Ethical Theories

Substantiated Standards of Right and Wrong

• Well-founded standards of right and wrong that propose what people should do.
• These standards come from:
  • Obligations
  • Benefits to society
  • Fairness
  • Specific terms
• Workable ethical theories consider obligations, virtues, and rights.
• Virtues:
  • Honesty
  • Compassion
  • Loyalty
• Rights:
  • Right to life
  • Right to liberty
  • Pursuit of happiness
• Consider the source of rights (e.g., constitutional vs. religious rights).

Development of Standards

• Continuous study of standards is important to ensure they are reasonable and well-founded.
• Life experiences and age can change one's perspective.
• Ethical considerations evolve with life experiences and responsibilities.

Morality vs. Ethical Theories

• Ethical theories evaluate what society thinks is right and wrong.
• Morals define what's right and wrong.
• Example: Driving across someone's yard. Ethical theories help evaluate why such an action is considered wrong.

Scenario: Alexis, a Gifted Student

• Alexis needs a scholarship to attend college due to her poor family background.
• She gains unauthorized access to a private college's library computers to complete research projects.

Questions:

• Did Alexis do anything wrong?
  • Yes, she stole someone's login and password.
• Who benefited from her actions?
  • Alexis, her family, and potentially future patients if she becomes a doctor.
  • The school benefits from having successful students.
• Who was harmed by Alexis's actions?
  • Other students competing for scholarships.
  • The student whose login was stolen.
• If she is willing to cheat to get that, is she willing to cheat the rest of their wives at their school too?

Further Considerations:

• Did Alexis have an unfair advantage over her high school classmates?
• Would answers change if she didn't win the scholarship?
• Ethical theories influence the impact of these questions.
• Were there better, more ethical ways for Alexis to achieve her objectives?
• What additional information could change the ethical assessment?
  • Exploitation of personal details via the login.
  • Impact on the original login user (e.g., if they were also financially strained).
• Could she have asked for permission to use the computers or sought scholarships directly?

Ethical Theories and Decision Making

• Good ethical theory supports persuasive logical arguments.
• Consistency in answers is crucial when new information is added.
• Ethical analysis involves a rational, systematic analysis of conduct or behavior that can cause benefit or harm.
• Theories consider rights, duties, and consequences of actions.
• Workable ethical theories rely on logic, reasoning, and commonly held values.

Unworkable Ethical Theories

• Relativism:
  • Good exists inside the human mind.
  • Subjective: Everyone decides for themselves, leading to disagreements and no real answers.
  • Cultural: Right and wrong depend on a society's moral guidelines; any option becomes acceptable, leading to ethical dilemmas.
• Objectivism:
  • The good exists outside the human mind and must be discovered.
• Divine Command Theory:
  • Different holy books and multicultural beliefs complicate determining who is right.
• Ethical Egoism:
  • Whatever is best in your self-interest is the right thing to do; this contradicts itself and promotes chaos.

Workable Ethical Theories

Kantianism

• Importance of goodwill and motivation.
• Two Categorical Imperatives:
  • Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time will to be universal laws. If one can lie, everyone can lie, rendering honesty meaningless.
  • Treat both yourself and someone else as ends in themselves, not as a means to an end. Befriending someone for personal gain is unethical.
• Non-consequentialist: Consequences do not determine ethics; adherence to moral rules does.
• Perfect Duties: Obligations to fulfill without exception (e.g., telling the truth).
• Imperfect Duties: Fulfilling in general, but not necessarily every time (e.g., helping someone).
• Contradictory perfect duties pose a problem for Kantianism.

Real-World Examples and Implications

• Making and keeping promises: Breaking a promise undermines trust and the concept of promises themselves.
• Business associates: Friendship solely for professional gain is unethical.
• Driving after drinking: Kantianism deems it wrong, regardless of whether one arrives home safely.

Act Utilitarianism

• Quantifiable measurement is essential (apples to apples).
• Consequentialist theory: Consequences determine right and wrong.
• John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham proposed this theory.
• If there are more benefits than harm, then it's ethical; vice versa, it's unethical.
• Action is right or wrong based on increasing or decreasing the total happiness of affected parties.
• Bentham's Attributes for Measuring Pleasure and Pain:
  • Intensity: Measurable amount of property, strength, power, potency, force.
  • Duration: How long the experience lasts.
  • Certainty: Probability that it will happen.
  • Proximity: Physical proximity between beings and the consequences.
  • Fecundity: Productiveness; will it produce more experiences of the same kind?
  • Purity:
  • Extent: how many people were affected.
• The number of affected beings has expanded to include environmental impact.

Application

• Businesses can use dollar value to quantify benefits and harms.
• Moral Luck: Consequences sometimes involve factors beyond one's control.
• ACT gives high value to the end result.

Rule Utilitarianism

• The utility of more benefits than harms.
• Evaluate moral rules/consequences.
• Easer to apply than Act Utilitarianism.

Scenario and Comparison with Act Utilitarianism:

• Ten people on a deserted island with no food, and one fat man. The question of the morality of eating him for survival.

• Act: Nine people would live, and one person would die instead of all 10 people dying.

• Rule: If everybody likes that guy or he's like a good
  No.

Social Contract

• Implicitly accept a social contract by living in a community.
• Rational people understand cooperation is essential to gain the benefits of social living.
• Established rules are enforced by a government.
• Morality consists of rules governing how people treat one another, agreed upon for mutual benefit provided others follow them, too.
• Example: Emissions and testing.
  • It's nonconsequentialist
• Rational People
  • There have to be rules that the government has to abide by in order for the people to abide by the things that the government asks for you to. If the government is rational it makes it easier for the people.

Rights Classifications

• Negative Right: Guaranteed by leaving you alone (e.g., privacy).
• Positive Right: Requires someone to do something on your behalf.
• Absolute Right: Guaranteed without exception.
• Limited Right: Not guaranteed no matter what (e.g., freedom of expression).
• John Rawls' Principle of Destiny: Everyone gets the same rights to liberties.

Equal Opportunity vs. Equal Outcome

• Equal Opportunity: Everyone has a fair chance to achieve.
• Equal Outcome: Everyone gets the same result regardless of effort.

Virtue Ethics

• Focuses on the person and their character rather than moral rules alone.
• Actions of a virtuous person acting in character in similar circumstances.
• Intellectual Virtues: Reasoning truth.
• Moral Virtues: Honesty.
• Moral Virtues come when you can repeat the appropriate acts.
• There are deep seated character traits.
  • Right action: it is an action that contains the qualities to carry out a an action in character.

Examples of Virtues

• Altruism, ambition, charity, compassion, conscientiousness, continence, courteousness, courtesy, discretion, empathy, generosity, hospitality, etcetera.

Relationship to Vices

• Every virtue lies between two vices.
• Examples:
  • Courage (between cowardliness and rashness).
  • Generosity (between stinginess and prodigality).
  • Compassion (between manipulative and cold and indifferent).
  • Hospitality (Not allowing anybody to come to your house, not doing anything, or everybody comes whenever).
  • Friendly (Unfriendly, and people that are to nosy).

Ethical Decision-Making Framework

• Steps:
  1. Recognize an ethical issue (clear, concise description).
  2. Get the facts (stakeholders, what they gain/lose).
  3. Evaluate alternative actions (justify according to theories you live by--ethical or unethical).
  4. Make a decision and test it.
  5. Act and reflect on the outcome.