Download Ethical Theories - Almaty Management University

Moshe Banai, PhD
Editor
International Studies of Management and Organization
Moral Theory
Moral Philosophy include the sub-disciplines:
 1. Normative ethics
 Which is the study of moral standards, general principles,
concepts, values, and theories.
 2. Applied ethics
 Which is the study of ethical dilemmas, choices, and
standards in various occupations, professions, concrete
(particular, not general) situations, and the application of
moral theories and concepts in particular contexts. Such as
“medical ethics” have mentioned above.
 3. Meta-ethics
 Which studies the nature and justification of moral
standards, values, principles, and theories and the meaning
of moral concepts and terms. Such as “is morality
objective?” and “why should we obey moral obligations?”
A Key concept: Commonsense Morality
 “Commonsense morality” is a key concept of
moral philosophy. Each person in society gets
exposed to a commonsense morality. This morality
consists of a wide variety of standards of conduct,
duties, obligations, values and principles that
come from disparate sources, such as parents,
teachers, peers, religious leaders, professionals,
literature, music, the media, and so forth. Ethicists
call these standards a “commonsense morality”
because they are the norms that most people learn
and practice without any explicit theorizing or
deeper analysis.
Principles and Values
 Some of these commonsense morals include
principles like “do unto others as you would have
them do unto you”, “keep your promises”, “be fair”,
“always do your best”, and so on. Some of these
commonsense values include happiness, honesty,
justice charity (or kind), courage, integrity ,
community, love, knowledge, and freedom
Wide Reflective Equilibrium
 After using moral theories to change commonsense
morality, we can then revise those theories so that they
cohere with this new database. This process of revising
commonsense morality in light of theory and vice
versa can continue indefinitely, and is known as the
method of wide reflective equilibrium. Most ethicists
believe that this method provides the best way of
justifying moral theories
Different Kinds of Moral Theories
Philosophers and theologians have defended a wide variety of
moral theories, each with its own particular slant on morality:
 Some theories emphasize individual rights and dignity; others
emphasize the common good
 Some theories are secular; others are religious
 Some theories focus on obligations and duties; others focus
on virtues and character
 Some theories establish moral ideals; others settle for
practical principles
 Some theories assess consequences in judging actions; others
assess motives
 Some theories are human-centered; others place human
beings in a larger ecological framework
Western Concepts
Some of the most influential ethical concepts in the
west:
 1. Divine command theory
 2. Utilitarianism
 3. Natural rights theory
 4. Natural law theories
 5. Social contract theory
 6. Virtue approaches theory
 7. Ethics of care
 8. Deep ecology theory
Utilitarianism
 Utilitarianism is often summed up as doing ‘the greatest
good for the greatest number.’
 It is a consequentiality theory as it holds that the
outcomes(that is ,the consequences) of an action are
most morally important component of that action
 It is based on a single principle: the principle of utility
 It is founded by Jeremy Bentham(1748-1832) and John
Stuart Mill(1806-73)
What is Utility?
 Bentham and Mill thought that utility was pleasure or
happiness
 Other Utilitarian scholars include values such as
friendship, knowledge, health and beauty
 Still others believe that the concept of utility is best
applied to the satisfaction of preferences rather than any
intrinsic values
The Utilitarian Approach
 We should act in such a way that we produce
the greatest balance of good/bad
consequences (or utility) for all people in
the long run
 There are two types of utilitarianism:
 act-utilitarianism and
 rule-utilitarianism
The Utilitarian Approach
 Act-utilitarianism holds that individual
actions should maximize utility
 Rule-utilitarianism holds that actions
should be based on a system of rules that
maximize utility (such as “Do not lie”)
The Disadvantage of Utilitarianism
 Is it right to let one patient die in order to harvest their
organs and perhaps save five lives?
 The maximizing principles demands that not only
should we donate blood and bone marrow as often as we
can ,but also that we may well be morally obliged to
donate one of our kidneys as well
 A small increase in pleasure for the majority will override
a vast degree of pain for minority
German Philosopher Immanuel Kant’s View
 According to a view developed by Kant, one should
always treat rational beings as having intrinsic
value or worth, not as mere instruments or objects
having only extrinsic value
 Kantianism also holds that moral standards
should be universalize- able: moral principles are
rules that would be followed by all rational beings
with a good will (A person with a good will is
motivated by the desire to fulfill her duties)
 For Kant, actions must be done for the right
reasons in order to be worthy of moral praise
German Philosopher Immanuel Kant’s
View
 Kantianism implies that individuals should not be
sacrificed for the common good, that we have moral
duties that do not depend on the consequences of our
actions, and that motives matter in assessing the
morality of human conduct
 Act only on that maxim through which you can at the
same time will that it should become a universal law
(We should behave in such a way that we can imagine
everyone behave)
 We should never treat people ‘simply as a means but
always at the same time as an end’ (Treating
individuals as an ‘end’ not just a ‘means’. All people are
equal and deserve equal treatment)
The Disadvantage of Kantianism
 It depends on freedom of will and rationality
 Moral rules are absolute-that is they can’ be broken
 The moral rules can seem quite abstract and unable to
deal with the complexities of real-life ethical dilemmas
 Two duties may conflict, so what happens then?
Natural Rights Theory
 Like Kantianism, this theory emphasizes that
importance of individual rights and freedoms
 According to this view, all people have natural rights to
life, liberty, and property, and everyone in morally
permitted to do anything they wish provided that their
actions do not violate the rights of other people
Natural Law Theories
 Which hold that morality is founded on human
nature: if an action has a basis in our natural
instincts, emotions, or social relations, then it is
right; if an action goes against our natural instincts,
emotions, or social relations, then it is wrong
 Natural law theories also maintain that we should
strive to produce or achieve natural goods and
eliminate or avoid natural evils
 Natural goods include “life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness”
Social Contract Theory
 Social contract theorists propose that morality consists
of a set of rules that we agree are important to regulate
society
 In justifying moral rules, social contract theorists
imagine people as existing in a state of nature prior to
the formation of society. In order to live well, people
must cooperate; and in order to cooperate, they need
some rules for conduct.
 These rules are the rules of morality, politics, and the
law
The Ethics of Care
 A theory inspired by feminist approaches to
morality, rejects traditional approaches to ethics
on the grounds that they place too much emphasis
on duties, rights, and justice. Such traditional
theories are too abstract, legalistic, and uncaring,
according to this view of feminist
 The ethics of care holds that our main task in life is
to love and care for ourselves and other people. We
should cultivate loving and caring relationships in
our conduct instead of relying on abstract concepts
and principles
 In some ways, the ethics of care provides a modern
rendition of Jesus’ instruction to love your
neighbor as you love yourself
The Deep Ecology Theory
 Which approach to morality is unlike all the other
approaches to ethics in that it is not human-centered
 Human-centered moral theories frame important
questions about nature in terms of human interests,
rights, obligations, and so on
The Deep Ecology Theory
 Deep ecologists hold that human-centered ethics
cannot adequately deal with moral issues involving
other species, the land, ecosystems, the
atmosphere, and oceans, since there are values in
nature that are independent of human interests or
rights.
 Thus, an ecosystem is worth preserving because it
has intrinsic, moral value, not because we happen
to value it for its economic or social uses.
 Animals have rights, according to this theory,
because they also have intrinsic moral worth and
not mere instruments for the promotion of human
interests.
Ethical Principles
 Many philosophers who study applied ethics prefer
to work with general, ethical principles rather than
moral theories because one can use principles to
support an ethical decision or a social policy
without defending an entire moral theory
 Another reason for employing general principles is
that they are easier to understand, to teach and
learn than moral theories
 Finally, since principles are expressed in very
general terms, they can be applied to a variety of
cases and interpreted in different ways. This kind
of flexibility allows one to apply principles to
diverse cases without ignoring important details
Some of these basic moral principles are as follows:
 Non-malignance: Do not harm yourself or other
people
 Beneficence: Help yourself and other people
 Autonomy: Allow rational individuals to make
free, informed choices
 Justice: Treat people fairly; treat equals equally;
un-equals unequally
 Utility: Maximize the ratio of benefits to harms
for all people
 Fidelity: Keep your promises and agreements
 Honesty: Do not lie, defraud, deceive, or mislead
 Privacy: Respect personal privacy and
confidentiality
The Four Principles
Autonomy
Beneficence
Non-maleficence
Distributive Justice
Autonomy
 The principle of respecting the decisions made by
those capable of making decisions
 It refers to an ability:
1) to reason and think about one’s own choices
2) to decide how to act
3) to act on that decision ,all without hindrance
from other people
Autonomy
 Autonomy is more than simply being free to do what
one wants to do. (animals)
 In respecting a person’s autonomy we recognize that
they are entitled to make decisions that affect their
own lives
Autonomy
 In health care respecting people's autonomy has many
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prima facie implications
It requires us to consult people and obtain their agreement
before we do things to them - hence the obligation to
obtain informed consent from patients before we do
things to try to help them
Medical confidentiality is another implication of
respecting people's autonomy
Respect for patients' autonomy prima facie requires us,
therefore, not to deceive patients, for example, about their
diagnosed illness unless they clearly wish to be deceived .
Telling the truth about terminal cancer?
Beneficence and Non-maleficence
 Beneficence is the principle of doing ‘good’
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In the medical context, this generally means improving the
welfare of patients
Non-maleficence involves ‘not harming patients’, or ‘above
all, do no harm’
There is often confusion about where non-maleficence
ends and beneficence begins
One way of looking at the two is to think of nonmaleficence as a duty towards all people, whereas
beneficence, as we can’t help everyone, is a duty we choose
to discharge on specific people
Medical staff, by accepting a patient, have chosen to act
beneficently towards that patient
Distributive Justice
 The principle refers to the allocation or distribution of
resources amongst the population
 It demands the fair treatment of ‘equals’ within the
health-care system
 What is fair and equal distribution?
Distributive Justice
 Equality - Each person receives an equal share of the
resources available
 Need - Each person receives resources appropriate to
how much that person needs
 Deserve - Each person receives resources according to
how much they deserve them (in terms of
contribution, effort or merit)
 Desire - Each person gets what they want
What should we do when these principles conflict?
 These principles should be viewed as guidelines for
conduct rather than hard and fast rules
 We should follow these principles in our conduct but
exceptions can be made when they conflict with each
other or with other standards
 When two principles conflict we may decide to follow
one principle instead of another
Moral Choices
 We make choices very waking moment of our lives.
Some of these choices are trivial or nor important;
others are profound or important. Some choices are
informed by personal preferences, tastes, or mere
whimsy. Others are based on standards of conduct
 Standards of conduct can regulate our actions by
providing guidance for many of the choices we face in
living.
 It is not easy to follow standards of conduct all of the
time since they often conflict with each other or with
our personal interests
 People often violate accepted ethical or moral
standards for personal gain, but we usually label such
actions as immoral and selfish and we disapprove of
such conduct
Moral Choices
 People often must choose not between ethics (or morality)
and self-interest but between different moral, ethical, legal,
political, religious, or institutional obligations. In these
circumstances, the key question is not “should I do the
right thing?”, but “what is the right thing to do?” These
problematic choices are known as ethical (or moral)
dilemmas. Thus, an ethical dilemma is a situation in which
a person can choose between at least two different actions,
each of which seem to be well supported by some standard
of conduct. These choices may be between the lesser of two
evils or the greater or two goods. Sometimes these choices
involve two different ethical standards.
Moral Choices
 For example, when ask to give our opinion of someone’s
cooking we may decide to be less than completely honest in
order to avoid harming that person
 Since conflicts among various principles and standards can
arise, we must frequently exercise our judgment in
deciding how we should act. In order to exercise our
judgment, we need to understand the particular features of
a given situation. Thus, there is an important sense in
which ethics are situational: although some general, ethical
principles should guide our conduct, we need to base our
decisions and actions on the facts and values inherent in
particular situations