Introduction

In this section we will go through the ethical issues we are faced with, when we are talking about the use of medicaments curing lifestyle diseases. We are going to argument for an independent point of view based on different types of ethics.

The research and development of drugs that can cure lifestyle diseases is a growing industry. Concurrently with the popularity and the convenience it offers, a lot of important questions arise: Can we make sure that there is no unwanted side effects? Will the use of such drugs make a society where nobody exercises? Will there be indirect coercion to be thin more than there is today? Will it be easier and more desirable to eat unhealthy instead of having a healthy living? Can people handle the freedom it provides?

Furthermore there are the whole aspects of ethic character: Is it cheating to eat what you want and not gain weight, or is it the same as not eating sugary food? It is justifiable and sound to have a drug like that on the market - Should it be obtainable on prescription, or should it be possible to buy over the counter? Is it okay to make a drug like that after all? Should scientist have the responsibility for the way people use their inventions? What is most ethically to do and is it even possible to talk about ethics in the world that we live in today; these are some of the questions we will try to answer throughout this page.

We will focus on the arguments pro and against the use of medicine to cure lifestyle diseases, in our case obesity. We will compare the different sorts of ethics against each other. There will be a discussion divided into two sections – pro and against. First we will make a short introduction to normative ethic as the form we will be using.