ETHICS WEEK 1

Post-conventional

(Most people do not reach this level of moral reasoning)

Pre-conventional

Reasoners judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences.

Non-moral standards

refer to rules that are unrelated to moral or ethical considerations. Either these standards are not necessarily linked to morality or by nature lack ethical sense. Basic examples of it include rules of etiquette, fashion standards, rules in games, and various house rules.

Conventional

People who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing these actions to social rules and expectations.

Lawrence Kholberg

he proposed that moral reasoning, which he thought to be the basis for ethical behavior, develops through stages.

Moral standards

involve the rules people have about the kinds of actions they believe are morally right and wrong, as well as the values they place on the kinds of objects they believe are morally good and morally bad. Some ethicists equate it with moral values and moral principles.

Morality

may refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what is right and wrong, or good and evil.

Stage Four: LAw and Order

o In stage four, individuals think it is important to obey the law and conventions of society. (Law-and-Order Mentality)

Stage one: obedience and punishment

o Individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves.o Individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves.

Stage Three: Interpersonal Concordance ("Good boy/girl")

o Individuals seek approval from other people. They judge the morality of actions by evaluating the consequences of these actions for a person's relationships. (Conformity orientation)

· Stage Six: Universal Ethical Principles (Principled Conscience)

o Moral reasoning is based on the use of abstract reasoning using universal principles.

Stage Five: Human Rights

o People have certain principles to which they attach more value than laws, such as human rights. o An action is wrong if it violates certain ethical principles. o Laws that do not promote general social welfare should be changed.

Socrates

o point is not that repaying debts is without moral import; rather, he wants to show that it is not always right to repay one's debts

Socrates

o quickly refutes this account by suggesting that it would wrong to repay certain debts

Stage Two: Individualism, Instrumentalism, and Exchange

o what's in it for me position. Right behavior is defined by what is in one's own best interest (self-interest orientation).

Moral Dilemmas

· A situation in which, whatever choice is made, the agent commits a moral wrong.

Moral standards are based on impartial considerations

· Impartiality is usually depicted as being free of bias or prejudice. Impartiality in morality requires that we give equal and/or adequate consideration to the interests of all concerned parties.

Moral standards are based on impartial considerations

· Moral standard does not evaluate standards on the basis of the interests of a certain person or group, but one that goes beyond personal interests to a universal standpoint in which each person's interests are impartially counted as equal.

Moral standards are not established by authority figures

· Moral standards are not invented, formed, or generated by authoritative bodies or persons such as nations' legislative bodies. Ideally instead, these values ought to be considered in the process of making laws. In principle therefore, moral standards cannot be changed nor nullified by the decisions of particular authoritative body. One thing about these standards, nonetheless, is that its validity lies on the soundness or adequacy of the reasons that are considered to support and justify them.

Universalizability

· is an extension of the principle of consistency, that is, one ought to be consistent about one's value judgments.

free persons

. Ethical norms and the question of good and evil arise when people need to act as

Moral standards ought to be preferred to other values

· Moral standards are not the only rules or principles in society, but they take precedence over other considerations, including aesthetic, prudential, and even legal ones. A person may be aesthetically justified in leaving behind his family in order to devote his life to painting, but morally, all things considered, he/she probably was not justified. It may be prudent to lie to save one's dignity, but it probably is morally wrong to do so. When a particular law becomes seriously immoral, it may be people's moral duty to exercise civil disobedience.

Moral standards involve serious wrongs or significant benefits

· Moral standards deal with matters which can seriously impact, that is, injure or benefit human beings. It is not the case with many non-moral standards. For instance, following or violating some basketball rules may matter in basketball games but does not necessarily affect one's life or wellbeing.

moral standards ought to be preferred to other values

· Moral standards have overriding character or hegemonic authority. If a moral standard states that a person has the moral obligation to do something, then he/she is supposed to do that even if it conflicts with other non-moral standards, and even with self-interest.

Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary

· Prescriptivity indicates the practical or action-guiding nature of moral standards. These moral standards are generally put forth as injunction or imperatives (such as, 'Do not kill,' 'Do no unnecessary harm,' and 'Love your neighbor'). These principles are proposed for use, to advise, and to influence to action. Retroactively, this feature is used to evaluate behavior, to assign praise and blame, and to produce feelings of satisfaction or of guilt.

Moral standards have the trait of do

· Simply put, it means that everyone should live up to moral standards. To be more accurate, however, it entails that moral principles must apply to all who are in the relevantly similar situation. If one judges that act A is morally right for a certain person P, then it is morally right for anybody relevantly similar to P.

moral standards ought to be preferred to other values

· There is a general moral duty to obey the law, but there may come a time when the injustice of an evil law is unbearable and thus calls for illegal but moral noncooperation (such as the antebellum laws calling for citizens to return slaves to their owners).

Moral standards have the trait of do

· This characteristic is exemplified in the Gold Rule, "Do unto others what you would them do unto you (if you were in their shoes)" and in the formal Principle of Justice, "It cannot be right for A to treat B in a manner in which it would be wrong for B to treat A, merely on the ground that they are two different individuals, and without there being any difference between the natures or circumstances of the two which can be stated as a reasonable ground for difference of treatment." Universalizability is an extension of the principle of consistency, that is, one ought to be consistent about one's value judgments.

Ethics

________ is grounded on the experience of free persons who have to act in difficult situations. It developed from the reality that when people act, they do not merely need to know the best way to realize something but there are times when they need to act in a way that realizes the good. And the good does not always mean the easiest or most expedient way.

moral standards

are those concerned with or relating to human behavior, especially the distinction between good and bad (or right and wrong) behavior.

Cephalus

defines "justice" as speaking the truth and paying one's debts