Intro to Ethical Decision Making: Ethics and Moral Values

Philosophical approaches to ethical choice and reflection…

What is “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.

Ethics vs. Morals… It’s blurry.The meanings of morals and ethics do overlap.

Ways to differentiate:

Morals are about personal behavior while ethics more grandly philosophical.

A moral is a lesson to be learned about a single principle of right and wrong

An ethic is a guiding principle that affects your criteria for determining what is right and wrong.

We tend to think of morals as beliefs and values that are given to us– taught to us by our parents, culture, religion, etc. A system of ethics (or moral philosophy) is determined by examining morals and choosing based on reason.

Ethics assumes that the [moral] standards exist and seeks to describe them, evaluate them, or evaluate the premises upon which those standards exist.

Example:

If you say that it is wrong to steal because God says it is or because your parents taught you that it was, that is a moral standard.

On the other hand, if you ask why your parents believe that stealing is wrong, or why God says that this is wrong, you are examining the philosophy and, thus, determining ethics.

Identifying Ethics:

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.

Culture, Family, Education, Religion, Peers, Experience

Values and Beliefs

Moral Standards and Codes

Asking why and examining, reasons, evidence, and consequences

Ethical Standards

Role of Religious Belief in Ethics:

For those of us who have religious beliefs, often these beliefs are intimately tied to our values and to the ethical principles we accept. But it would be a mistake to suppose that ethical values

are simply religious values—at least, the relationship is more complex than people sometimes realize.

Many religions teach moral standards while also upholding high ethical standards.

Any time says that we should do X because it is what God wants us to do, it is appropriate to consider the reasons we have for thinking that this is what God wants.

Misconceptions about EthicsQuestion: Are Ethical Judgments Relative, Subjective, and Incomparable?

Relative: Different people make different judgments, and the evaluative judgments people make are wholly relative to the values that they hold.

Subjective: “Different people just have different values, and there is no way to argue or reason about the evaluative assumptions that lie behind different ethical judgments or choices. There are no evaluative facts in the way that there are facts about the physical universe.”

Incomparable: There is no way to compare the judgments of different people, and no one's evaluative judgments are any better than the evaluative judgments of anyone else.

Misconceptions about EthicsClaim: If it were true that ethical values are all relative, subjective, and incomparable, then talking about ethics would be useless. Why might one believe this? Is it true?

Claim: Because we have many values in common, discussions in ethics often involve appeals to commonly shared values.

Claim: Often discussions in ethics involve appeals to values one believes that others accept, or values one believes that others have reason to accept.

Discussions of Ethical IssuesEthical argument and discussion requires:

1. Critical Thinking, Analysis and Examination

2. An Informed Understanding of the Situation

3. A sympathetic understanding of other people’s values and other people’s point of view

We get no where if we simply preach our own values without making an effort to understand others.

Making an Ethical DecisionClarify.

1. Determine precisely what must be decided.

2. Formulate and devise the full range of alternatives.

3. Eliminate patently impractical, illegal and improper alternatives.

4. Force yourself to develop at least three ethically justifiable options.

5. Examine each option to determine which ethical principles and values are involved.

Evaluate.

6. Do any of the options requires the sacrifice of any ethical principle?

7. Which are the solid facts and which are beliefs, desires, theories, suppositions, unsupported conclusions, opinions, and rationalizations?

8. How credible are the sources of information being used, especially when they are self-interested, ideological or biased.

9. What are the benefits, burdens and risks to each stakeholder. Can I live with this decision? (Will you feel guilt or regret? Will you be comfortable with others knowing you made this decision?)