What If the Anesthesia Put Others at Risk?

In “Proof”, written by Renford Bambrough, a scenario is proposed in support of the existence of moral knowledge. Bambrough poses that there is a child in need of surgery that would be painful for him in the absence of anesthesia, and as Bambrough sees it, there is not doubt that this child should receive it (as cited in Shafer-Landau, 2012, p.218). As someone with beliefs more aligned with moral skepticism, I wondered whether or not this really was objective proof of moral truths. As risky as it may be, I thought that I would at least enter the conversation on this matter.

Just today I found an article about the health risks to recovery room hospital staff associated with exposure to waste anesthetic gas exhaled by recovering patients (Cook, 2013). “Beware the Hidden Dangers of Anesthesia” starts off by stating that anesthesia in the operating room isn't the only area where these gases can cause harm, and that even nurses in the recovery room may be at risk of exposure to these gases which have potentially harmful health effects (Cook, 2013). These effects include mild problems such as nausea and headaches, but also more serious complications like sterility, miscarriages, cancer, and liver disease (Cook, 2013). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health claims that this problem is even more pronounced in facilities that lack proper ventilation, and the organization also suggests that systems be developed that monitor the concentration level of anesthetic gases in breathing zones (Cook, 2013).

Now, you may be asking, why does this matter? Well, let's return to the scenario about the child set to undergo that painful surgery. With his assertion in the moral truth that this child should receive anesthesia, Bambrough seems to be completely sold that no circumstance exists where this cannot be true. Here, he is attempting to prove that we do possess moral knowledge, because Bambrough himself “knows” that giving the anesthesia is the thing to do (as cited in Shafer-Landau, 2012, p.218). What if, however, another's health (or the health of several people) were also at risk? The article shows that this is another plausible situation, so what if we were to add this into the conversation? What then? Could Bambrough know that this child should be given the anesthesia then-- even at the expense of other people's healths? This would turn into a dilemma about the life of one over the life of many.

In this modified example, I am not arguing that the child should not be given anesthesia. I am only adding a plausible, real-world complexity to the situation in which Bambrough creates. In doing this, I at least hope to show that the situation doesn't seem as clear cut as he would like for the reader to think, and that there actually is still room for doubt about what to do in this situation.

Sources:

http://www.outpatientsurgery.net/news/2013/02/13-Beware-the-Hidden-Dangers-of-Anesthesia

Bambrough, Renford. (1979). Proof. In Russ Shafer-Landau (Ed.), The Ethical Life (pp. 217-226). Oxford University Press.