and physicians alike have taken this to mean their shared knowledge overrules the consideration of personal knowledge of the patient. The doctor takes the dominant role in a seemingly equal partnership/trust between doctor and patient. The root of this shared knowledge is derived from the natural sciences in which happiness of the individual is overridden by their well being. The personal knowledge of that physician is overcome by this shared knowledge and the personal knowledge of that patient itself is disregarded by the seemingly figure of authority being the doctor. Doctor or physician to clarify here does not merely refer to an individual but rather the position that dictates what is correct and incorrect for the human body. The patient becomes an inferior voice in their own care. To clarify, the scientific community and medical community can be used interchangeably in the context that they base their decisions on seemingly the same shared knowledge which prioritizes the physical well being above the happiness, of course in terms of utilitarianism happiness. The arguments that arise call to question the extent to which doctors can be considered figures of authority in public health without the consideration of the personal knowledge of their very wards, the patients. I will then use Kant’s “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)” in order to explore the formulations of Kant’s moral theory as a means to justify the tendency of doctors to prioritize their own shared knowledge over personal knowledge.

Through science physical symptoms can be relieved without consideration of all aspects of happiness. I revisit how happiness may be defined by both Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics and move to conclude that though shared knowledge is capable of evolving it should be doing so in manner where itis inclusive of personal knowledge. Is there really a sense of personal knowledge when shared knowledge is seemingly more justified ? We are supposedly dominated by our genes and psychology thus making it seem as though only the physical can truly be considered fully real thus making scientists and physicians an authority figures in the care of our own bodies. Can free will exist when the physical aspects of our bodies inherently bias our thoughts/knowledge formulation? Evaluation of Kant’s theory and usefulness of such in determining whether science can justifiably override Kant’s moral theory. Two formulations that can be drawn from his respect for persons theory will be discussed next. The first being “Always treat persons (including yourself) and ends in themselves, never merely as a means to your own ends” and second is “Act only on that maxim that you can consistently will to be a universal law”.

In treating people as ends in themselves rather than as means to a more selfish end, Kant respects the individual. However, nearly every action can be connected to some ulterior motive other than pure morality. Yet this should not be discouraging because according to Kant, moral principles come from reason, not from experience. Indeed, moral principles could not come from experience, for all experiences depend on particular circumstances, whereas moral principles must have absolute validity, independent of all circumstances. The physicians sense of duty in preventing harm towards their patients may not encase personal knowledge due to how personal knowledge is mainly formed from experience. Whereas shared knowledge cannot be derived from experience but continuously evolves with the group and does not come from an individual but rather a collective. Thus shared knowledge of the medical community of doctors in this sense is more reliable but without the inclusion of the patients may be contradictory towards their very physician's oath to do no harm.

If Utilitarians classify one’s value as measured by the quantifiable nature of happiness but then if the doctors that are so valued to regulate societal health have the sole purpose of achieving happiness only when it is a consequence of physical well being. Then doctors are no longer providing any pleasure/happiness that are intrinsically valuable, they serve only to inevitably incite that pain and suffering that are intrinsically valuable in the eyes of utilitarianism. For example, basing one’s moral principles on the one time that being selfish would result in the greatest happiness could be true in the one instance where you stole candy and was rewarded with its sweetness. However consistently applying this in order to create a categorical imperative would be considerably more difficult. In the case of medical practices, the shared knowledge of the scientific community would certainly not change suddenly from one incident of conflict between doctor and patient but this certainly shapes the path on which bioethics heads toward. One particular area of conflict would be within the religious knowledge systems of those such as Orthodox Jews and Christian Science which do not believe in the effectiveness of medical treatment. Religion has traditionally been undermined in terms of its importance but it was not always like this. Throughout most of recorded history, the two have been strongly linked, only recently having separated.

Until several hundred years ago, physical disease was understood largely in religious or spiritual terms. Hippocratic medicine in early Greece (350 BC and thereafter) focused on achieving a balance of bodily fluids or humors, Platonic medicine mixed science with mystical elements and Asclepian medicine treated illness by means of astrology, magic, and herbs. It should not be surprising, then, that many patients utilize religious beliefs and practices in some way to help them understand or cope with the frightening experience of illness—illness that threatens who they are, who they will become, and for some, whether they will live or die. In a study of 372 consecutive medical patients admitted to a secular university teaching hospital in North Carolina, subjects were asked what the most important factor was that enabled them to cope with the stress [6]. More than 4 out of 10 (42 percent) spontaneously volunteered that it was religious faith.

This preference to fall back on a sense of faith and not reason, the equivalent of religion over science. The treatment of these groups’ morals would depend on whether the doctor hopes for the well being, in which case they may be wholly justified, or are acting to prevent the rate of mortality to increase at their place of employment. Of course the former can be seen as seeking the person or their health as an end which may be justified or could be seen as an attempt to apply their personal knowledge from medical school in which case would go against Kant’s categorical imperative of treating people as ends and not means. Focusing back on whether there can exist personal knowledge in light of the authority that shared knowledge may have.