Ethics Week 1

Morality

Morality

may refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what is right and wrong, or good and evil

Moral standards

involve the rules people have about the kinds of actions they believe are morally right and wrong, as well as the values they place on the kinds of objects they believe are morally good and morally bad.

Non-moral standards

refer to rules that are unrelated to moral or ethical considerations. Either these standards are not necessarily linked to morality or by nature lack ethical sense

Moral standards involve serious wrongs or significant benefits.

Moral standards deal with matters which can seriously impact, that is, injure or benefit human beings. It is not the case with many non-moral standards. For instance, following or violating some basketball rules may matter in basketball games but does not necessarily affect one’s life or wellbeing.

Moral standards ought to be preferred to other values.

Moral standards have overriding character or hegemonic authority. If a moral standard state that a person has the moral obligation to do something, then he/she is supposed to do that even if it conflicts with other non-moral standards, and even with self-interest.

Moral standards are not established by authority figures.

Moral standards are not invented, formed, or generated by authoritative bodies or persons such as nations’ legislative bodies. Ideally instead, these values ought to be considered in the process of making laws. In principle therefore, moral standards cannot be changed nor nullified by the decisions of particular authoritative body. One thing about these standards, nonetheless, is that its validity lies on the soundness or adequacy of the reasons that are considered to support and justify them.

Moral standards have the trait of universalizability.

Simply put, it means that everyone should live up to moral standards. To be more accurate, however, it entails that moral principles must apply to all who are in the relevantly similar situation. If one judges that act A is morally right for a certain person P, then it is morally right for anybody relevantly similar to P.

Moral standards are based on impartial considerations.

Moral standard does not evaluate standards on the basis of the interests of a certain person or group, but one that goes beyond personal interests to a universal standpoint in which each person’s interests are impartially counted as equal.

Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary.

Prescriptivity indicates the practical or action-guiding nature of moral standards. These moral standards are generally put forth as injunction or imperatives (such as, ‘Do not kill,’ ‘Do no unnecessary harm,’ and ‘Love your neighbor’). These principles are proposed for use, to advise, and to influence to action. Retroactively, this feature is used to evaluate behavior, to assign praise and blame, and to produce feelings of satisfaction or of guilt.

Justice

as speaking the truth and paying one’s debts

Jean-Paul Sartre

he described a moral conflict the resolution of which was, to many, less obvious than the resolution to the Platonic conflict

Classic Dilemma

a choice between two or more alternatives, in which the outcomes are equally undesirable, or equally favorable. The dilemma does not typically involve a moral or ethical crisis, but the person or character’s life may change as a result of their decision

Ethical Dilemmas

arises when a person is forced to decide between two morally sound options, but they may conflict with the established boundaries of a business, a governmental agency, or the law. Some ethical dilemmas may involve following the truth versus being loyal to a friend; following the laws or rules versus having compassion for an individual’s plight; and concerns about an individual person versus the larger impact on a community

Moral Dilemmas

is a situation in which a person is torn between right and wrong. A moral dilemma involves a conflict with the very core of a person’s principles and values. The choice the person makes may leave them feeling burdened, guilty, relieved, or questioning their values

Individual Level

moral dilemma at a personal level. One is torn between choosing between the lesser of two evils:

Corporate or Organizational

known as ethical dilemma at an organizational/company/corporate level.

Systemic Level

ethical dilemma where the larger society or the government or maybe the whole country is involved

Mahatma Gandhi

“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

Immanuel Kant

a soft determinist, said that in order to make a moral decision we must have freedom. The ability to make moral decisions lay within the existence of freedom; stating that if we are not free to make our own decisions those decisions could not be moral as we were never free to make that decision in the first place.

John Locke

who was also a soft determinist as he believed that morality and the ability to make moral decisions developed throughout your lives. Believed that the mind was a tabula rasa

David Hume

who believed in a limited form of free will, he ultimately believed that nature was in control of human destiny.

Ethics

moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity.