Ethics

Suggested Resources

• Ethics for the Information Age, 2nd ed. Quinn, Michael J. Pearson Education, Inc. 2006. ISBN: 0-321-37526-2
• A Gift of Fire. Baase, Sara. Prentice Hall.

Introduction

In the beginning...

• You're a caveperson, born free. You have nature all to yourself. What do you do?
  • Whatever you want!
  • Whatever makes you happy
  • Invent fire. Club a dinosaur. Cook up some roast pterodactyl. Yum!
• Another caveman, Urg, is born free -- near you. What should Urg do?
  • Whatever he wants? Whatever makes him happy?
  • What if he wants to club you and steal your roast pterodactyl?
• More cave people, doing what they want. Each one acting in their own selfish interest.
• Obviously, when societies start forming, rules of behavior are necessary
  • Exchange "do what you want" for life within a group -- more orderly

Definitions

• A society -- an association of people organized under a system of rules
  • Cooperation promotes the common good of its members
  • Members often compete over limited resources, though
  • Such competition can be trivial or significant
• Morality -- rules of conduct describing how members of a society should behave in various situations
• Ethics -- the philosophical study of morality
  • Examination of moral guidelines and behaviors
  • Comparison of moral systems
  • Systems of morals are not always in agreement
  • Best system of behavior is not always clear - trade-offs exist
• Ethics in a technological society
  • Emerging technologies bring about new ethical issues
  • Sometimes, new developments may not yet be covered by an existing moral system -- how to adapt?

Some Ethical Theories

Relativism

• There are no universal moral norms of right and wrong
• Different people can have different views and both are "right"
• Two kinds of relativism:
  • Subjective relativism
  • Cultural relativism

Subjective Relativism

• Each person decides right and wrong for him/herself
• The case for it:
  • Well-meaning, intelligent, reasonable people can differ in opinions about moral issues
  • Ethical debates are disagreeable and pointless -- no common solution will be reached
• The case against it:
  • Line between what you think is right and what you want is not sharply drawn
  • Makes no moral distinctions between actions of different people
  • Moral decisions don't have to be based on reason
• Probably not the most workable ethical theory

Cultural Relativism

• theory that right and wrong are given by a society's moral guidelines
• These guidelines might vary from place to place, or change over time
• Case for:
  • Different societal contexts need different guidelines
  • It's arrogant for one society to judge another
  • Morality is reflected in the actual behavior of a society
• Case against:
  • Just because two societies have different views doesn't imply that they should
  • How does an individual determine the guidelines of a particular society (what if I'm new to that society -- how should I know what's expected?)
  • Doesn't really explain well how moral guidelines evolve -- could easily vary from place to place
  • No framework for reconciling cultures in conflict with each other
  • Most societies do share certain core values
  • Only indirectly based on reason -- many guidelines more a result of tradition than sense
• Probably more workable than subjective relativism, but still has flaws as a tool for persuading a more diverse (e.g. global) audience

Divine Command Theory

• Right and wrong dictated by a higher power (God, or some deity)
• Based on God being good and all-knowing, ultimate authority
• Case against:
  • Many holy books, teachings not always in agreement
  • Some moral problems not directly addressed by divine commands
  • Based on obedience to God -- so will be hard to persuade those who believe differently

Kantianism

• Ethical theory of Immanuel Kant
• Only thing that can be called good (without qualification) is "good will"
• Defined by dutifulness -- what we ought to do (as opposed to what we want to do
• We should act out of respect for moral rules. So what makes an appropriate moral rule?

Kant's Categorical Imperative

• First formulation: Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time will to be universal moral laws.
  • What would happen if everybody followed a given moral rule?
  • Does it produce a logical contradiction or not?
  • Note: Kant is not saying to base on consequences, just the logical soundness
• Second formulation: Act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as ends in themselves, and never only as a means to an end
  • i.e. it's wrong for one person to "use" another
  • respect other people as rational beings

Pros and Cons

• Case for Kantianism:
  • It is rational
  • Produces universal moral guidelines
  • All persons treated as moral equals
• Case against:
  • Sometimes no single rule fully explains a situation
  • No way to resolve conflict between two different rules
  • Kantianism allows no exceptions to moral laws - no bending the rules!

Act Utilitarianism

• Proposed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill
• An action is good if it benefits someone; bad if it harms someone
• Principle of Utility: An action is right (or wrong) to the extent that it increases (or decreases) the total happiness of the affected parties
  • Utility is the tendency of something to produce happiness, satisfy needs, etc
  • Must weigh the effect of an action -- benefit vs. harm -- and calculate its overall "utility"
  • Motives not important, only consequences of the action
  • Utility applies to "beings" (must decide what beings are morally significant, too)
• Analyzing benefit vs. harm -- give weights to these attributes:
  • intensity - magnitude of the experience
  • duration - how long it lasts
  • certainty - probability it will happen
  • propinquity - how close the experience is in space and time
  • fecundity - ability to produce more similar experiences
  • purity - extent to which pleasure not diluted by pain, or vice versa
  • extent - number of people affected
• Starting to sound like a complex calculation!

Pros and Cons

• The case for:
  • Focuses on happiness, benefit to individuals
  • Down-to-earth, straightforward, practical, and based on reasoning
  • It is comprehensive, takes all sorts of elements into account
• The case against:
  • Where to draw the line when evaluating? It's subjective
  • Calculating total Utility is not practical for every decision (time consuming, difficult)
  • Ignores sense of duty, obligation
  • Susceptible to moral luck -- sometimes actions have unintended consequences
  • Single scale to measure different kinds of consequences
  • Ignores unjust distribution of good consequences

Rule Utilitarianism

• Also based on Principle of Utility, but...
• Should adopt moral rules which, if everybody follows, will lead to greatest increase in total Utility
  • Rule utilitarian applies Principle of Utility to moral rules
  • Act utilitarian applies Principle of Utility to individual moral actions
• Arguments for:
  • Caculating utility is simpler -- focus on long-term consequences
  • Some rules are general enough to not need calculating (like on a case-by-case basis)
  • Focuses on general, so fixes problems with Moral Luck
  • Appeals to a wide cross-section of society
• Arguments against:
  • Single scale to measure different kinds of consequences
  • Ignores unjust distribution of good consequences
• Kantianism vs. Rule utilitarianism:
  • Rules in Kantianism are based on motivation
  • Rules in rule utilitarianism are based on consequences

Social Contract Theory

• Proposed by Thomas Hobbes, expanded by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• People who live in a society implicitly agree to a social contract, consisting of:
  • establishment of a set of moral rules to govern relations among citizens
  • a government capable of enforcing the rules
• Good rules are those that rational people agree to accept for good of society (because everybody has to follow same rules)
• Members of societies have rights and duties
  • All morally significant beings have certain rights
  • Rights impose duties on others to not violate those rights
  • a negative right -- a right that another can guarantee by leaving you alone, not interfere with your right (e.g. freedom of speech)
  • a positive right -- one that obligates others to do or provide for you (e.g. right to a free education)
  • an absolute right -- guaranteed without exception (negative rights usually considered absolute)
  • a limited right -- may be restricted, based on circumstances (positive rights often considered limited)
  • Moral problems evaluated from the point of view of moral rights

John Rawl's Principles of Justice

• Each person may claim a "fully adequate" number of basic rights -- as long as this allows all others the same rights
• Any social or economic inequalities must:
  • be associated with positions in society that everyone has equal opportunity to assume
  • have an overall effect that is to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society

Pros and Cons of Social Contract Theory

• Arguments for:
  • based on individual rights
  • justifies action outside of self-interest (common good)
  • provides clear way to analyze issues regarding relationship between people and government (e.g. why is it acceptable to punish someone for a crime?)
• Arguments against:
  • None of us signed the social contract! (i.e. it's an implied agreement)
  • Some actions/situations are subjective -- multiple interpretations
  • How to solve a situation where rights conflict?
  • May be unjust to those who are incapable of upholding their side of the "contract" (e.g. the mentally ill)

Comparing Ethical Theories

• What's the motivation for a particular moral choice?
• What criteria used to determine ethical or unethical?
• Is focus on individual decision-maker or group?