Transcript 1. Normative Ethics

THE DISCIPLINE OF
ETHICS
What is ethics?
• Analysis of concepts such as "ought" "right"
and "wrong", "good" and "bad", duty,
responsibility, etc.
• Inquiry into nature of morality or moral acts.
• The search for the morally good life.
Two Main Branches
• Normative Ethics
• Non-Normative
Ethics
Normative Ethics
• Normative theories have a practical
application.
• They lay out a way or a process of determining
what is ‘the right thing to do’.
• They provide general rules or methods that
you can apply to specific cases.
• They help identify what makes something
wrong.
• They are referred to as ‘first order’ theories.
Normative Theories of
Obligation
• These depend on many assumptions:
• Nature of Reality
• Metaphysics and/or Religion
• Nature of Humans
• whether there is or is not any "essential" immutable
human nature
• Nature of other life forms
• pertains to moral considerability
Normative Theories of
Obligation: Consequentialist
• Consequentialist theories (aka "Teleological
theories") focus on "ends" (goals, conditions).
• Examples:Natural Law theories (e.g.,
Aristotle/Aquinas)
• Environmental ethics stressing the protection of
environmental processes (such as evolution) as the
central goal (can be bio- or eco- centric)
Normative Theories of
Obligation: Deontological
• Deontological theories focus on "means" (rules
of action, duties)
• Deontological ethics claim some actions are right or
wrong in and of themselves. (E.g., Kant)
Normative Theories of
Obligation: Virtue Ethics
• Virtue Ethics-- Focus on traits or character:
the good person can know and do the right
thing.
• Sometimes virtue ethics are seen as a distinct third
theory
• sometimes they are woven into deontological or
consequentialist/teleological theories
Activities
Group Activity
• In your groups, discuss the three types of
Normative ethics mentioned thus far:
• Consequentialist
• Deontological
• Virtue
• What do each of these mean?
• Can you think of examples for each?
• Which one do you most closely associate
yourself with? And why?
• Be sure to give clear, well defined
justifications.
• Share your views with the class.
Individual Activity
• Post your views
on the Highway
discussion board
for this activity.
Normative Applied Ethics
• Applied Ethics: making moral judgments about
actions and conditions
• Three Principles that come into play
• 1) Rights
• 2) Justice
• 3) Beneficence
Applied Ethics: Rights
• Rights (promoting autonomy/freedom)
• Usually perceived to "trump" (take priority over)
justice & beneficence principles
• negative: freedoms from...repression; to life, liberty,
pursuit of happiness.
• positive: freedoms to...(food, clothing, shelter).
Applied Ethics: Justice
• 2) Justice -- (Rendering to each their due)
• Penal Justice: the guilty get punished.
• Distributive justice: re. how burdens and benefits,
goods, services, preferred jobs and salaries are
distributed.
Applied Ethics: Beneficence
• 3) Beneficence (concern for the commonweal)
• Concerned with the common good, and re. the
obligation to promote good over evil.
• Here the concern is for norms of value: what is
good? What is bad? What is the highest good?
Applied Ethics: Rules
• From Rights, Justice and Beneficence
Principles, people deduce more general rules
• Environmental e.g.s:
• Right to clean water/air. Don't violate related laws.
• Environmental justice. Don't make the poor bear an
undue burden of our society's pollution: distribute
pollution sites in affluent as well as poor
neighborhoods.
• Beneficence. Pursue an environment in which all
species, including humans, can flourish.
Applied Ethics: Judgments
• From Principles & Rules people make more
specific judgments: both evaluations of
conditions, and action prohibitions and
prescriptions
Applied Ethics: Judgments
• Examples:
• Rights e.g.: Coerced contraception violates human
liberties.
• Justice e.g.: Environmental Justice requires
affluent nations to limit their consumption and
help pay for contraceptive services for the poor
• Beneficence e.g.: Garrett Hardin's argument that
"lifeboat ethics" justify coercive measures to
prevent immigration in the North and to promote
contraception in the South.
Two types of Non-Normative
Ethics
• Meta-ethics
• Descriptive Ethics
Meta-ethics (non-normative)
• analysis of concepts such as "ought" "right" and
"wrong", "good" and "bad", duty, responsibility, etc.
• analysis about how people come to, reason about,
and justify their normative ethics.
• heavily dependent on Analytic Philosophy
Descriptive ethics (non-normative)
• analysis of role of ethics in the social world
• analysis of human "worldviews," narratives,
customs, rites, and so on; the cultural carriers of
moral notions and claims
• heavily dependent on the social science
Rights-Based Theories
• Rights are about the protection of an individual's
interests, freedoms, etc.
• Rights are entitlements to act, or to be acted
toward, in some specific way. There are
• negative rights (freedom from some action by others)
and
• positive rights (others have a duty to provide some
form of aid).
United Nations endorses positive
rights
• Increasingly modern culture has recognized
positive rights: to life (food, clothing, shelter,
etc.).
• United Nations Declaration on Universal Human Rights.
• Problems:
• Rights lose their force when people feel exceptions are
morally justified, and most proposed rights seem to
have exceptions.
Justice-Based Theories
• Justice is about the distribution of society's
burdens and benefits.
• There are different principles underlying
different conceptions of justice:
• Usually inequalities are allowed when they are the
result of relevant differences between persons.
• Problem: what are relevant differences?
Justice-Different understandings
• Justice as Equality. There are
• Justice as
no relevant differences
Contribution (e.g., to
between people, therefore all
the group, society,
should share benefits / burdens
humanity).
equally.
• (Or limited equalitarian thought:
all should be equal as far as
subsistence needs being met
before surplus goods are
distributed on any other basis.)
• Problem: people differ in all
characteristics; and most
believe that need, ability and
effort are relevant
characteristics.
• Problem: But this can
ignore human needs.
Justice as meeting needs:
Socialism.
• Premise: human potential is realized in creative work in
co-operation with other people; it is not realized in
consumption.
• Therefore, work should be done according to one's creative
abilities, and benefits distributed according to needs.
• Problem: Such distribution erodes productive efficiency
and can’t work given competitive human nature.
• Moreover, with socialism the freedom to choose a vocation
may be eroded, because you should do that which
contributes most to others, rather than pursue one’s your
own passions. (Of course, all societies have limited
amounts of preferred jobs, so vocational choice is always
limited.)
Justice as Freedom Libertarianism & Anarchism:
• A just society is one free of any coercion,
where the freely entered contract is the only
norm. (Rights = freedom from the coercion of
others.)
• Critique: Those without wealth or power
enter any bargaining at a disadvantage so they
cannot make choices with the same freedom
as those already privileged.
Justice as Fairness -Philosophical Liberalism:
• Conflicts are to be resolved by procedures
upon which rational people will agree
• Basic principle: equal treatment.
• Each person has a right to the most liberty
compatible with the most liberty for all.
Justice as Fairness (cont.)
• Socio-economic burdens/benefits ought to be
distributed based on merit, as long as the
competition is fair (i.e., as long as there is
equal opportunity).
• Critiques: It is not proven that disadvantaged
persons will or should accept an procedural
equality, which empirical evidence does not
demonstrate as reality. I.e., why accept a
hypothetical (and mythical) equality of
opportunity, over a potential equality of
condition.
Utilitarianism: Influential
Beneficence-Based ethics
• Maxim: Act to promote the greatest aggregate
ratio of good over evil (pleasure over pain) for
everyone concerned
Utilitarianism is about
aggregate social benefits.
• Morally right action,
or a morally good
society, promotes
the greatest possible
average satisfactions
of human beings.
•
This includes
economic factors as
well as less tangible
ones such as well
being (however
defined) and
happiness.
Utilitarianism’s Strengths:
• Egalitarian: all are to be considered in end of
happiness. Happiness ought not be at expense
of other's misery.
• Its combination of egoism & altruism: reflects
common sense.
• Allows people to pursue their own interests as
well as the common good.
• "Seeks greatest amount of individual liberty
compatible with the greatest among of public
liberty."
Utilitarianism assumes:
• costs/benefits are measurable.
• all those affected are included in the analysis.
• we can assign numerical values to intangibles
such as beauty, health, & life
• we can predict consequences
• And Utilitarianism cannot decide whose
pleasure and pain counts. Whose does? Only
humans?
What are the priorities between
Principles of Rights, Justice, and
Beneficence?
• Rights take precedence (if they are
implicated)
• Beneficence/utilitarian principles are usually
seen as the least important ones
• However, many believe utilitarian
considerations can override other principles if
the gains or the prevention of harm is
important enough.
REMEDIES to violations of rights or
social justice
• (Re)distributive Justice: redistribute burdens /
benefits according to a given moral standard
(e.g. economic equality, equal liberty, equal
treatment [fair procedures]).
• Retributive Justice: When perpetrator
knowingly violates moral statute, if
punishment is no greater than needed for
deterrence.
• Compensatory Justice: Theorists have
different views about which conditions must
be met
Compensatory Justice: 2 views about
necessary conditions
• 1) Injurious action must be wrong or negligent; the
person's injury must be the real cause of the injury; and
the person must have voluntarily inflicted the injury.
•
Such conditions generally must be met in today's law.
• 2) Compensation is due if real injury or real privilege is
based on the past actions of one's group, otherwise
injustice wins.
• For this class:
• Is nature due compensatory, “restorative” action
because humans have harmed her?