COMM 306 - Generating Insights and Normative Ethics

• No Shared Standard

• Personal Bias

• Cultural Relativity

• No Clear "Right" Answer

Challenges of Ethics

Legal, Professional, Organizational, Societal/Cultural, Individual, Natural/Environment

What influences our choices? 

The lowest common denominator

• the bare minimum required by law.

Legal influence

Regulations, codes of conduct, and industry standards

Professional influence

• HR policies

• governance structures

• performance metrics.

Organizational influence

Our own physical, rational, emotional, and spiritual makeup.

Individual Influence

Values, beliefs, taditions

Societal/Cultural Influence

individuals judge right and wrong based on societal expectations, rules, and the approval of others

• We absorb it from culture/upbringing without asking why

Conventional morality

study of ethical actions

• standards and principals for determining whether actions are right or wrong 

Normative ethics

Deontology, Teleology, Virtue Ethics

Three Types of Normative Ethics

judges whether an action is right or wrong based on a set of rules, duties, and principles rather than its consequence

• Rule-Based

• duty to do the right things

Deontology

Commands derived from pure reason that must be followed regardless of personal desires

Categorical Imperatives

Act only according to that maxim which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.

The universalizability Principle

Act so that you treat humanity (whether in your own person or in the person of any other) always as an end, and never merely as a means.

Kant's Second Formulation

The duty to avoid causing harm

Nonmaleficence

The duty to honor commitments and agreements

Fidelity

The obligation to tell the truth

Veracity

Making decisions for others when they cannot decide for themselves

Paternalism

The idea that the right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Utilitarianism