Transcript Ethics
Ethics General Viewpoints Book • Textbook of Healthcare Ethics (2nd Edition) By Dr. Erich H. Loewy and Dr. Roberta Springer Loewy (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004) Chapter 3,5,6,7,10,11. Deontological Ethics • The central thesis of deontological ethics is that the rightness or wrongness of an act does not depend on the consequences of that action. • What we have to consider when ethically judging actions is the question of what duties, what general moral obligations were fulfilled or violated by the agent who acted. • An action is right when the agent fulfills a general moral obligation by the means of that action, and an action is wrong when the agent violates a general moral obligation by doing that action. Kant’s system • We, humans are originally free, autonomous people. • Autos = self; Nomos = law Kant’s System II. • According to Kant we can choose how to determine our behavior, by choosing the rules or principles that we ourselves set up for ourselves. • Autonomy means one’s ability to set up behavioral laws or rules for her or himself • However, there are rules, by following which we start to loose our original, complete freedom. Kant’s system III. • If we determine our behavior fundamentally by following our desires, we will always be governed partly by the circumstances, and therefore we will loose our original autonomy. • Hypothetical imperatives are the kind of moral orders or commands, which applies only conditionally. • Categorical Imperatives applies in all circumstances (e.g. „Do not kill!”) Kant’s system IV. • The source of our moral duties is not only freedom in general, but our free reason. • Reason has one specific characteristic: the function of generalization. • The most fundamental moral obligations must be rules that can be in principle generalized. Kant’s system V. • The categorical imperative: Act only according to that maxim, which you can also want to become a universal law! Maxim: a subjective principle or rule that one chooses to follow Mackie’s Test of Universalization • 1. Can you want your maxim to become a universal law? • 2. Could you want your maxim to become a universal law if you were in the same situation as others? • 3. Could you want your maxim to become a universal law if you were similar to others? Ross’s deontology • Prima facie obligations: which must be obeyed except they conflict each other. • Actual obligations: which we follow by choosing them from our prima facie obligations in real situations. • A prima facie obligation can be violated, but only for fulfilling another one. Consequentialism • The moral value of an act depends only on its consequences. • If an act has good consequences, then the act is right, but if it has bad consequences, then the act is wrong. • An action maximizes the good if in a given situation the total amount of the good minus the total amount of the bad brought into existence by that action is greater than it could be in the case of other possible actions. Consequentialism II. • Question 1.:Concerning whom do we have to evaluate the consequences of an action? • Question 2.: What should we value as a good consequence, and what should we value as a bad consequence. Utilitarianism • Only the agent must be taken into consideration when evaluating an action on the basis of its good/bad consequences (called: ethical egoism). • Every being must be taken into consideration for that an action can have good or bad consequences (called: utilitarianism). Utilitarianism II. • Jeremy Bentham(1748-1832) argued that there is only one thing, which is good in itself, and it is pleasure, and therefore there is only one thing, which is bad in itself, and it is pain (hedonism) Utilitarianism III. • John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) argued that the good in itself is not pleasure, but happiness or well-being and the bad in itself is not pain, but unhappiness (eudaimonism) Utilitarianism IV. • The good and the bad means different things for different people => pluralism • The good is what one prefers to happen, and the bad is what one wants to avoid. • Welfare utilitarianism: each man’s welfare is the only good in itself. • Welfare: what one would want if one was aware of the consequences of his or her choice, and if one had strong will.