Ethical Theories - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

About This Presentation
Title:

Ethical Theories

Description:

What is Ethics? Developed by Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer A few years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:1381
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 23
Provided by: danieldun
Category:
Tags: ethical | parks | rosa | theories

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Ethical Theories


1
Ethical Theories
2
  • What is Ethics?
  • Developed by
  • Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks,
    S.J., and Michael J. Meyer
  • A few years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart
    asked business people, "What does ethics mean to
    you?"

3
Among their replies were the following
  • "Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me
    is right or wrong.
  • "Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs.
  • "Being ethical is doing what the law requires.
  • "Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our
    society accepts.
  • "I don't know what the word means."
  • These replies might be typical of our own. The
    meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the
    views many people have about ethics are shaky.

4
  • Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people
    tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But
    being ethical is clearly not a matter of
    following one's feelings. A person following his
    or her feelings may recoil from doing what is
    right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from
    what is ethical.
  • Nor should one identify ethics with religion.
    Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical
    standards. Yet if ethics were confined to
    religion, then ethics would apply only to
    religious people. But ethics applies as much to
    the behavior of the atheist as to that of the
    saint. Religion can set high ethical standards
    and can provide intense motivations for ethical
    behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to
    religion nor is it the same as religion.

5
  • Being ethical is also not the same as following
    the law. The law often incorporates ethical
    standards to which most citizens subscribe. But
    laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is
    ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and
    the apartheid laws of present-day South Africa
    are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that
    deviate from what is ethical.
  • Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing
    "whatever society accepts." In any society, most
    people accept standards that are, in fact,
    ethical. But standards of behavior in society can
    deviate from what is ethical. An entire society
    can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a
    good example of a morally corrupt society.

6
  • Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever
    society accepts," then to find out what is
    ethical, one would have to find out what society
    accepts. To decide what I should think about
    abortion, for example, I would have to take a
    survey of American society and then conform my
    beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one
    ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a
    survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on
    many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics
    with whatever society accepts. Some people accept
    abortion but many others do not. If being ethical
    were doing whatever society accepts, one would
    have to find an agreement on issues which does
    not, in fact, exist.

7
  • What, then, is ethics?
  • Ethics is two things.
  • First, ethics refers to well based standards of
    right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought
    to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations,
    benefits to society, fairness, or specific
    virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those
    standards that impose the reasonable obligations
    to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault,
    slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also
    include those that enjoin virtues of honesty,
    compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards
    include standards relating to rights, such as the
    right to life, the right to freedom from injury,
    and the right to privacy. Such standards are
    adequate standards of ethics because they are
    supported by consistent and well founded reasons.

8
  • Secondly, ethics refers to the study and
    development of one's ethical standards. As
    mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms
    can deviate from what is ethical. So it is
    necessary to constantly examine one's standards
    to ensure that they are reasonable and
    well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the
    continuous effort of studying our own moral
    beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to
    ensure that we, and the institutions we help to
    shape, live up to standards that are reasonable
    and solidly-based.
  • This article appeared originally in Issues in
    Ethics IIE V1 N1 (Fall 1987)

9
  • Ethics vs. Compliance
  • As scandals swirl around the White House,
    President Bush has ordered his staff to take a
    refresher course in ethics. See related Newsline
    story, Nov. 14. Not a moment too soon, many
    would say. But there are two problems with the
    president's directive. First, as any organization
    knows, the tone is set at the top. So it is a
    mistake for the president to exempt himself from
    such a class. If he thinks that ethics in the
    White House is important (and who doesn't?), then
    he, as the leader in charge, must also attend the
    session, at least to demonstrate that the classes
    are serious, not just a public relations stunt.
  • The second problem with such an ethics course is
    that it is about ethics in name only. In fact,
    the course is about compliance with a set of laws
    that basically address conflicts of interest and,
    in this particular instance, rules for handling
    classified information. The assumption behind
    this kind of ethics class is that ethics is
    rule-following. It is the mistaken idea that
    ethics and following the law are the same thing.
    Most of the time ethics and the law overlap but
    not always. Just last week Rosa Parks was honored
    by this nation for having the courage to have
    broken an unjust law. In hindsight, everyone --
    from the president to Supreme Court justices to
    school children -- recognized that there are
    times in which laws are themselves unethical, and
    the right thing to do is not to comply with them.

10
  • But the more serious problem with equating ethics
    with rule-following is that ethics often demands
    more than memorizing and living by a set of
    rules. A study done of law school students, for
    example, shows that their ability to make sound
    ethical judgments is impaired by their three
    years in law school because ethics is presented
    in a rule-based manner. The conclusion that
    students reach is that all that is necessary to
    be ethical is to follow the letter of the law.
    Anything that is done to further your own case
    that isn't illegal is, by this definition,
    ethically acceptable.
  • Ethics -- real ethics -- requires the use of
    judgment, and this is distinct from
    rule-following. Judgment is acquired by
    struggling with situations that aren't clear-cut
    it requires self-reflection and an openness to
    alternative possibilities.
  • Refresher courses in ethics is a fine idea -- if
    ethics is broadly defined and if the person in
    charge of the organization participates in those
    courses. But courses that focus on ethics as mere
    rules make matters worse. Ethics classes that
    discuss the dilemmas of wealth and poverty, war
    and peace, prosperity and the environment,
    security and human rights, and immigration and
    national identity are classes that will make a
    difference. This is harder than what the
    president proposes. But whoever thought ethics
    was easy was fooling more than himself.
  • -Arthur Dobrin,
  • Professor of Humanities, Hofstra University,
    Hempstead, NY

11
Law vs. Ethics
  • http//www.quia.com/cz/13244.html

12
What is Ethics and Morality?
  • Ethos (Greek) and Mores (Latin) are terms having
    to do with custom, habit, and behavior.
  • Ethics is the study of morality.
  • This definition raises two questions
  • (a) What is morality?
  • (b) What is the study of morality?

13
What is Ethics?
  • Branch of Philosophy
  • What is ..
  • Good
  •  Other Branches? What is.
  • Knowledge
  • In the world
  • Beautiful
  • Our Relationship to Other People

14
What is Morality?
  • morality can be defined as
  • a system of rules for guiding human conduct, and
    principles for evaluating those rules.
  •  Two points are worth noting in this definition
  • (i) morality is a system and
  • (ii) it is a system comprised of moral rules and
    principles.
  • moral rules can be understood as "rules of
    conduct," which are very similar to "policies."

15
Summary
  • Ethics
  • Study of morality
  • Branch of Philosophy
  • Morality
  • System of Rules
  • Rules of conduct

16
Wrong??
  • Why do we do wrong things?
  • Why do we disagree on what is right?
  • How do we justify doing wrong things?

17
"Roadblocks" to Moral Discourse
  • 1. People disagree about morality so how can we
    reach agreement on moral issues?
  • 2. Who am I/Who are we to judge others and to
    impose my/our values on others?
  • 3. Isn't morality simply a private matter?
  • 4. Isn't morality simply a matter that different
    cultures and groups should determine for
    themselves?

18
People Disagree on Solutions to Moral Issues
  • But
  • (i) Experts in other fields of study, such as
    science and math, also disagree.
  • (ii) There is common agreement about some moral
    questions.
  • (iii) People do not always distinguish between
    "disagreements about factual matters" and
    "disagreements on general principles
  • in disputes involving morality.

19
Who am I to Judge Others?
  • We need to distinguish between
  • Persons Making Judgments and Persons Being
    Judgmental, and
  • Judgments Involving Condemnations vs.
    Judgments Involving Evaluations
  • Also, we are sometimes required to make judgments
    about others.

20
Ethics is Simply a Private Matter
  • Morality is essentially personal in nature and
    therefore a private matter?
  • Private morality" is essentially an oxymoron or
    contradictory notion.
  • Morality is a public phenomenon (Gert).

21
Morality is relative A Matter for Individual
Cultures to Decide
  • A moral system is dependent on, or relative to, a
    particular culture or group.
  • Ethical Relativism.
  • Need to distinguish between
  • cultural relativism Different cultures have
    different beliefs about what constitutes morally
    right and wrong behavior.
  • moral relativism no universal standard of
    morality is possible because different people
    have different beliefs about what is right and
    wrong. anything goes.

22
Summary of Logical Flaws in the Discussion
Stoppers

Stopper 2 Who am I to judge others?
__________________ 1. Fails to distinguish
between the act of judging and being a judgmental
person. 2. Fails to distinguish between judging
as condemning and judging as evaluating. 3. Fails
to recognize that sometimes we are required to
make judgments
Stopper 3 Ethics is imply a private
matter. _________________ 1. Fails to recognize
that morality is essentially a public system. 2.
Fails to note that personally-based morality can
cause major harm to others. 3. Confuses moral
choices with individual or personal preferences.

Stopper 1 People disagree on solutions to moral
issues.


__________________ 1. Fails to
recognize that experts in many areas disagree on
key issues in their fields. 2. Fails to recognize
that there are many moral issues on which people
agree. 3. Fails to distinguish between
disagreements about principles and disagreements
about facts.
Stopper 4 Morality is simply a matter for
individual cultures to decide. ___________________
1. Fails to distinguish between descriptive and
normative claims about morality. 2. Assumes that
people can never reach common agreement on some
moral principles. 3. Assumes that a system is
moral because a majority in a culture decides it
is moral.


Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com