Ethics, Morals, Codes, and Laws

1. Ethics, Morals, Codes, and Laws COMU2020 Phil Graham Week 4

2. Regulation and Codes of Conduct • Overview of Australian regulatory bodies • ABA • PRIA • ADMA • AAA • “Codes of Conduct”

3. Ethics • How do we ask and answer ethical questions? • What are “ethics”? • How do we identify ethical issues? • How do these differ from moral issues? • Is there a difference?

4. Ethics .. cntd • Ethics and morals are traditionally treated as separate • Ethics are different intellectual framework and morality is patterns of practice • Ways of “seeing” and ways of doing are treated as separate • BUT … Ethics are always applied

5. Ethical frameworks • Origins of ethics • The ethical question: how ought we live? • Normative ethics • Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism, Deontology

6. Normative frameworks • Virtue ethics (A. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics) • ‘Golden mean’ is a balance among all the virtues. • ‘arête (excellence or virtue) phronesis (practical or moral wisdom) and eudaimonia (usually translated as happiness or flourishing.)’ Hursthouse (2003). • Virtue do not inhere in a single good act, but is a way of being that is infused throughout a person. It is also called ‘character ethics’. • The dominant form of ethics throughout the West for many centuries. • What questions can we ask within this framework? • eg the un-virtuous character, defining virtue, rules …? • “Intelligence and courage”

7. Normative frameworks • Deontology • Rule-based ethics. • Says we are duty bound to live according to rules, regardless of the consequences. • Kant’s categorical imperative is an updated deontology: • “Since by nature (according to Kant) the moral law is universal and impartial and rational, the categorical is a way of formulating the criteria by which any action can pass the test of universality, impartiality, and rationality. That is its only function” (Pecorino, 2002). • Kant is saying that any ethical principle must be applicable in a universal way, in all circumstances. • Deontology is opposed to consequentialism. • What are its weaknesses? What questions can we ask?

8. Normative frameworks • Consequentialism • A part of utilitarian ethics. • The overarching principle is that the rightness of an act depends on its effects upon society. • The utilitarian bent is that the rightness of an act is assessed in terms of “the greatest good for the greatest many”. • The principle privileges the social over the individual. • What are the flaws? What questions can be asked. • http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/

9. Metaethics • Study of where ethics arise from. • Moral philosophy, metaphysics of ethics • Relativism—individual, cultural, temporal (?) • ‘Objective vs realist’ perspectives • ‘Psychological issues’ • ‘Altruism vs egoism’ • ‘Male vs female morality’ • Fieser (2003). • Questions? Assumptions? Criticisms?

10. Applied Ethics • According to some, that branch of ethics that is concerned with contentious issues, such as bioethics, cloning, abortion, human rights – in short, all the kinds of issues that inform new policies. • But all ethics are applied in a very real sense. • Therefore social practice is the most appropriate framework for applied ethics (Isaacs and Massey, 1994).

11. Social Practice Ethics • An applied ethics that is based in social context, socialisation, and professional contexts. • It focuses on the human nature of engagement, and how engagements are shaped by ways of seeing, being, and acting that we acquire through our engagements. • It is fundamentally a communicative ethics that recognises persons are those who engage in social life, not, eg, institutions, philosophies, and so on, though these most certainly • It recognises power imbalances, social justice, and most importantly, that ethics are inseparable from all social interaction • The “ought” of social practice is oriented towards having sensibilities towards others as persons and being aware that what we do has direct effects on those persons. • In turn, this has a direct effect on the overall ethical character of the social systems we inhabit. • Communication plays an integral role, including media practices.

12. Conclusion • Laws and codes are neither ethics nor morality • Ethics are an aspect of every human interaction • Ethics are always applied • The ethical is a dimension of human experience concerned with producing the good life. • It is incumbent upon each of us as individuals to be aware of our role in the constitution of the ethical dimension of social life.

13. References • Aristotle, A. The Nicomachean Ethics. Penguin. • Hursthouse, R. (2003). "Virtue Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/ethics-virtue/ • Pecorino, P. A. (2002). Ethical Traditions. http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/SCCCWEB/ETEXTS/MEDICAL_ETHICS_TEXT/Chapter_2_Ethical_Traditions/Categorical_Imperative.htm • Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2003). "Consequentialism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2003 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2003/entries/consequentialism/ • Fieser, J. (2003). Ethics. http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm