Making Ethical Decisions Fallacies Ethical Arguments Ethical Argument

Making Ethical Decisions Fallacies Ethical Arguments

Ethical Argument ¨ Evaluative argument – The extent to which that subject meets or fails to meet an ethical standard. ¨ Defines ethical standard to be used – Stipulative term - a definition that restricts the understanding of a term to a particular meaning appropriate to the context of your argument.

Fallacies ¨ The result of hasty and uncritical thinking ¨ Are unintentional ¨ Deliberate fallacy committed is – Fraud – Selfish manipulation – Unethical

Analyzing Ethical Arguments ¨ Identifying argument ¨ (Re)Constructing argument ¨ Evaluating argument – Deductive vs inductive – Validity and soundness

Never an end ¨ Would you do the same thing again? ¨ What would you alter?

Ethical Theories ¨ Provide framework to – Get at underlying rationale – Classify and understand arguments – Defend conclusions about right and wrong

Relativism ¨ What is ethical depends on the individual, the group, the culture, tradition, background

Utilitarianism ¨ One must act to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number

Evaluating Ethical Principles and Theories ¨ Clarity ¨ Coherence ¨ Consistency ¨ Completeness

Clarity ¨ Make sure that we understand what it means and what it applies to. • "Murder is wrong" -- does this include engaging in an action that has death as a predictable side-effect? • "Thou shall not kill" -- does this include killing in war? An embryo? An animal? A plant? A species?

Coherence ¨ Ask whether various moral principles fit together in a reasonable way. • A classic example is the pairing of the claims (a) it is always wrong to kill a person and (b) convicted murderers deserve to be executed. ¨ Coherence is basically a question of how well our moral claims fit together, and goes beyond questions of logical contradiction.

Consistency ¨ Ask whether the principle or theory conflicts with out basic, deeply held moral intuitions. • If a principle leads to the conclusion that it's morally acceptable to torture a two-month old infant because "I wanted to see what it would feel like to do that, " we ought to reject it. • People who happily eat pork chops, but identify "it's wrong to eat dogs" as a basic moral intuition, will have to dig a bit deeper.

Completeness ¨ This is a matter of how much of our moral life, moral problems, and moral decisions is covered by the principle or theory in question. • Most moral principles apply to a limited range of cases, but any principle which applies to a very limited range of cases should be examined carefully. • (When evaluating moral theories, however, comprehensiveness is always central virtue. )

Make a decision -¨ Which action is the right thing to do? ¨ What would someone you respect say if you told them the decision?