The determination of how to use the available 4 beds in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), if applied to Hannah ArendtÆs view of morality, would encompass all of the following considerations on every given potential admission: 1) first come; first served; 2) the most critical and life threatened; 3) those who can afford to pay; 4) the youngest; the oldest; 5) those in the most pain; 6) those who have the best chance to survive; and 6) those most valuable to the community. The reason all of these considerations will need considered each time is because of ArendtÆs unique view of morality, i.e., what is right or wrong. Arendt argues that only by thinking can we develop a moral code for ourselves by ourselves. She views thinking as a kind of examining of the self and conscience as knowing the self by oneself. However, Arendt is different from Socrates (the ôexamined lifeö) and other metaphysical philosophers, because she does not believe that there are ultimate truths about reality and existence that can be known absolutely. Arendt does not believe that there is a level of knowledge or meaning to which we can ascend that will ever require no further point of thinking, thus all of these considerations must be weighed by the director for each potential admission to ICU.
Each case will have to be considered across all these criteria through the directorÆs own moral code developed through thinking. Arendt believes that thinking is the only way we have of examining the self. Consciences comes from knowing the self, and the actions we choose to adopt must come from our knowing where our own identity and moral code must break away from the socio-economic norms and morals imposed on us by others and the external world. This does not mean those actions that go against or break the social norms or morals will be right or wrong in their consequences. What it does mean, is that the only way to know the truth is to kno
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