Ethics is not a purely intellectual discipline, it is a practical study, the conclusions of its arguments are not just what is true, but what is best to do. There will be many arguments in our class about what is true, but the underlying goal is what is best to do. Moreover, it is the conviction of the teacher that, in ethics, one of the best ways to determine even what is true is to imagine the application of that "truth" to public policy. To inculcate the habit of testing every opinion against such a "public policy" criterion, I will use the following criteria for evaluating, suggesting rewriting and ultimately grading your written and oral work. A practical, ethical, goal of this course is that you should come away from it with the habit of testing all your policy positions as a citizen, a parent, a friend, a spouse, against some such list of criteria. This habit will not make you ethical, only genuine love of your society, your children, friends and your spouse can do that. But it will make your ethics more stable and more consistently effective in obtaining the good you desire for those whom you love.
In all the work which you do in this course, your performance will be judged against the following list of criteria whose justification will be more clear after the first few class meetings if they are not intuitively clear from the beginning.
This criterion includes an effort to either carry out such a complete consideration yourself or to critique its completeness in some other person’s opinion or policy, if that is your assignment. The completeness includes all knowable significant technological/natural impacts of deliberate behavior or policy and all the beings impacted, human, animal, or vegetable individually or viewed in some ecological pattern.
You will be surprised to discover, in the course of the lectures, that well formed applied ethical arguments come up with controversial conclusions rarely because of weak, subjective or arbitrary ethical premises, but because of failure to get good factual or technical (non-moral) data. Well chosen ethical premises to which the whole of any audience can consent are almost always available, with a significant exception in the area of animal rights. The difficult task is to assemble enough technical data to make clear that the ethical principle really applies to this case.
We do not expect you to produce this data, but to be constantly aware of the need for it, to suggest the types of data which might be missing, to suggest possible ways to obtain it, and perhaps to indicate how the lack or inaccuracy of the possible data has weakened the given conclusion.
The assumption of all ethical or policy analysis is that the agents forming the policy are not malicious, i.e. everyone in the discussion is trying to do some good. The problem is that some harm is foreseen as at least an unintended side effect. This is the risk or cost of the action. We would be paralyzed with inaction if we could never run such risks or incur such costs. The problem is that we intuitively reject actions, whatever our moral principles, when we view the costs or risks as greater than harm of forgoing the benefits by choosing not to act, We choose the lesser of harms.
Using risk/benefit reasoning does not imply that the "end justifies the means", that "Might makes right" or any other such crudity, provided the profit is great enough. Some costs, e.g. like the intentional and direct murder of an innocent person, might be too great to be ever a deliberate part of a public policy.
But when there is an urgent good at stake, i.e. one that will result in positive harm if not pursued, like saving a drowning child, then the means, say commandeering someone’s boat without permission, is justified by the end. When such risks and benefits are anticipated, you will not be judged for how you value various goods, but for whether you openly and clearly weighed harms and benefits. (Note, you cannot weigh good against harm, but only harm against harm, i.e. harm of acting against harm of inaction.)
Given the sad fact that few actions or policies are without their costs, a major ethical responsibility is seeking ways to minimize those costs. On the other hand, the most horrendous risks, even up to incinerating the whole world, have been justified on the grounds that "there is no alternative." The search for alternatives is fundamental, but the alternatives must have their costs and benefits examined too. You will be expected to be aware of alternatives.
This does not mean that you must come up with ethical arguments or conclusions which the teachers agree with, but rather that you construct your arguments well. The previous four criteria must be satisfied and then the elements woven into a good argument, In key places it might be good to put your central argument in standard "syllogistic" form: Explicit statements of all essential and relevant premises (facts, values, assumptions, principles) and your thesis, i.e., the conclusion (usually a prescribed course of action) which follows from the premises.