"The Ethics Tradition" (38-81)

“The Ethics Tradition” (pages 38-81)
-Chapter focuses on ethical theories of Aristotle, Kant, utilitarianism, and an ethic of care.

Aristotle
-Ancient but time honored.
-Aristotle helped to shape Christianity, he influenced St. Thomas Aquinas.
-Metaphysics serve an indirect role in Aristotle’s ethics (unlike Plato where it was at the forefront).
-Metaphysics is abstract thinking, so Aristotle is more concrete in his teachings.
-He said that Ethics is the study of what is involved in good actions.
-Ethics is not a subject with hard and fast answers like Math.
-Don’t try to make ethics more definite than it is; a code of ethics has to be very general.
-Ethics is very indefinite while technological matters are very definite, but they can be coupled together.
-Ethics is about what is sought for its own sake (goodness itself) not for the sake of money or success.
-Right thing does not mean something that was easy or typical but rather it means going beyond that and doing more than was expected, easy or understandable. It also carries over to doing it just because it was the right thing to do that is for its own sake.
-He said we are unique because we have a lower animal nation and a divine nature. Our divine nature is our rational powers, and we must cultivate these carefully.
-From him, ethics is to seek after the good; therefore, only a person and not an action can be virtuous.
-Virtue is habit that must be adopted; it is a habit to choose and to will ethically. Repeated actions shape out habits, so if we continue carefully deliberate our ethically choices it will become habitual.
-Each person is responsible for his or her character. This may sound abstract, but what he is saying is that if you solely follow the rules and regulations or say your corporation this would not necessarily constitute ethical behavior. For example, if you are doing it for the sake of retaining your job and financial situation this would not be ethical.
-He says ethics comes from reason. We don’t admire what comes easy. Ex. Rich person returns excess change to counter attendant vs. poor person doing the same action. So this is why Aristotle says it depends on the PERSON and not the action.
-Ethics is not mathematical (ex. Apples fall to ground –cannot go anywhere else so there is no otherwise but the possibility of the otherwise matters in ethics.)
-A friend does what is good for the sake of a friend, so like in this situation the basis of ethics is the abandonment of self interest.
-Ethics cannot be reduced to politics or law because it must guide us when politics or laws are silent or are in error.
-Whistle blowing laws means obligation is specifically in opposition to practical concerns such as pleasing one’s boss or retaining one’s employment. Ex. Roger Boisjoly lost his job because he refused to follow certain organizational procedures and decisions. He wrote “smoking gun” memo. He was repositioned after he threatened to file suit against employer under whistle blowing laws. But his boss make work environment so unpleasant that he quit.
-Aristotle separates ethics from science and technology. Many contemporary thinkers disagree. They say that you can use science to help define ethics. For example, it is safe to live with HIV patients as long as certain behaviors are avoided.

Kant
-Immanuel Kant is a European philosopher, whose ethical theory is based on a sense of duty.
-He uses deontology which is an ethical system emphasizing obligation or duty; he emphasizes a categorical imperative rule of ethics.
-It is based on moral reason, which involves reasoning with unseen principles. It does not involve our intuitive feelings according to him.
-His ethics are based on one’s freely chosen decisions to act in good will out of a sense of duty.
-We are distinguished from other creatures due to our reasoning capabilities so these are meant to serve as a basis for judging ethics.
The Categorical Imperative is to act in such a way that if you could you would make the principle guiding your action a universal binding law that everyone had to follow. It would apply to everyone, everywhere, and always without exception.
-So since the law comes from our reasoning power it provides common ground.
-Even though his law is based on duty, it is based on an independently arrived at definition of duty. Therefore, in a sense it is duty based in freedom and not based on force or limitation of freedom.
-It is based on the centrality of reason to all human beings.
-It combines personal with universal because he says that a person should arrive at a decision that is a guide for everyone in the same situation. The decision must be identically understood by all rational beings. Therefore, the decision can never be egocentric or self serving.
-Useful to us because emphasizes a sense of duty or doing what is right regardless of competing interests or outcomes; it states that ethics is both a individual and social matter; and it is comparable to the Golden Rule.
-But we need to keep in mind that real ethical decisions are never strong and clear as the categorical imperative states.
-However thinking in terms of what any other reasonable person would do in your situation to make the right ethical decision can be helpful.
-The principle guiding one’s actions is what determines goodness. For example, if a merchant doesn’t take advantage of a customer when the business is thriving because it would negatively impact the merchant’s business in the long run. So decision not to cheat customer cannot be judged at face value because the merchant could not cheat his customer solely because he doesn’t want future negative impact on his business. So his self interest could still rule a so called honest ethical decision.

Utilitarianism
-Based on usefulness. It is based on accomplishing the greatest useful goodness for the greatest number of people.
-Connected to science and technology because it is sensitive to the masses and it allows for quantitative calculation of what to do ethically.
-Ex. FAA didn’t install fire detection and suppression technologies into commercial aircraft due to cost-benefit analysis. But ethically summed up a human life in dollar amount. Another example is the FDA and drugs.
-This approach is especially useful in medicine.
-Ex. 3 livers but 10 people in need. So have to rank the 10 patients and only given age, sex, current health, complicating medical conditions, martial status, and number of kids. Then after you rank based on these criteria, you get the social, economic, religious, and political characteristics. How you change your rankings based on these new factors reveal your values. This method forces you to confront how you really make decisions and what you hold important.

Feminist and Care Perspectives
-Postmodernism challenges traditional authority such as religion; it views knowledge as complex and socially conditional. This criticism of traditional views applies to ethics as well.
-Feminism can be linked to postmodernism.

Feminist Perspectives on Science as a Value System
-Science and technology are both value systems in themselves.
-Values in scientific method are more favorable to men.
-Science rejects emotions, and women historically have been seen to value emotions more than men. Therefore, women are discouraged from science.
-Feminists argue that scientific investigations isolate and nullify relationships which are characteristically masculine.
-Critics discredit feminists that consider dispassionate logic as masculine because it implies that women are illogically thinkers. Or on the other side considering women as emotional also satisfies stereotypes.
-Don’t use sex related terminology in technical communication.
-Since women tend to avoid conflict and men value interpersonal conflict, in complex organizations where interpersonal conflicts reign men rule.
-Feminism questions the universality and gender indifference traditionally supposed of ethics. It questions if ethics favors men over women. It questions whether or not ethics can be considered one thing or many things constantly evolving.

Ethics of Care
-It characterizes the difference in moral thinking between women and men.
-Women value relationships marked with a caring concern as well as the other person more in moral judgment and ethics than men.
-Men base ethical decisions on justice and impersonalize ethics.
-Traditionally male way of thinking about ethics has been taken for granted and be applied to all humankind generically.
-This view silences women and implies their ethical judgments are incorrect.
-Dichotomy between caring and justice.

Other Views

Confucian Ethics
-Philosophy of eastern Asia.
-Grounded in immediate realities not in timeless absolutes.
-In the immediate world is where morality is played out.
-Human responsibility is in relationships not individual.
-Need for social harmony so individual egos are subordinate to obligations of social relations.
-Morality is one’s behavior towards others in immediate circumstances, so it is not abstract.
-Ethical study involves interpretation rather than reasoning so it is hermeneutic. Interpret particular historical cases (analects).
-Cultivate virtue through activities that compose the tao or way of virtue.
-Li is the principle of propriety that helps to compose tao. Li involves acknowledging one’s place in the world.
-Sense of rightness or appropriateness is yi and it helps achieve tao. It is a sense of justices due to social standing. Related to justice in terms of obligations of relationships.
-The virtue of humanness is ren. Need a fundamental awareness of others and attitude of love.
-It does not define everyone equally. But, it says you should accept your social position. Therefore social context determines ethics rather than Kant’s indifferent ethics.
-Relationships are key. They define duties.
-Tradition is valued while American value innovations in cooperation. They don’t value profits.

Levinas
-Finds ethics in encounters with other people which he terms “the other.”
-Have to understand other person in the relationship in order to determine how to behave.
-Ex. Vietnam Memorial

Gert
-Relates morality to rational thinking, universal audience, and to traditional moral principles while distinguishing it from emotion.
-Morality involves action not feelings, and social relations (not absolute relations) in terms of all including oneself. It is about avoiding evil rather than pursuing good.
-Rules and questions.
-System people can actually use in dealing with real moral problems.
-Combo