Download Ethics and Moral Values

Bioethics and Values
Clark Wolf
Iowa State University
BIOETHICS AS A BRANCH OF PHILOSOPHY:
“The problems of philosophy involve questions in which we
are all (or should all be) deeply interested at the most basic
level. They are important to us as we make decisions about
what to believe, and how to be critical of our own naively held
beliefs. Philosophical investigation may help us to determine
what kinds of choices we should make, and what kind of
person to be. It may help us to understand and justify our
belief (or disbelief) in God. It may help us to form a rational
life plan, and to better understand our own motives and fears.
Philosophical questions are important to us as we try to
understand what we are and to determine our place in the
scheme of things. And they are important to us as we try to
choose right actions in a complicated and difficult world, and
to find meaning in our lives. These are not trivial projects.”
Identifying Ethics: Principles of ethics
should provide us guidance as we make
choices in a complicated world. Ideally, an
account of ethics should help us to identify
moral principles and morally relevant features
of the choices we face.
• There is no simple “recipe” for ethical decision
making. Philosophical and religious theories
about ethics do not remove our need
(obligation?) to exercise deliberative judgment
and to evaluate alternative values that are at play
in concrete cases.
• Ethical codes of conduct instruct us on what
we ought or ought not to do.
• Typical ethical theories or ethical codes include
basic principles that are intended to be used to
guide conduct.
• Ethics and Reasons: Our ethical values are
supported by reasons and principles. For any moral
or ethical claim, we can evaluate it by considering
the reasons that support it.
• Upshot: We can be self-reflective and critical about
our moral values. The goal of philosophical ethics
is to help us to be self-reflective in this way.
Ethical Theories:
• Principles, concepts, and ideals that can be used
to justify moral judgments and choices, or to
rank outcomes as good, better, worse, or bad.
• An ethical theory should be capable of serving
as a guide for conduct and judgment.
Case for Consideration:
The Trolley
• You’re riding a run-away trolley car, and the
only control you have is to direct the car on
to one track or another. On one track ahead
there are five people, on the other there is
only one. If you do nothing, the trolley will
kill five, but if you intervene it will kill only
one. Should you “kill one person” to save
five? What should you do?
What justifies your judgment about what
should be done?
• “Save as many as you can.”
• “Day After Tomorrow” Scientist
• “The good of the many outweighs the good of the
few.” -Spock
• “Act so that you provide the maximum benefit to the
maximum number of people.”
• Are there other principles that could be used to justify
the judgment that one should direct the trolley to kill as
few as possible?
Utilitarianism:
• “Act always such that
your action produces
the greatest benefit for
the greatest number of
people.”
• J.S. Mill,
• Jeremy Bentham
Is Utilitarianism an Acceptable
Ethical Theory?
• Focuses our attention on well-being.
• Leaves room for moral concern for animals as well
as for people.
“The question is not ‘can they reason’ nor ’can they
speak,’ but ‘can they suffer.’” -Jeremy Bentham
• Includes an implicit appeal to equality: Everyone’s
interests count the same.
Testing an Ethical Theory: Apply the theory
to a different problem.
Case: The Surgeon’s Dilemma
You are a surgeon with six patients. Five of
them need major organ transplants, which you
could easily do if you had access to transplant
organs. The sixth, an ideal donor for all the
relevant organs, has a cold. Should you kill one
person to save six?
• Question: What does utilitarianism imply in this
case? Should this cause us to call the theory
into question? Do we need to appeal to nonutilitarian values to explain what is wrong with
killing one patient to save six?
Revising Utilitarianism?
• Rights: “The reason it is wrong to kill one to
save six is that it would violate the rights of the
person killed.”
This response requires that we give an account
of rights, explain what they are, why they have
moral significance, and how they may interact
with utilitarian considerations.
Universal Rules:
• Perhaps we can’t ‘universalize’ a principle to
kill one to save six:
“Act only such that you could will the maxim on
which you act as a universal law.” -Immanuel Kant
• Interpretation:
– Ask “What if everyone did that?”
– Kant says that this is a more general statement of the
principle that lies behind the Golden Rule: “Always treat
others as you would have them treat you.”
Revising Utilitarianism?
• Using People as Means: “Always act such that you treat
humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always
as an end in itself and never as a means only.”
–Immanuel Kant
Analysis: Perhaps what’s wrong with killing one patient to save six
is that it would be using the one as a mere means for the benefit of
others.
-We use others as means all the time: Does this principle imply
that it is morally problematical to do so?
-Once again, we need to consider what it means to “treat a person
as a mere means,” and make it quite clear.
Using Ethical Theories
to Make Judgments and Decisions:
• Ethical theories can give us insight into the morally salient
features of the choices we face.
• By reflecting on the principles that lie behind our moral
choices, we may come to make better choices, and to gain a
deeper understanding of ourselves.
• Ethical theories cannot provide a simple “recipe” for
correct moral decision-making. It is always necessary to
use reflective judgment, to ask whether there are other
morally significant factors to consider.
W.D. Ross:
List of Prima Facie Duties:
1) Duties that rest on previous acts of my own.
a) Promises.
b) Previous wrongs in need of reparation.
2) Duties that rest on previous acts of others
(Example: gratitude)
3) Duties of justice (A duty to endeavor to bring the distribution of
pleasure or happiness in line with merit.)
4) Beneficence- Duty to benefit others.
5) Duty to improve one's own virtue or intelligence.
6) Duty not to harm or injure others.
Joel Feinberg:
List of Prima Facie Obligations:
1) Fidelity- Obligation to keep promises.
2) Veracity- Obligation to tell the truth, or (or better-- not to tell lies).
3) Fair Play- Obligation not to exploit, cheat, or "free load" on others
4) Gratitude- Obligation to return favors
5) Nonmaleficence- Obligation not to cause harm, pain or suffering to
others,
6) Beneficence- Obligation to help others in distress, at least when this
involves no great danger to oneself or to third parties.
7) Reparation- Obligation to repair harms to others that are one's fault.
8) Obligation not to kill others (except in self-defense).
9) Obligation not to deprive others of their property.
10) Obligation to oppose injustices, at least when this involves no great
cost to oneself.
11) Obligation to promote just institutions and to work toward their
establishment, maintenance, and improvement.
Is Ethical Decision Making Easy?
• Some ethical theories present themselves as a
simple recipe for decision making, but it can’t be
that easy.
• Other theories present themselves as a more or
less un-ordered list of obligations to be
evaluated against one another using judgment.
What good is philosophical ethics?
• Philosophical theories can’t remove the burden
of moral decision-making.
• What philosophical theories can do is to direct
our attention to features of our choices that are,
or may be morally salient.
What good is philosophical ethics?
• Most importantly, reflection on the motives and
principles that lie behind our choices shows that
our moral judgments are based on reasons. By
articulating these reasons, we gain the ability to
evaluate them and to consider alternatives.
Ethical Arguments
• Argument: A set of statements, some of which
serve as premises, one of which serves as a
conclusion, where the premises are intended to
provide evidence for the conclusion.
Ethical Arguments:
• When presented with an argument, one may either
1) Accept the premises and the conclusion
2) Reject the premises
3) Argue (or show) that the conclusion does not
follow from the premises.
Questions Requiring Ethical Judgment:
1) Should developed countries control availability of GMOs in
developing (poor) countries?
2) Who should make decisions regarding the use of land for
agricultural, commercial and residential use?
3) Do animal housing systems (crates, cages etc) need to be altered
to improve animal welfare?
4) Is it ethical to dehorn, brand, beak trim, or castrate farm animals?
5) Should cloning be allowed in farm animals? in humans?
6) Should wolves be reintroduced into areas where human activity
has been responsible for their absence?
7) Should stem cell research derived from human embryos be
allowed?
8) Is it ethical to eat meat?
9) Hunting and fishing…should it be allowed, how much, who can
do it?
10) Are livestock shows ethical?
Questions Requiring Ethical Judgment:
11) Is it ethical to encourage livestock use in poor and developing
countries?
12) Should livestock producers be responsible for air and water
quality?
13) Is it acceptable to use animals to test products for human
use/consumption?
14) Should the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics be banned in
livestock?
15) Should diverse breeds of livestock be maintained and who
should pay?
16) Should rodeos and circuses be allowed to exploit animals?
17) Should the use of growth enhancing agents be allowed in the
production of farm animals?
19) Is it ethical to trim ears, dock tails, and train companion
animals?
20) Should the family farm be maintained at the expense of
corporate farming?
21) Should life be patented?
• Thinking Clearly about Ethical Judgments:
• 1) Clearly articulate alternative positions.
Example: “We (should/should not) maintain institutions that grant
patents on living organisms.”
2) Develop a list of arguments for each position, for and
against. (This requires balance and fair-mindedness!)
3) Think about how the different reasons you have listed
interact with one another.
4) Try to come to a balanced and fair conclusion, giving
appropriate weight to all relevant reasons.
Some Moral Concepts
• Individual Moral Choice:
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Utility
Right and Rights
Universality
Virtue
Exploitation
• Institutional Norms:
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Legality
Liberty
Justice
Social Utility
Democracy
Community
Norms for Individual Moral Choice:
• Utility: Happiness and well-being
are typically taken to be ‘good’ things,
significant from the moral point of
view. To argue that a policy or procedure
would compromise happiness or create misery
is to give reasons why it’s a bad thing. (Maybe not
decisive reasons, since there may be other relevant
considerations.)
Norms for Individual Moral Choice:
• Right and Rights: Rights are claims that people
have against others. If a person has a right, then
it is not permissible to do what would violate
that right, even if doing so would maximize
utility or have good consequences. Rights (if
there are any) are side constraints on the
maximization of utility.
Norms for Individual Moral Choice:
• Universality: What if everyone did that?
• Kantian principles involve an appeal to universal
judgment.
• Example: In considering whether it is legitimate to
engineer people to be better basketball players, one
might ask whether the general policy would be selfdefeating: “If everyone did that, no one would be
specially advantaged.”
Norms for Individual Moral Choice:
• Virtue: What would a “Good Person” do in a situation
like this one?
• According to Aristotle, we need to ask what principles
of character we should inculcate into ourselves, and any
action we undertake should be evaluated in terms of
the effect on our character and judgment.
• Aristotle did not intend for his concept of virtue to be
used for practical ethical dilemmas like those we will
(mostly) be considering in this class.
Norms for Individual Moral Choice:
• Exploitation:
• “We should treat people always as ends in themselves
and never as means only.”
– Immanuel Kant
• “We should avoid actions that improve our situation at
cost to those who are worse off than we are.”
–John Rawls (paraphrase)
Institutional Norms:
• Legality: We can always ask what the law
requires, and sometimes it’s relevant from the
moral point of view. But we still need to
consider whether the law is a good law, whether
it is a bad law, and whether we have an
obligation to obey (or disobey) it.
Institutional Norms:
• Liberty:
• “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised
over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to
prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral,
is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to
do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because
it will make him happier, because in the opinion of others, to do
so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for
remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading
him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him of visiting
him with any evil in case he do otherwise. (…) Over himself,
over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”
-J.S. Mill, On Liberty
Institutional Norms:
• Justice: Involves the fair distribution of burdens
and benefits of social cooperation.
• Equality: Equal distribution is one theory of
justice. But sometimes it can be argued that
unequal distributions are required by justice.
Institutional Norms:
• Social Utility: We can evaluate policies based on
their likely consequences, and on whether the
benefits they provide are likely to outweigh the
burdens they impose.
Institutional Norms:
• Democracy: If policies undermine democracy or
democratic equality, this is a powerful argument
against them.
• Example: “The genetic inheritance of the earth
belongs equally to all people. Allowing patent
rights in organisms and species would be
undemocratic, since it would take this right
away.”
Institutional Norms:
• Community: If a policy would undermine the
bonds of community that link us together, this
is a powerful argument against it.
• Example: “Allowing genetic manipulation and
‘improvement’ of human beings would
undermine social solidarity, creating a genetically
normal and thus disadvantaged underclass.”
– Michael Sandel (paraphrase).
Using Norms to Evaluate Cases:
• Consider different normative concepts and how they
apply to a given policy or case.
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What rights are involved?
What will the consequences be?
What if everyone did that?
Is it legal?
Does it undermine liberty?
What does justice require?
Is the proposal democratic?
Would this undermine community?
Patenting Life: Reasons Against
• “Patents on life reflect a disrespect for life.”
• “People who gain patents on life aren’t really the
creators of what they patent.”
• “Patents on life permit or facilitate the
oppression of people in the developing world.”
• “Patents undermine people’s free right to use the
earth’s genetic heritage, which should be a
common available to everyone.”
• Other reasons?
Patenting Life: Reasons For:
• “Plant and animal breeders deserve protection for their
efforts, and patents are an appropriate means for
protection.”
• “Plant and animal patents promote research in livestock
and plant varieties, improving agriculture for everyone.
• “Appropriate patent institutions can protect the welfare
of people in the developing world while protecting the
rights of researchers and innovators.”
Beyond “For and Against…”
• Once you have identified the reasons and arguments that
lie behind alternative positions, you may be in a position
to reformulate the question.
• For example:
“Are there intellectual property institutions that can
protect the legitimate claims of researchers without
causing disadvantage to others, and without violating
other important moral convictions?”
Patenting Life:
• What do you think?
“One who knows only his own side of a case
knows little of that.” -Cicero.
• Only if you are able to articulate the arguments
of those who disagree with you are you really in
a position to defend and understand your own
judgments.
What good is Ethics?
Ethics and ethical decision making are not simply the
province of philosophers or ethicists. Our choices reveal
our values to the world. These values are either unreflective
and shallow, or reflective and deep.
Philosophical deliberation should help us to make our
values and choices deep and thoughtful. Maybe this makes
it more likely that our choices will be the right ones.
• Clark Wolf
• Director of the ISU Bioethics Program.
• Questions? Email me at:
[email protected]