Ethics: Basic Concepts (Handout 1)

1. 'Ethics' has two senses: one loose and popular, the other precise and academic.

(a) Ethics = Morals

  1. DEFN: Ethics are standards of conduct that govern human interactions based on human interests.

  2. Standards are expressed in moral principles (handout 2) or rules usually stated in conditional claims or imperatives guiding actions. Principles follow from human interests and are designed to protect and preserve moral values or ideals that, when cultivated, promote human flourishing. Moral issues are subjects of moral controversy given human moral interests and values.

  3. Standards are also expressed in moral judgments that state positions about moral issues. Such judgments are always the reasoned conclusions of arguments for accepting positions about a moral issue. Judgments are normative, evaluative: they tell us what we should or should not do. When generalized, judgments can become principles restricting or recommending actions.

    1. Proscriptions
      • "Be honest."
      • "Don't steal."
      • "Never harm the innocent."

    2. Prescriptions
      • "Maximize happiness, minimize suffering."
      • "Respect persons."
      • "Distribute equally benefits and harms."
      • "Do for others what you would have them do for you."

    3. Merely asserting moral principles or judgments is not enough if you want others to respect your evaluations. Your sincerity or certainty are never sufficient to justify your beliefs to others. One needs to go beyond personal opinions or gut-feelings when judging issues. In ethics, one does this by producing rational reasons which support whatever standards one proposes. Just saying that "Killing is wrong," does not make it so.



(b) Ethics = Moral Philosophy

  1. DEFN: Ethics is the formal examination of moral principles, their justifications, and judgments which follow from accepting them. Moral philosophy examines answers to basic questions about the good life, about what is better and worse, about whether there is any objective right and wrong, and how we know it if there is.

  2. Two branches:
    1. Applied Ethics: main goal is to determine right from wrong, decide what is good and bad, justify moral conduct, and prescribe human behavior...uses ethical theory and philosophical analysis to solve real-world problems.

      1. The practice of applied or normative ethics is evaluative and not simply descriptive because it grounds or justifies its judgments in certain standards (norms) or values. Unlike factual claims, ethical claims are typically evaluative, not descriptive.

      2. descriptive claims ≠ prescriptive or evaluative

        1. Descriptive (factual) claims state factual beliefs: "Smoking can cause cancer." "Capital punishment deters violent crime." "Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy." "Most Americans oppose same-sex marriage." The sciences, mathematics, engineering, medicine, economics, etc. give us descriptive judgments.

        2. Normative (moral) claims state value-judgments: "Smoking makes you cough and stink and die." "Capital punishment is cruel." "Abortion is murder." "Same-sex marriage harms straight-marriage."

          - ethical claims and moral judgments are evaluative because they place a negative or positive value on an action or practice or policy...



      3. Conventional rules are rarely adequate for modern societies. Why isn't the Golden Rule good enough?

        1. In a culturally diverse society, people will not want to be treated as you want to be treated.
        2. You will not want to treat others as they expect to be treated.
        3. Without a good set of reasons for following this (or any rule) few will be inclined to follow it.
        4. However much one may assert whatever people should or should not do, just insisting on it fails to convince people to do good and stop harm.




    2. Theoretical or meta-ethics: beyond evaluations and applications, theorists analyze concepts and calibrate meanings of ethical terms and claims: ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘good’, ‘bad’, "morally justified", "ethically permissible", "Do the right thing!"

      -theorizing informs and is based upon practice, practice grounds and is guided by theory...


      • An ETHICAL THEORY is a systematic exposition and analysis (breakdown) of a view about what is the nature and basis of right and wrong. Such a theory provides

        • NORMS (standards or VALUES) for judging actions and the reasoning behind them.
        • PRINCIPLES (guidelines or rules) that respect, incorporate and preserve values.
        • METHODS (models, definitions) for deciding in particular cases which action should be chosen and carried out.

      • Thus, an ethical theory is an internally consistent fairly comprehensive account of what morality is and when and why it merits our acceptance and support.





2. Why study Ethics? Who cares?

  1. Moral problems give us reasons for concern and action and Ethics resolves questions and conflicts about right and wrong, duty and obligation, and moral responsibility. Practicing ethics (thinking and deciding about right and wrong and then trying to act accordingly) does not demand that we be saints or pure of heart, it requires that we be minimally decent and considerate of the vital interests of others.

  2. We AGREE that some behaviors and attitudes are simply wrong. Stealing, child abuse, rape, prejudice, greed, indifference, adultery, racism, genocide, hate-crime are common yet we want these activities to stop.

  3. We DISAGREE about many serious social issues that we do seek to resolve, and we want answers: - Is the death penalty homicide or just desserts? - Is an unnecessary abortion permissible or is it murder (unjustifiable homicide)? - Is lying to protect one's family from embarrassment unacceptable or is it compassionate?

  4. Sometimes we must make difficult choices which affect our lives and the lives of those we care about: Is it wrong for me to lie in my interview so long as I get the job? Should we spoil or spank our kids? Should we tell a supervisor or family member about someone's illicit drug use? Do I help my seriously ill father with no hope of recovery end his life or do I counsel him to stick with it until the horrible end?



3. Moral standards of conduct, as opposed to non-moral standards,

  1. guide behavior that has serious consequences for human welfare;
  2. take priority over other non-moral standards;
  3. are generally acceptable if they have adequate, justifiable reasons to support them.


4. Being moral is not merely complying with authority or conforming to conventions.

  1. Is being moral = being polite?
  2. Is being moral = being professional?
  3. Is being moral = being law-abiding?

 

EXERCISE: Show that some legal actions are immoral ... and that some moral acts are illegal.

 

 

5. Being moral implies behaving in a manner consistent with human interests.

Moral concerns precede, motivate & override legal or professional restrictions because laws and codes protect and serve human interests.

 

6. Accepting a moral principle means being motivated to conform one's conduct to that principle.

- People who practice fidelity, loyalty, generosity forgiveness, kindness believe such actions are righteous.

- Violating a principle sometimes bothers one's conscience (internalized ethical values and standards).

But conscience is not a reliable or precise guide to right and wrong.
  1. Sometimes conscience is no help.
  2. Often following one's conscience is biased in our favor against others, or is poorly informed.
  3. Too often conscience and self-interest conflict.
  4.  ∴ Following one's conscience ≠ being moral


7. The purpose of morality is to make social existence possible by restraining purely self-interested behavior.

For instance, Hobbes Ethical Theory makes the case that people actually have good self-interested reasons for not being so selfish...

- As we age our moral sense matures. Rules are for children; Laws are for adolescents; Principles are for adults.



8. Moral reasoning examines reasons and arguments for moral conclusions about ethical issues.


9. Two requirements for moral reasoning: Principles must be consistently and generally applied.

1. Moral judgments and principles must be consistent with each other and with any other principles and values a person holds.
  1. Principle: "Always obey one's employer."
    Judgment: "It is wrong to disobey an employer whom one has contractually agreed to obey."

  2. Principle: "Never endanger people's lives."
    Judgment: "It is wrong to help someone who is endangering people's lives."

CASE: My employer insists that I work on a project that will result in the deaths of several innocent people.

PROBLEM: My particular situation shows that these two moral standards are really inconsistent: EITHER I obey my employer and remain loyal OR I disobey my employer and do not help him endanger people's lives.

I cannot comply with both (1) and (2), so I have to revise or reject at least one of the standards I wanted to accept.

RESOLUTION: New principle: "Orders of employers have to be obeyed EXCEPT when they threaten human life."

 

2. Moral judgments must be applied consistently to all, including oneself.

If I judge that a person is morally justified in doing A in circumstances C, then I must accept that it is morally justified for any other person to perform any act relevantly similar to A, in any circumstances relevantly similar to C.

METHOD: Assess facts, test principles, and evaluate judgments in the light of reasonable objections.

RESULT: Abandon or modify the principle, alter the judgment, or show how apparently exceptional cases are still covered by the principle.



10. For each morally problematic case we examine, we must answer these TEN questions.

11. Meta-Ethics and theories are tools for analyzing moral dilemmas: use this chart to sort ethical theories.

12. Who decides right from wrong, the good from the bad? From where do moral standards come?

Traditional answers fail us, but we must distinguish origin questions - from where does the concept of right and wrong come? - and justification questions - what makes an action right or wrong? Explanations, while interesting, are irrelevant to reasoning about what one should or should not do.

13. Why does thinking about ethics matter?

1. Ethical challenges happen more often than you expect – Courses in ethics where one does not consider real-world problems or courses where one just learns business practices or legal rules don't prepare us for resolving ethical dilemmas.

"Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about ethical dilemmas because we think they only happen to the top management, or that they will be easy to spot given how significant they seem to be in the Wall Street Journal. The truth is that you’ll likely be faced with ethical challenges quite often. The journey to moral bankruptcy, after all, isn’t one giant leap, it’s a series of small steps.

The way to avoid this is to think ahead about where your line in the sand should be drawn so that you know you are heading in the wrong direction if you approach this line. Also find a mentor or group of people who will tell you the truth and help guide you."

2. My actions in ethical dilemmas have consequences – Even when you are doing the right thing your decisions have consequences.

There are lots of studies indicating that whistle blowers are likely to suffer from retaliation and often leave their jobs involuntarily. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do the right thing – in fact it is your fiduciary responsibility to do so. Just expect that sometimes the right thing is painful – that’s why it’s called the “harder right” versus the “easier wrong.” In many moral dilemmas, the least bad option is often the best one can do. Consider the Wikileaks controversies ...

3. The whole truth is an illusion – You will almost never know the whole truth, so don’t pretend that you do or that you will. Our perceptions of the world are clouded by our own subjectivity and by our interpretation of information. This shouldn’t stop you from making a decision. There are no purely subjective or totally judgments, strive to make your judgments more objective than subjective. Consider evidence that supports your view no less important than evidence which challenges it, then decide, and be prepared to change your mind if the preponderance of evidence favors a contrary position.

Analysis paralysis describes the situation where the deeper you dig into a topic the more questions you have. As a rule of thumb, don’t make decisions with only 10 percent of the available information – but don’t expect to have more than 75 percent before a timely decision is required. Most importantly, be humble in your decisions and opinions because of this fact, but stand by them until proven wrong by more information."

Source: Marty Abbott and Michael Fisher, authors of The Art of Scalability

 

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