Ethical Assignment

Assessment planning activity 1

(1).Topics 1 to 4 each contain an Assessment Planning Activity which describes a structured approach to ethical analysis. These four activities are designed to assist your preparation for Assignments 1 and 2. An essential part of this preparation is your active engagement in the online discussions concerning these activities and assessments.

The first critical step in Assignments 1 and 2 is to select and carefully define an ethical issue. This is absolutely critical and sets up the rest of your analysis.

Here are some examples of what to do and what not to do!

Peruse the news media for some topical issues. In previous years the carbon tax was a big issue. So we could start with this question:

Is the carbon tax ethical?

This question could be deconstructed into many sub-questions:

Is it ethical to tax carbon emissions?

Is it ethical for the Federal Government to redistribute income using revenue from the carbon tax?

Should the carbon tax be delayed until the next Federal election?

Is it legal to target only a small number of companies with the carbon tax?

Now note this last question is not worded as an ethical question, but rather a legal question. Law is different to ethics and therefore this question is not appropriate for an ethical analysis.

It would also be very difficult in a short undergraduate assignment to analyse the general ethical question Is it ethical to tax carbon emissions?

Your analysis will be much more achievable if you select a more specific and focused ethical issue to analyse.

Use the online discussion boards to define possible ethical issues for analysis. Try to clearly define an interesting and focused ethical question. It’s not as easy as it sounds! Here are some guidelines to help you:

1. Keep your ethical question short, focused and clear.

2. Use a should or ought word in your ethical question – e.g. should I eat that last donut?

3. Make sure your ethical question is not a legal question or a question of fact.

4. Separate your ethical analysis from the ethical question.

e.g. we might ethically analyse drone warfare and discover drone warfare is cheaper than an invade and occupy military strategy. However we would not frame the ethical question as:

Should the US use drones because it’s cheaper?

Rather we would include the cost factor in the analysis but leave it out of the question.

5. Don’t define ethical questions with obvious yes/no answers for your assignments. Should I study hard or become a mass murderer? Should children be good to their mums?

The ethical question must require some level of analysis so that you can display your skills to the markers!

6. Define your question to focus on one ethical issue, rather than a combination of many issues.

7. Don’t begin your analysis with a predetermined position i.e. don’t form your ethical conclusion before you’ve done the analysis and don’t include this predetermined position in your question; e.g. is it ethical for you to engage in dangerous, risky and pointless activities such as canyoning and then ask me to rescue you when you get in trouble?

Assignment planning activity 2

( 2.) In the Assignment Planning activity in Topic 1, you were required to define precisely an ethical issue. The next step in this process is to identify facts which are relevant to this specific ethical issue.

When collecting facts consider the reliability and credibility of the source you are using. You should be able to provide an academically credible reference for each of the major facts of your ethical case.

Random websites, low quality media publications and blogs are not considered credible. Academic journals, books, official government and corporate websites, and established media organisations may provide credible sources of facts.

Is there a cultural bias to the presentation of the facts you identify?

Can you identify two opposing views of this ethical issue?

(3.) In the Assignment Planning activity in Topic 1, you were required to define precisely an ethical issue and, in the Topic 2 activity, you were asked to identify facts relevant to the ethical issue by considering cultural and credibility issues.

The next step is to perform the utilitarian analysis. Act utilitarianism requires a comparison of expected consequences from the ethical actions being considered. These consequences are forecasts of what the impacts of the actions should be. Unlike facts, which have already happened, utilitarian consequences are forward looking.

However, the most useful information on which to base your forecast of expected consequences would be historical facts. For example, consider the case of Morgan Spurlock in Supersize Me. He gained considerable weight from his McDonald’s-only diet (fact). Maybe you are analysing the ethics of increased advertising of unhealthy fast food. What are the expected outcomes based on evidence of the impact of advertising on sales and consumption? Is the expected consequence of successful advertising of fast food increased weight of consumers and the associated health concerns?

A difficult aspect of utilitarian analysis is to compare positive and negative consequences to enable a conclusion as to whether net utility (which is the value of positive less the value of negative consequences) will rise or fall. This step is necessarily subjective, even if you use Bentham’s mathematical method, which relies on subjective estimation of weights and values assigned to each consequence.

Online discussion boards are set up to facilitate discussion of Study Guide activities and case studies.

(4.) The next step for your assignment preparation is to apply the categorical imperative to your chosen ethical issue. Back in Topic 1, you began this process by defining the ethical issue. What is the action which you are analysing to determine if it is ethical or unethical?

This should not be an action with an easy yes/no answer. For example, you are not looking at whether you should be good to your mum! So avoid obvious ethical acts.

Define a rule which authorises this ethical act which you are considering.

Now express this rule in general form.

Is it logical for this rule to be applied in all similar cases? Is the universalisation self-contradictory? Would you rationally will this rule to be universal law? Does universalisation breach any of Kant’s other principles such as the sanctity of human life, the practical imperative or the right to autonomy or non-coercion.

These are not easy questions to answer as this is a difficult ethical theory to apply.