Approaches to Ethical Thinking

1. Approaches to Ethical Thinking Where have we been all semester?

2. Approaches to Ethical Reasoning • Principles • Cases • Virtues

3. Possible sources of ethical principles • Kantian ethics • Utilitarian ethics • Rights-based theories • Religious ethics • Feminist ethics (?) • Communitarian ethics

4. Kantian Ethics • Core Idea: We can use our reason to discern that some actions are wrong based on the nature of the action and apart from its practical consequences

5. Utilitarianism • Core Idea: Ethics should be based on facts about the results of our actions upon human happiness and suffering in the real world

6. Rights • Has a legitimate role in ethical reasoning • Grounded in basic theory of human flourishing • Sets constraints on maximizing good • Sets constraints on majority rule • In our culture, too often used to stop, not pursue ethical dialogue

7. Rights (cont.) • Indicates the realm of “stranger ethics” • Compare: • Child’s right to an open future • Child’s right not to be abused or neglected

8. Religious ethics • Not explicitly addressed in class • Argue: No need to allow a concern for separation of church and state in pluralistic society to exclude religious ethics from public dialogue as a possible source of wisdom

9. Feminist ethics • Negative value • Critique of ethical conclusions that were arrived at without hearing the voices of the less powerful or without considering the standpoint of all involved people • Positive value • Ethics of caring, relationships • Role of emotion in ethics

10. Communitarian ethics • Can serve as important corrective to excessive reliance on individual rights, autonomy • Reminds us that we are often most accurately described as “most real” as members of families and communities, not as isolated individuals

11. Approaches to Ethical Reasoning • Principles • Cases • Either-or or both-and?

12. Abstract principles Concrete specific judgments PRINCIPLES CASES

13. Abstract principles REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM Concrete specific judgments

14. Reflective Equilibrium • Look for best overall “fit” • Reason both from cases to principles and from principles to cases • Sometimes a specific case judgment will seem better “grounded,” other times a principle will • Be willing to revise ethical judgments based on new ideas and insights

15. Snapshot vs. videotape • What does it mean to do the right thing now? • Rules, principles, case study • What does it mean to live a morally good life? • Virtue

16. Virtue Approach • Focus on questions of character and integrity (“professionalism”) • In health care: important values such as compassion and courage • Because more self- than other-oriented, won’t work as complete system of ethics

17. A Better Understanding • A & S, p. 9 • Human life and behavior is exceedingly complex • To be workable as a theory or model, must be simpler than real life • Therefore, any one theory will have gaps and blind spots but may be good partial description of the moral life

18. Blind Men and Elephant

19. A Helpful Metaphor? • Approach each ethical problem as a job • Ethical theories are tools in your tool box which you bring to the work • Part of job is picking the right tools to perform that job well