Open Access Review Article Alvargonzález, J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 2013, S10 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2161-0460.S10-004 Alzheimer’s Disease & Parkinsonism J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism Neurodegenerative Disorders ISSN:2161-0460 JADP an open access journal Keywords: Ethics; Morality; Politics; Alzheimer’s; Personhood; Compassion; Quality of life; Euthanasia; Dignity; Disclosure Introduction Rather than presenting the results of scientiic or medical research on Alzheimer’s disease (AD), this paper raises an abstract, philosophical discussion. Philosophy is not a positive science; this, however, does not mean that philosophical theories are mere opinions, since they entail a certain, abstract sui generis structuring and organization of phenomena. he paper irst presents the advantages of dissociating three diferent domains of reality (ethics, morality and politics), and the stakes involved in analyzing the relationships and conlicts between them. It then moves on to discuss the way AD can be viewed from each of these domains while showing how ethical, moral and political values and norms may come into conlict in the process of making decisions to address this dreaded disease. Ethics, Morality and Politics As a starting point, I will present the distinction between ethics, morality and politics following the theories of the materialist philosopher Gustavo Bueno [1,2]. At irst appearance, the discussion on the diferences between these three terms might seem a matter of the lexical meanings of certain words and their usage in modern languages such as English, Spanish, French, Italian and others. Digging further, I will argue that the distinction between ethics, morality and politics is not only an issue of words but is in fact the very foundation upon which three diferent domains of reality are based. For my purposes, the debate on which words we choose to refer to each of these three areas of reality (ethics, morality, politics) is another matter altogether, as my interest lies not in discussing words but in discussing the realities designated by those words. Additionally, I do not intend that the distinction and characterization of these three areas of reality take the appearance of a stipulation, although this may be unavoidable in an initial brief summary such as this. he only remedy to such a criticism is provided by the utility the distinction has, in analyzing speciic issues, a utility which shows the distinction to be not purely speculative or lexical, but as beitting the structure of certain relevant phenomena. *Corresponding author: David Alvargonzález, Department of Philosophy, Uni- versity of Oviedo, C. Teniente Alfonso Martínez, SN, 33071, Oviedo Spain, Tel: 34 985104356, 34 649010040; Fax: 34 985104385; E-mail: dalvar@uniovi.es, davidalvargonzalez@gmail.com Received January 08, 2013; Accepted March 10, 2013; Published March 20, 2013 Citation: Alvargonzález D (2013) Alzheimer’s Disease and the Conlict between Ethics, Morality and Politics. J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism S10: 004. doi:10.4172/2161-0460.S10-004 Copyright: © 2013 Alvargonzález D. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Alzheimer’s Disease and the Conflict between Ethics, Morality and Politics David Alvargonzález* Department of Philosophy, University of Oviedo, Spain My position is that the distinction between ethics, morality and politics lies in the supposition that human persons, as they go about their daily lives, are required to face certain purposes, each of a diferent nature. he irst purpose is to preserve the integrity of each human subject, as both a biological individual and a human person. Gustavo Bueno relates such a perspective to ethical norms and virtues. Following Spinoza, “strength of character” stands as the fundamental ethical virtue (incidentally, the Greek root “ethos” means “character”); this is understood as “irmness” when applied to oneself and as “generosity” when applied to others [3]. Aiming to transform ill patients into healthy individuals and thereby contribute to restoring their irmness, the sound practice of medicine is an inherently ethical activity guided by the virtue of generosity. Unethical behaviors, on the contrary, threaten personal integrity and the biological individual, and include murder, mutilation, abuse, torture, defamation, injury and any other behavior geared toward undermining another person’s strength. Equally unethical is any behavior which works against one’s own self, such as drug abuse, careless eating and health habits and suicide. Basic assumptions dictate that biological and personal integrity must be respected and enhanced regardless of sex, age, religion, ethnicity, language, etc. With this in mind, ethical norms strive to be universal and distributive, since they are fully distributed in every human individual. Ethical norms may come into conlict with each other, as occurs when the prohibition against killing may be overridden in cases of self-defense. In such cases, the ethical rule to defend one’s own Abstract Numerous ethical problems are known to follow in the wake of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This paper posits that some of these problems may best be discussed by considering both the distinction between ethics, moralities and politics and the conlicts arising from these three spheres of reality. Following Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno, an initial distinction is established in which 1) ethical norms and virtues seek to ensure the life of the human individual and the human person; 2) moral norms and virtues seek the smooth running of a given group; and 3) political norms and virtues seek the viability of a political state. The paper then moves on to characterize a speciic subset of ethical problems involved in AD; here the distinction between human individual and human person proves to be particularly relevant. It focuses later on the conlict between the ethical universal virtues and moral norms of certain groups, such as families, doctors and certain other cultural groups, by studying their inluence on the persons suffering from AD. Finally, the state’s role is taken into consideration, since the conlict between ethics and politics arises whenever health care oficials try to cut costs at the expense of the heroic sacriice made by some people. For its part, the conlict between morality and politics emerges when the interests of different groups collide, and whenever policies must be implemented to allocate scarce resources. The paper ends by suggesting that the proposed distinction may help understand some of the pressures acting on both people suffering from AD and on people making decisions about them.