Ethics PDF

Ethics: a branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles that governs a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity Why study ethics? 1. Ethic allows you to live an authentic life: living with sense and integrity making commitment into sticking to them through thick and thin no...

Ethics: a branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles that governs a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity Why study ethics? 1. Ethic allows you to live an authentic life: living with sense and integrity making commitment into sticking to them through thick and thin no matter what 2. Ethics makes you more successful: ethical people embody traits that unethical people have to work at to fake 3. Ethics allows you to cultivate inner peace: It makes our life to be calmer and more focused to be productive than those lived unethical 4. Ethics provides a stable society: they tell the truth, generous and avoids harming others. Working with such people would be easy 5. Ethics may help out in the afterlife: Some religious traditions believe ethics is the key to a greater personal success and social stability to eternal life. IMPORTANCE OF RULES TO SOCIAL CHANGE 1. Rules protect social beings by regulating behavior: it builds boundaries the pace limits on behavior 2. Rules help to guarantee each person certain rights and freedom: it forms frameworks for society. Nations generally nations of law and governing principles are outlined in what is called “constitution” 3. Rules produce a sense of Justice among social beings: It is needed in order to keep the strong from dominating the weak, to prevent exploitation and domination 4. Rules are essential for a healthy economic system: Without rules, power would be centralized around monopolies and threaten the strength and competitiveness of the system MORAL VS NON-MORAL STANDARDS Moral Standards: pertains to the rules people have about the kinds of actions they believe are morally right and wrong. “Moral values and moral principles” Non-moral standards: unrelated to moral or ethical considerations. Either these standards are not necessarily linked to morality or by nature lack ethical sense. Examples would be etiquette, fashion standards, rules in games and household rules MORAL STANDARDS CAN BE DISTIGUISHED FROM NON-MORAL STANDARDS USING THE FF. CHARACTERISTICS: 1. Moral standards are nor (merely) established by authority figures: it ought to be considered in the process of making laws hence in principle, moral standards cannot be changed nor nullified by the decisions or particular authoritative body. 2. Moral standards have a trait of universalizability: everyone should live up to the moral standards where moral principles must apply to all who are in relevantly similar situation 3. Moral standards are based on impartial considerations: it does not evaluate standards on the basis of 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 4. Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary: Proposed for use, to advice, and to influence one’s action through emotions DILEMMA: difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives MORAL DILEMMA: choice between two options that are undesirable or unsatisfactory for non-moral reasons. LEVELS OF MORAL DILEMMA 1. Individual Dilemma: resolved on personal level. Example: When an individual has to choose between the life of a child who is about to be delivered and the mother. 2. Organizational Dilemma: ethical cases encountered and resolved by social organizations. It includes moral dilemmas in businesses, medical field and public sector. Example: A hospital believes that a human life should not be deliberately shortened and that unpreventable pain should not be tolerated encounters a conflict in resolving whether to withdraw life support from a dying patient. This common moral dilemma faced by healthcare organizations and medical institutions. 3. Structural Dilemma: pertains to cases involving network of institutions and operative theoretical paradigms. Usually encompass multi-sectoral institutions and organizations, may be larger in scope and extent to organizational dilemmas. FOUNDATIONS OF MORALITY Professor Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist argues that humans have 6 moral foundations through which we view politics and policy. 1. Care/ harm: foundation developed through protection of children- ancestors cared for their children and helped them avoid them in hopes of witnessing the survival of their genes in future generations. 2. Fairness/ cheating: developed through self- interest and reciprocal altruism. All organisms are self-interested, but once our ancestor. 3. Authority/ subversion: developed in our trivial past. For group to survive, a societal structure had to established with a leader and followers. 4. Loyalty/ betrayal: our ancestors addressed adaptive challenges in coalition. Loyalty to the group and hence survival was favored evolutionarily. Today, the human predilection for in-group loyalty remains and accounts for a large part of the political “us versus them” divided. 5. Sanctity/degradation: developed through adaptive challenges of avoiding pathogens, parasites and other existential threats originating from physical touch. Social Conservatives particularly rely on this foundation when discussing the sanctity of life (in abortion debate), marriage (gay rights) and self (contraception debate). 6. Like the Authority/ Subversion foundation, it if the foundation evolved from the dynamics of group behavior and it views authority as legitimate only in certain contexts. FREEDOM: power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. a. Not absolute- has a limit b. Exercising- responsibility for our actions c. Great freedom comes with great responsibility d. Chaos, anarchy in a society with limitless freedom More Dimensions- developing the skill for sound decision making based on ethical principles a. Moral dimension belongs to the realm of human freedom: the act not of free choice is without moral quality b. Concern for a good and happy life: knowledge and willpower to do good c. Speaks to our sense of moral responsibility: responsibility for our actions MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF MORALITY: REASON AND IMPARTIALITY 1. Moral judgements must be backed up with good reasons and impartiality 2. Reason and impartiality refer to mental activity ff. the basic principle of consistency, lack of contradiction between idea and another 3. Process of deriving necessary conclusion from premises avoiding all forms of deception of fallacy of reasoning 4. Avoids attacking the personality of the opponent and instead of directing one’s argument against his ideas 5. Reason avoids appeal to pity, since appearing miserable does not improve an argument. 6. Reason does not resort to appeal to authority; one’s power and influence cannot make a wrong right 7. A logical, impartial, objective reason avoids ambiguities like equivocation, circular reasoning, amphibology, etc. 8. Coherent reasoning is needed to establish truth and meaningfulness of moral judgements. 9. Morality requires impartial consideration of each individual’s interest. 10. Biases and prejudices must be placed between brackets, suspended 11. Everyone’s message, silent or verbal, should be allowed to be unveiled 12. A moral subject must be seen from various perspectives and standpoints. CULTURE AND MORAL BEHAVIOR (Culture and its Role in Moral Behavior) Culture: shared values, beliefs and norms of a specific group of people. Culture, therefore influences the manner we learn, live and behave Moral Development: process through which a human being acquires sensibilities, attitudes, beliefs, skills and disposition WHAT SHAPES CULTURE? Political Leadership: political landscape changes with time and people with diverse beliefs and motivations hold power to motivate and alter the thinking of a major of people in the country Big Events: political movements change the culture and induce new habits in people. The bad thing about these events is that they happened and culture change but once this event is over, the culture change persists. The consequence of such events shapes the culture. CULTURE AFFECTS CORPORATE PRODUCTIVITY Culture can where employees can speak freely about issues and opportunity helps to shape the corporate culture. A culture boosts not only productivity but creativity, also boost costumers trust a satisfied, happy and respected THE ROLE OF MORAL BEHAVIOR IN CREATING A CULTURE 1. As culture shapes moral behaviors, moral behaviors simultaneously create culture. 2. Culture and moral behaviors are inseparable of which a culture could be found in moral behavior just as the moral behaviors happen in or even create and enhance a culture 3. This follows the Eastern or inductive process whereby the individual leads to the structural. CULTURAL RELATIVISM: refers to understanding or belied that everything should be judged only according to one’s own respective culture. 1. With the advent of globalization and information technology, cultural diversity became more immanent  2. People could now easily visit or explore the cultures of the world because of the advancement of transportation and technology 3. They have increasingly become aware of cultural diversity and the influence of such awareness to their understanding, decisions and values. Assignment 2: LEVEL OF MORAL DELIMMA Give me one case on individual dilemma, one on organization and one structural Assignment 3: Culture and its role in moral behavior Find cases where culture affects moral behavior (Thursday) Moral and non-moral standards and dilemma