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Alice Galoian
Professor Stephen Topf
English 114B
26 March 2014
Ethics
Why are people so judgmental? Everyone looks at each other through different lenses.
Being similar is one aspect that people look at to judge a person. The idea is moral relativism,
which is the deep and widespread moral disagreements across different societies (Gowans).
Many people connect their ethics with religion or politics. Ethics has to do with my religious
beliefs.Being ethical is doing what the law requires." (Velasquez). And the importance of this is
that there is no actual meaning to the word. And from THE POSTMORTAL, ethics are shown
through the change in time because, society changes through time. Ethics defines people
because, through ethics, each person sets their own standards of ethics which leads them to
forming their own choices and later on, making decisions that may seem unethical to others.
From the Santa Clara University website it says, Ethics also means, then, the continuous
effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct. This means that the people who
believe in what they do, should put in the effort to understand what the others belief system is.
Some of the things that we consider to be right are religious or have to do with the law, for
example, our rights. Our rights to life are connected with religion; our right to privacy connects
with the government and the law. But, the importance of ethics should be to consider the others
point of view and if it does not satisfy what you believe or is not on the tracks and is maybe
totally wrong to what you believe in, it is ok. Just take into consideration what others believe in.
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Some of us would agree that assisted suicide is right; some would break into riots saying
its the wrong thing. But, thats what it is, ethics is the point where man turns and says, that
might be a good choice to look back on even though they agree on something opposing that.
Moral Relativism is almost always [taken] as a criticism (Stanford). People are always
on the verge of defending themselves when they are told something they dont believe about
themselves. To some people, telling someone whats wrong with them is a normal attribute, but
for others it is highly unethical. For example, if a person does not believe something from a
political discussion, and is the person with the belief that telling the other the truth is the right
thing, would most probably be the one to be considered as the one who started the fight. Then,
there would be chaos.
Jack Kevorkians standard of ethics is on the low side of what most people consider their
level of ethics to be. Well, John is on a bit higher level of ethics than Jack Kevorkian, because he
sometimes even tries to save the people who want to die. For example, when he tells the girl that
he called for to get his mind off of things, he tells her that he shouldnt but, she convinces him
and he kills her.
There are many more ethical issues in The Postmortal, which the book just skimmed
through. In what ways is tampering natures balance ok? Because of the cure, people began to
commit suicide. They wanted to get the end specialization done to them. The value of life was
degraded and it was shown through many examples. One of which was a person who wanted to
be shot out of a cannon so that he would be remembered as a cool person, the same with a rich
musician. He was famous at a point and couldnt get famous years after having his hit song. So,
he wanted the end specialists to kill him. This man didnt actually want to die because, he knew
that if he died he would be famous all of a sudden because, this had happened with other famous
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people too. He put another mans life into jeopardy so that this man, who looked like him, would
get killed instead of him. These type of incidents are not fair, and should be considered unethical.
But the tragedy is that to some people, they are ethical.
The point is that people are always going to change. The Postmortal is an example that
shows us how society will change, and it will create the changes in ethics. From the beginning of
the book, the people differentiate right from wrong, at least in laws. We see that when the
building erupts of the bombing, John is emotional and humane because he knows that bombings
are the wrong thing to do and the law is against this. But, when he gets the cure, he slowly starts
to change because his values change. He realizes that he has all the time in the world and nobody
can stop him. He stops thinking about what hes going to do with his life. He just does whatever
he feels like doing. Is this ethical? Having to do whatever he feels like doing and only thinking
about himself? No, this is not ok. This was the reason John took his own life. It was because he
didnt think about his ethics. This means that committing suicide is also an unethical issue.
Based on ethics, people disapprove of many ideas the society insists is wrong, just like
committing suicide.
This goes back to religion and law. One issue is abortion. How do we know if the person
sitting in front of us thinks that a baby is alive when it is out of the mother, and is not when it is
in the mother? As in, should abortion be legal or not. There are many views to this situation.
There might be people that say a baby is alive when there is a heartbeat, and some would say that
abortion is considered murder. This brings in religion. The law interferes with religion, and it
brings chaos to the streets (Norris). This kind of issue does not have a right or wrong answer. As
in, ethics shouldnt be considered in here. When and why would people agree to this type of
situation? Of course, to something that sounds moral, and ethical to them. And not to be vague,
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there are people who make choices based on others choices. Its like the saying, Would you
jump out of a building if your friends did so? This means that people follow the one in charge.
They follow the one in authority and this is what gets things done. Making people do what they
believe is right, would make the society be whatever the government or the one in authority,
wants the people to be (Cwirla).
Jack Kevorkian. He helped people kill themselves. He told them that the illness they have
is going to be torturous and would definitely be better if they decided to commit suicide. He
would convince them for 60 minutes that they should die and would tell them to come the next
day to tell him if they wanted the shot that would end their lives. These people would agree. He
got jailed for doing this but he was then freed and died at age 83. This is just like what John is
doing in the book. He is being selfish and helping to kill people by being an end specialist.
Because people in The Postmortal, have devalued their lives and the lives of every
human, they do not care about the meaning of death. Physicians who went through traumatic
experiences did not have their consciousness turned off like John. They had their morals and
ethics on and going. They knew they had to save the people that were injured in war, but the
tragedy was that the government would not make these deaths a big deal. Burton J. Lee III, a
former physician to the president to George H.W. Bush and a board member of Physicians for
Human Rights writes, The widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment -- frequently based on
military and government documents -- defy the claim that this abusive behavior is limited to a
few noncommissioned officers. This means that the American soldiers have tortured the others
that they were against. This isnt fair. They are people too. And the physician defends himself in
saying, Our medical code of ethics requires us to oppose torture wherever it is inflicted, for any
reason. This is an ethical issue. From The Postmortal, the doctor that gave John the cure, was in
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no way, shape or form legal to give that to him. He gave it so that it would be gone by as a good
deed. This was not a surprise. Doctors nowadays give their patients any type of medicine they
think might help the person. And these people take it and have no idea what the long term affect
would be. Just like the physician, in which the people who had been tortured by the French
during Algerias civil war had to trust. He could not help the families that were in grief. And this
affected him (Lee III). He is doing the right thing, he is connected with his ethics and is on a
continuous verge of perfecting them.
What about medical ethics? There were many videos on who controls the lives of people.
And I have come to a conclusion, that doctors are the one in charge. For example, people who
desperately need an organ transplant, are the ones that are put in line to see if they are able to
take care of the organ given to them. And until these doctors decide, people like Jim Steen, die of
lung disease just because he had to wait for a lung to arrive for him. This falls back to who is in
control of peoples lives. Only forty percent of the people that need a transplant actually get it,
and the rest of them die.(Films for Humanities and Sciences). Is it God who is controlling
peoples lives or the government that is making doctors reconsider their ethics?
Sometimes, ethics is not considered, and sometimes, it is. When people decide to do the
most simplest things and consider it ethical, and call it unethical when someone else doesnt do
the same thing, shouldnt be taken into consideration. Some would argue that this should be
taken into consideration, because everyone is human and has their own system of ethics. And
others wouldnt even care. This is again, depending on the person. Whatever is relative and
similar to them is the right thing for them to do.
There is one big gap between the right and the wrong for ethics. And that is the I dont
know gap, and if it wasnt for the law or religion for some cases, people wouldnt know what to
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do. There wouldnt be anyone judging each other. People would just do whatever they wanted
too, just like John. He created a system of I dont care about anything and would do everything
and anything he wanted to. This wouldnt be such a good thing though. People would simply be
living in their unconscious. And it would be very difficult to tap back into the conscious, just like
it is now with teens in the U.S.A. People are saying that one has to live in the present to be in the
state of consciousness. Because there have been many traumatic experiences through these teens,
they cannot take the reality and have decided to go deep into their unconscious mind and stay
there for a while. That is why ethics has created the boundaries so that people can come back to
the conscious if they get out of the boundaries (go into the unconscious mind). It is important for
people to understand that ethics is the key to living life fully. Inside of the boundaries, is the
consciousness, which is also ones ethical boundaries. If one gets out of the boundaries, they get
out of the borders of ethics, meaning that they have experienced something unethical, out of their
boundaries.
This situation can be understood vice versa. If someone is trapped in their unconscious
mind, and experiences a traumatic change in life, they will come back to their consciousness.
This is seen when John experiences the death of his son and his sons mother, Sonia. He falls
back into the boundaries (consciousness) and has a meaning to his job. He is slowly recovering
from being a postmortal, as in he is becoming a human with feelings again. He begins to do hard
end specialization because of the loss of his son, David, and regains his ethics when he commits
suicide. In his case, suicide is ethical because the cure is the most unethical situation hes been
in.

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Everyone is different; there are as many personalities in this world as there are people. And there
are as many different ethical grounds and standards as there are people in this world. Take some
into consideration, step into their shoes and try to understand their situations, maybe they have
an answer to one of the ethical issues another is having a difficulty dealing with.



















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Works Cited
Cwirla, Rev. William M. "Do Religion and Politics Mix?" Higher Things. N.p., 10 Jan. 2010.
Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Films for Humanities and Sciences, Films Media Group, and Public Affairs Television. "Oviatt
Library Catalog." California State University Library, Northridge /All Locations. 6295
Films Media Group, 1 Jan. 1996. Web. 04 Mar. 2014.
Gowans, Chris, "Moral Relativism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
Lee, Burton J., III. "The Stain of Torture." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 01 July
2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Magary, Drew. The Postmortal: A Novel. New York: Penguin, 2011. Print.
Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. "Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide."
Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Velasquez, Manuel, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. "What Is
Ethics?" What Is Ethics? N.p., 10 Jan. 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.