MORAL REASONING

Seven Step Moral Reasoning Model

1. Stop and Think

2. Clarify Goals

3. Determine Facts

4. Develop Options

5. Consider consequences

6. Choose

7. Monitor and Modify

Stop and think

• Recognize the ethical decision and avoid making a rash decision 

• For example, should I download music illegally

Clarify goals

• Understanding our goals, both long-term and short-term, can help us determine our desired or expected outcome.

• For example, my goal is to have a wide variety of music on iPon.

Determine facts

• When determining facts, we need to consider our source of information.

• For example: is the source credible? or Facts might tinclude that it is illegal to download music and I could get caught.

Develop options

• Look at possible options by brinstorming a list of options.

• For example, option one: download music; option two: don’t download but purchase the song instead

Consider consequences

• Who and what will be affected by my choice? What good and what harm could my choice bring?

• For example, the harm might include the following: downloading for free means that the artist is not being paid for it, the artist may stop producing music. The good might include the fact I would have this song on my playlist.

Choose, monitor, modify

• Make your ethical choice and after the choice is made, consider if it was the right one, how you felt about it, and what you might do different next time.

• For example, I choose not to download. After making that choice, I consider if that was the right choice.

Types of Ethics

1. Normative

2. Non-normative

Normative

determines what moral standards to follow

1. Applied

Types of Normative:

1. General Normative/Prescriptive Ethics-reasoned search for principles of human conduct, presumption that is valid for eveybody

   1. Consequential

   2. Non-cConsequential