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EthicalArgumentsPowerpoint.pptxEthical Arguments
Morality vs Consequences vs Principles: Where do you stand?
Moral Choice
Morality-
1) choices of behavior partitioned into right and wrong by society, philosophy, religion, or individual conscience, or
2) an ideal code of conduct defined by the same
Morality is personal
You may think of your own moral choice as something other than an individual choice.
In fact, your morality may be a mixture of social phobias that affects your choice.
Do you make the difficult choice not to rob a gas station each time you are in one?
Or are you controlled by a fear of
jail or violent response;
personal memories and experiences with the shame, regret, or etc. linked to theft;
expectations of family, culture, community, religion;
current emotional state;
and a variety of other factors.
Your morality is unique
You will base your choice to not take all of the money from a gas station, or even from its "Take-A-Penny-leave-A-Penny" tray on entirely different factors than everyone else who makes the same choice.
The problem with morality (in arguments)
Arguing your personal morality will not convince all audiences.
In fact, it may prove off-putting.
Example
The duty of all students is to report anyone, including all friends, who they suspect of intentionally plagiarizing.
This argument is based on my authority as a professional teacher and is supported by the University.
Has this argument convinced you to narc on your friends?
Why or why not?
(E-mail me their names)
The failure to argue morality logically gave rise over millennia to what we know as ethics.
Ethics
A philosophy which attempts to make logically consistent rules upon which to TEST moral choices
We will use two forms of ethics in this class.
Type 1: Consequence-based
or Consequentialist, also known as teleological ethics
Evaluates the ethics of a choice based on a complete consideration of all provable costs and benefits of an act. The action itself is not directly considered.
Ex. Stealing is not necessarily unethical if you can prove that it does more good than harm.
The trick to formulating a complete consequentialist argument
Consider all consequences:
pro and con
short-term and long-term
near and far
small and large
Example
If you were to choose to take all of the loose change from the tray at the gas station (to buy a bottle of Ski, let's say), then what are the positive and negative consequences?
Who is hurt, and how?
Who is helped, and how?
Utilitarianism
A specific brand of Consequentialism, Utilitarianism, asks a slightly more specific question:
What does the most good for the most people?
This question is the ultimate test of the utility of an action or choice. Are more people helped more than people are hurt?
When a student cheats on a test
Who benefits? (Cui bono?) | Who is harmed?
Principle-based
(principled, or deontological ethics)
The act itself is wrong because that act is always wrong.
If the action is wrong for one person in one circumstance,
it is always wrong
No matter who does it
No matter when it is done
No matter where it is done
No matter why they think it is done
No matter what the effects
-If it is unethical to murder,
then it is unethical for anyone to murder anyone else for any reason:
In war
For self-defense
To stop additional murders
-If it is unethical to steal, then a starving child's excuses are transparent and nonsensical.
-If it is unethical to lie, then it is unethical to tell your children that Santa exists.
-If you are a vegetarian or a vegan who complains about how others eat, you cannot have bacon “just once in a while”
Writing Notes
You CANNOT write your paper in a principled style.
However, you may likely notice that many sources do so.
In fact, when it comes to moral or ethical arguments, most weak arguments assume they are taking principled stance but don't show the rigor to commit to their logic.
This is where logical fallacies cluster.
You may definitely consider principled approaches for COUNTER-ARGUMENTS.
I recommend Kantian ethics as a way to test principled ethical stances.
Kantian ethics ---a form of principles ethics
Based on the categorical imperative
There is only one reason to act ethically, an unconditional obligation or duty.
-You work to make other people practice veganism out of a clear, unconditional duty.
-You can kill out of self-defense if you have a provable duty to protect other people who may be harmed.
-You can steal if your duty to feed your family overwhelms other duties.
The universalizability test:
Used to test principled arguments
Step 1
Step 1- Combine the action and the duty. This is called the maxim.
“I will steal for personal benefit” versus “I will steal to feed my child”
“I will kill because I am afraid” versus “I will kill to protect fellow soldiers”
Step 2
Imagine a possible world where everyone follows this maxim at every opportunity
Step 3
Look for contradictions in a world where everyone makes this choice.
If it is OK that I did this, would I also be OK if someone did it to me?
If I support George Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense, would I also do so if he shot my son?
Would this case have turned out the same way if Trayvon Martin had shot George Zimmerman and claimed self-defense?
Step 4
If there is any contradiction, then the maxim is always unethical
Step 5
If there is no consequence, it is an ethical act and may be a duty that must be performed.
Review
-consequence-based ethics are largely based on logical consideration of cause and effect.
-principle-based ethics are largely based on logical consistency.
Should I refuse to tip a waiter for poor service?
From a normal consequential position, you would take your one act and look for evidence for what effects will come from that one act. Is more good or harm done by the act?
Question for further investigation: Does it teach the correct people a lesson or is the waiter now more likely to provide bad service for his other tables?
A utilitarian position would take a look at that one act and ask if the most good was done for the most people by that act, or if a different act would provide better results.
Question for further investigation: Is there evidence that a small tip is more likely to affect positive change than no tip at all?
Should I refuse to tip a waiter for poor service?
A simple principled position would ask if refusing to tip is inherently good or bad as an action.
Question for further investigation: Do we enter into an unspoken agreement to tip regardless of quality? What factors fairly break that contractual duty?
A strict Kantian position would ask if we are rejecting a duty for personal reasons or for logically consistent ones. If the roles were reversed and you skillfully served the erstwhile waiter bad food, would you find it fair if he did not tip you? Further, if tipping a waiter is based on factors besides the waiters’ service, is the system inherently flawed?
Question for further investigation: As customers, what duties do we owe to our service providers?
