Ethics

🥸Ethics Unit 15 – Course Review and Synthesis

Ethics is a complex field that explores moral principles and their application in real-world scenarios. This course review synthesizes key ethical concepts, major theories, and practical dilemmas, providing a comprehensive overview of the discipline's core elements. The review covers autonomy, beneficence, justice, and other fundamental principles. It examines utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and various other ethical frameworks. The course also delves into case studies, professional ethics, and interdisciplinary connections, offering a well-rounded understanding of ethical reasoning and decision-making.

Key Ethical Concepts Reviewed

  • Autonomy: Respecting an individual's right to make their own choices and decisions without undue influence or coercion
    • Includes the capacity to act on one's own values and preferences
    • Requires providing sufficient information for informed decision-making
  • Beneficence: The obligation to act in ways that promote the well-being and best interests of others
    • Involves taking positive steps to prevent harm and maximize benefits
    • Requires considering both short-term and long-term consequences of actions
  • Non-maleficence: The duty to avoid causing harm or injury to others
    • Primum non nocere: "First, do no harm" is a fundamental principle in healthcare ethics
    • Includes both intentional and unintentional harms
  • Justice: Fair and equitable distribution of benefits, risks, and costs across individuals and groups
    • Procedural justice focuses on fair processes for decision-making
    • Distributive justice addresses the allocation of resources and opportunities
  • Confidentiality: Protecting private information shared within a professional or trust-based relationship
    • Maintains trust and promotes open communication
    • May be limited in cases of imminent harm or legal requirements
  • Informed consent: Obtaining voluntary agreement from an individual before a medical intervention or research participation
    • Requires disclosing relevant information, ensuring comprehension, and respecting the right to refuse
  • Moral relativism: The view that moral judgments are relative to individual or cultural beliefs and practices rather than universal truths
  • Moral absolutism: The belief in universal, objective moral principles that apply in all circumstances regardless of context

Major Ethical Theories Revisited

  • Utilitarianism: Assessing the morality of actions based on their consequences, aiming to maximize overall happiness or well-being
    • Act utilitarianism evaluates the consequences of each individual action
    • Rule utilitarianism follows general rules that tend to promote the greatest good
  • Deontology: Judging the morality of actions based on adherence to moral duties or rules, regardless of consequences
    • Kant's Categorical Imperative: Act only according to rules that could become universal laws
    • Prima facie duties: Conditional duties that can be outweighed by stronger obligations
  • Virtue ethics: Emphasizing moral character and the cultivation of virtues such as compassion, integrity, and wisdom
    • Focuses on the moral agent rather than individual actions or consequences
    • Aristotle identified the "golden mean" as a balance between excess and deficiency
  • Care ethics: Prioritizing empathy, compassion, and attentiveness to the needs of particular individuals within relationships
    • Challenges traditional notions of impartial, universal principles
    • Gilligan contrasted an "ethics of care" with an "ethics of justice"
  • Egoism: Holding that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest
    • Ethical egoism as a normative theory distinct from psychological egoism
    • Conflicts with altruism and common-sense morality
  • Social contract theory: Grounding moral norms and political authority in a hypothetical agreement among free and equal persons
    • Hobbes: Individuals rationally agree to submit to a sovereign power to escape the "state of nature"
    • Rawls: Principles of justice are those that would be chosen behind a "veil of ignorance"
  • Natural law theory: Identifying moral principles based on the nature of human beings and their natural ends or purposes
    • Aquinas synthesized Christian theology with Aristotelian philosophy
    • Controversial in its implications for contemporary debates (sexuality, human rights)

Ethical Dilemmas and Case Studies

  • Trolley problem: A thought experiment involving a runaway trolley and the choice to divert it, sacrificing one person to save five
    • Highlights the distinction between killing and letting die
    • Challenges the doctrine of double effect and the moral significance of intention
  • Organ transplantation: Allocating scarce organs among potential recipients raises questions of fairness, utility, and respect for autonomy
    • Waiting lists, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and social worth as possible criteria
    • Opt-in vs. opt-out policies for deceased donation
  • End-of-life care: Decisions about withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia
    • Principle of double effect: Distinguishing between intended and merely foreseen consequences
    • Advance directives and surrogate decision-making for incapacitated patients
  • Research ethics: Balancing scientific progress with the protection of human subjects
    • Informed consent, risk minimization, and equitable subject selection
    • Tuskegee syphilis study as a notorious example of unethical research
  • Environmental ethics: Extending moral consideration to non-human animals, ecosystems, and future generations
    • Animal welfare and animal rights perspectives
    • Anthropocentrism vs. biocentrism vs. ecocentrism
  • Whistleblowing: Revealing illegal or unethical conduct within an organization, often at personal risk
    • Loyalty to employers vs. responsibility to society
    • Legal protections and ethical justifications for whistleblowers
  • Affirmative action: Policies aimed at increasing representation of historically disadvantaged groups in education and employment
    • Compensatory vs. diversity rationales
    • Critiques based on meritocracy, reverse discrimination, and stigmatization

Applying Ethics in Real-World Scenarios

  • Professional codes of ethics: Formal guidelines for ethical conduct within specific professions (medicine, law, engineering)
    • Reflect core values and address common ethical issues
    • Enforcement mechanisms and limitations
  • Organizational ethics: Creating and maintaining an ethical culture within businesses and institutions
    • Tone at the top, ethics training, and reporting mechanisms
    • Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder theory
  • Biomedical ethics: Addressing moral issues in healthcare, medical research, and biotechnology
    • Principles of respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice (Beauchamp and Childress)
    • Reproductive ethics, genetic engineering, and enhancement technologies
  • Media ethics: Ensuring responsible and accurate journalism in an age of digital media and "fake news"
    • Objectivity, fairness, and transparency in reporting
    • Balancing free speech with privacy, national security, and public interest
  • Technology ethics: Grappling with the social and moral implications of emerging technologies
    • Privacy, surveillance, and data ownership in the digital age
    • Artificial intelligence, automation, and the future of work
  • Global ethics: Addressing moral issues that transcend national boundaries, such as poverty, human rights, and climate change
    • Theories of global justice (Singer, Pogge) and cosmopolitanism
    • Role of international institutions and NGOs in global governance
  • Personal ethics: Cultivating individual character and making moral choices in everyday life
    • Integrity, honesty, and moral courage
    • Ethical decision-making frameworks and tools (moral reasoning, stakeholder analysis)

Critiques and Limitations of Ethical Frameworks

  • Moral skepticism: Questioning the existence of objective moral truths or the possibility of moral knowledge
    • Hume's is-ought problem and the fact-value distinction
    • Nietzsche's critique of traditional morality as a "slave morality"
  • Situational ethics: Challenging the idea of universal moral rules and emphasizing the importance of context in moral decision-making
    • Fletcher's "love ethic" and the primacy of agape
    • Criticisms of moral relativism and subjectivism
  • Feminist ethics: Critiquing traditional ethical theories as male-biased and neglecting the experiences and perspectives of women
    • Gilligan's "ethics of care" as an alternative to Kohlberg's stages of moral development
    • Intersectionality and the need to consider multiple, overlapping forms of oppression
  • Postmodern ethics: Deconstructing grand narratives and universal moral principles, emphasizing diversity and difference
    • Levinas' ethics of alterity and the primacy of the Other
    • Foucault's genealogy of moral discourses and power relations
  • Limitations of impartiality: Recognizing the role of emotions, relationships, and particular attachments in moral life
    • Williams' critique of utilitarianism and the "one thought too many" objection
    • Moral particularism and the irreducibility of moral judgment to general principles
  • Moral luck: Acknowledging the influence of factors beyond an individual's control on moral responsibility and desert
    • Nagel's distinction between resultant, circumstantial, constitutive, and causal luck
    • Implications for praise, blame, and equality
  • Moral disagreement: Grappling with persistent ethical disputes and the challenge of moral pluralism
    • Realism vs. anti-realism in metaethics
    • Methods for resolving moral disagreements (reflective equilibrium, overlapping consensus)

Interdisciplinary Connections

  • Psychology and moral development: Investigating the cognitive and emotional bases of moral reasoning and behavior
    • Kohlberg's stages of moral development and critiques (Gilligan)
    • Haidt's social intuitionist model and the role of moral emotions
  • Neuroscience and moral decision-making: Examining the neural correlates of moral judgments and actions
    • Greene's dual-process theory of moral judgment (deontological vs. utilitarian)
    • Role of emotion, intuition, and reasoning in moral cognition
  • Evolutionary ethics: Explaining the origins and functions of moral norms and behaviors from an evolutionary perspective
    • Kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and group selection as mechanisms for the evolution of morality
    • Debating the normative significance of evolutionary explanations (naturalistic fallacy)
  • Anthropology and cultural relativism: Studying the diversity of moral beliefs and practices across societies and cultures
    • Descriptive vs. normative relativism
    • Challenges of ethnocentrism and the search for universal values
  • Literature and moral imagination: Exploring ethical themes and thought experiments through fiction and storytelling
    • Novels as a source of moral insight and empathy (Nussbaum)
    • Role of narrative in shaping moral identity and character
  • Religion and moral authority: Examining the relationship between religious beliefs and moral norms
    • Divine command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma
    • Secular ethics and the possibility of morality without religion
  • Political philosophy and theories of justice: Analyzing the moral foundations of social and political institutions
    • Rawls' theory of justice as fairness and the veil of ignorance
    • Libertarianism, egalitarianism, and communitarianism as competing frameworks

Personal Ethical Development

  • Moral education: Fostering moral reasoning, empathy, and character through formal and informal learning experiences
    • Kohlberg's "just community" approach and moral dilemma discussions
    • Role modeling, service learning, and moral exemplars
  • Ethical self-reflection: Engaging in critical examination of one's own moral beliefs, values, and behaviors
    • Socratic questioning and the examined life
    • Journaling, meditation, and other contemplative practices
  • Moral identity and integrity: Developing a coherent and stable sense of oneself as a moral agent
    • Blasi's self-model of moral functioning
    • Maintaining consistency between moral judgments and actions
  • Empathy and perspective-taking: Cultivating the ability to understand and share the feelings and viewpoints of others
    • Hoffman's stages of empathy development
    • Role-playing, literature, and other techniques for enhancing empathy
  • Moral courage and activism: Taking principled stands and actions in the face of adversity or injustice
    • Whistleblowing, civil disobedience, and social movements
    • Strategies for overcoming moral muteness and conformity
  • Ethical leadership: Influencing and inspiring others to act with integrity and pursue ethical goals
    • Transformational vs. transactional leadership styles
    • Creating ethical organizational cultures and decision-making processes
  • Lifelong learning and growth: Recognizing that personal ethical development is an ongoing process, not a fixed endpoint
    • Openness to new experiences, ideas, and moral challenges
    • Seeking out mentors, role models, and communities of practice

Future Directions in Ethics

  • Globalization and cross-cultural dialogue: Fostering mutual understanding and respect among diverse moral traditions and worldviews
    • Comparative ethics and the search for common ground
    • Role of international institutions and NGOs in promoting global ethical standards
  • Environmental ethics and sustainability: Developing moral frameworks for addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and other ecological challenges
    • Anthropocentrism vs. ecocentrism and the intrinsic value of nature
    • Intergenerational justice and obligations to future generations
  • Bioethics and emerging technologies: Grappling with the moral implications of advances in genetics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence
    • Designer babies, cognitive enhancement, and transhumanism
    • Regulation and governance of emerging technologies
  • Business ethics and corporate responsibility: Encouraging companies to prioritize ethical considerations alongside financial ones
    • Stakeholder theory and the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit)
    • Role of consumers, investors, and activists in shaping corporate behavior
  • Ethics of war and peace: Addressing the moral challenges of armed conflict, terrorism, and humanitarian intervention
    • Just war theory and the principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello
    • Pacifism, nonviolence, and alternatives to war
  • Animal ethics and veganism: Extending moral consideration to non-human animals and questioning the use of animals for food, research, and entertainment
    • Singer's argument for animal liberation and the expanding circle of moral concern
    • Debates over animal rights, welfare, and personhood
  • Effective altruism and global poverty: Using evidence and reason to determine the most effective ways to improve the lives of others, particularly the global poor
    • Singer's "drowning child" argument and the moral imperative to donate
    • Randomized controlled trials and other tools for measuring impact


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© 2024 Fiveable Inc. All rights reserved.
AP® and SAT® are trademarks registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse this website.