ethics

• It seems the world has accelerated change in the face of human creativeness. We cannot deny how important our survival is in medicines or technology. The struggles of humans have far threatened today's moral values as it into our own culture. By truly defining our goals in life and concretely manifesting cultural identity can help build our ethical foundations.
• This module will discuss the important areas of specialized ethics. It will cover the important field of ethics to help us expose the foundational aspect and special concerns.
• Ethics


  The science of the morality of human acts. It is a normative science because it concerns matters of values rather than facts.
• Ethical values involve the concepts of goodness and badness of human acts or rightness and wrongness of conduct.
• Ethics is theoretical because it speculates on the reason or causes why human acts and conduct are qualified to be good or right and bad or wrong.
• Socrates: 'What we will be discussing is no small matter, but how we ought to live.'
• Ethics may not be as important as the new discoveries of the contemporary world or may be considered to some as a subject to discuss that belongs to antiquity, yet value always shines in every decision and every act executed.</b>
• Plato reminded us that it is no small matter since it involves how we ought to live our lives not only in relation to one's ourselves but most especially to others.
• Ethics or Moral Philosophy


  Concerned with questions of how people ought to act, and the search for a definition of right conduct and the good life.

  
• Socrates


  • Regarded as the father of Western ethics
  • Asserted that people will naturally do what is good provided that they know what is right, and that evil or bad actions are purely the results of ignorance
  • Asserted "Nature does nothing in vain", so it is only when a person acts in accordance with their nature and thereby realizes their full potential that they will do good and therefore be content in life
  • Held that self-realization is the surest path to happiness, which is the ultimate goal, all other things being mere means to an end
• Normative ethics


  The branch of ethics concerned with establishing how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong. It attempts to develop a set of rules governing human conduct, or a set of norms for action.
• Normative ethical theories


  • Consequentialism
  • Deontology
  • Virtue ethics
• Consequentialism


  The morality of an action is contingent on the action's outcome or result. Morally right action is one that produces a good outcome or consequence.
• Consequentialist theories


  • Must consider questions like: What sort of consequences counts as good consequences? Who is the primary beneficiary of moral action? How are the consequences judged and who judges them?
• Deontology


  An approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions. It argues that decisions should be made considering the factors of one's duties and other's rights.
• Virtue ethics


  Focuses on the inherent character of a person rather than on the nature or consequences of specific actions performed. It identifies virtues (habits and behaviors that allow a person to achieve well-being or a good life) and claims that a lifetime of practicing these virtues leads to happiness and the good life.
• Metaethics


  Primarily concerned with the meaning of ethical judgments, and seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments and how they may be supported or defended.
• Metaethical theories


  • Moral Realism
  • Moral Anti-Realism
• Descriptive ethics


  A value-free approach to ethics that examines ethics from the perspective of observations of actual choices made by moral agents in practice. It is the study of people's beliefs about morality and implies the existence of, rather than explicitly prescribing, theories of value or of conduct.

  
• Applied ethics


  A discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations. It is much more ready to include the insights of psychology, sociology, and other relevant areas of knowledge in its deliberations. It is used in determining public policy.
• Questions of Applied Ethics

  • Is getting an abortion immoral?
  • Is euthanasia immoral?
  • Is affirmative action right or wrong?
  • What are human rights, and how do we determine them?
  • Do animals have rights as well?
• Moral standards


  • Truthfulness
  • Honesty
  • Loyalty
  • Respect
  • Fairness
  • Integrity
• Philosophical questions about ethics

  • How to live a good life
  • Our rights and responsibilities
  • The language of right and wrong
  • Moral decisions – what is good and bad?

  
• Philosophical answers to ethical questions

  • God and religion
  • Human conscience and intuition
  • A rational moral cost-benefit analysis of actions and their effects
  • The example of good human beings
  • A desire for the best for people in each unique situation
  • Political power
• Ethics can provide a moral map

  
• Ethics can pinpoint a disagreement
• Ethics doesn't give the right answers
• Ethics can give several answers
• We, as the agent, the doer of an act, will have the choice between wrong and another as presumably good therefore we have the duty to choose what is morally acceptable to our society
• Morality


  A set of personal and shared beliefs about the meaningful events of our society
• Morality and ethics


  Understood as synonymous in many situations
• Moral dilemmas are always a special concern in morality and ethics
• This module will highlight key moral dilemmas that are common to our day-to-day activities
• This is also a prelude to our discussion on problem-making-solving
• Ethical dilemmas can be characterized by the following three elements:

  1. The agent must be faced with a choice or the need to make a decision.

  2. The agent must have more than one course of action available.

  3. The agent recognizes that all available courses of action require them to compromise on some personally held ethical standard or value.
• Ethical standards


  The moral frameworks that individuals and organizations use to guide their decision-making and differentiate between right and wrong
• Companies and professional organizations may adopt their own ethical standards and require that employees/members adopt those standards as part of their personal business ethics
• Epistemic dilemmas


  Take place in a decision-making context where moral standards conflict and the agent cannot readily determine which ethical principle should take precedence over the other
• Self-imposed dilemma


  One created by the agent's own errors in judgment, such as making competing promises to multiple organizations that cannot be fulfilled simultaneously
• World-imposed dilemma


  Caused by circumstances outside the agent's control; we can't control have created an unavoidable moral conflict