Applied Ethics is the branch of ethics that asks relatively concrete questions about the morality of specific actions and policies. The following branches focus on various issues of applied ethics:
· Medical Ethics (euthanasia, abortion, human cloning, genetic engineering etc.)
· Business Ethics (corporate responsibility; rights and obligations of employees etc.)
· Legal Ethics (responsibilities of individuals working in the criminal justice system)
Common Good Approach: The ethical action is the one that contributes most to the achievement of a quality common life together. In this approach, we focus on ensuring that the social policies, social systems, institutions and environments on which we depend are beneficial to all. Examples of goods common to all include affordable health care, effective public safety, and peace among nations, a just legal system and an unpolluted environment.
The common good is a notion that originated more than 2,000 years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. Contemporary ethicist John Rawls defined the common good as “certain general conditions that are … equally to everyone’s advantage.
Ethics requires that there be consistency among our moral standards and in how we apply these standards. Ethics also requires a consistency between our ethical standards and our actions, as well as among our inner desires. Finally, ethics requires that there be consistency between how we treat ourselves and how we treat others.
Consequentialism: Any position in ethics which claims that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on their consequences.
Descriptive Ethics: An empirical study of moral customs, convictions and motivations; it’s a domain of anthropology, sociology, psychology etc; it is not part of (moral) philosophy. Notice, the claims above describes the beliefs of various people or groups. They do not tell us what is right or wrong but merely what those people think about right and wrong.
Deontology: Any position in ethics which claims that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on whether they correspond to our duty or not. The word drives from the Greek word for duty, deon.
Duty is an obligation to act in a certain manner for moral reasons.
Ethical sentence and non-ethical sentence: An ethical sentence is one that is used to make either a positive or a negative (moral) evaluation of something. Ethical sentences use words such as ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘moral’, ‘immoral’, and so on. Here are some examples:
- ‘Rashad is a good person.’
- ‘People should not steal.’
In contrast, a non-ethical sentence would be a sentence that does not serve to (morally) evaluate something. Examples would include:
· ‘Rashad is a tell person.’
· ‘Someone took the stereo out of my car.’
Ethics is the philosophical reflection on moral beliefs and practices. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies and recommends the fundamental principles and basic concepts of what is considered morally good or bad, right and wrong in human conduct. Some would also include in ethics how we ought to interact with nature and animals.
Facts by themselves only tell us what is; they do not tell us what ought to be. In addition to getting the facts, resolving an ethical issue also requires an appeal to values.
Fairness or Justice Approach: The ethical action is the one that treats people equally, or if unequally, that treats people proportionately and fairly. The basic moral question in this approach is: How fair is an action? Does it treat everyone in the same way, or does it show favoritism and discrimination?
Favoritism gives benefits to some people without a justifiable reason for singling them out; discrimination imposes burdens on people who are not different from those on whom burdens are not imposed. Both favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong.
General Moral Principles and Particular Moral Judgments: General Moral Principles make some general statement about what is morally right or wrong, or good or bad, or what we should or ought, or should not or ought not to. Examples:
1. You should not take what does not belong to you without permission of the owner.
2. If you make a promise, you ought to keep it.
Not all moral judgments are general principles. Some are about specifics. Examples:
3. John was wrong to tell you that.
4. Hitler was an evil person.
Meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that tried to answer questions about the nature of morality itself. It doesn’t ask or make judgments about what types of action are moral and immoral; rather, it asks questions like:
· Does morality depend on what we believe about it, or is it independent of our beliefs?
· Does morality depend on what God commands?
Non-moral Normative Judgments and Principles: Some Judgments are normative, and say what ought or ought not to be done, but are not moral. Examples of these include prudential, legal and aesthetic judgments. They may be general or specific. Examples:
1. You should quit smoking.
2. That’s the wrong hat for that outfit.
Normative and Descriptive: A normative statement, or question, or theory, concerns how things should be, how they ought to be, rather than how they actually are. The opposite of “normative” is “descriptive”. A descriptive statement, or question, or theory, concerns how things actually are, not how they ought to be.
Normative ethics is the branch of ethics that tries to answer general questions about how we should behave, how we ought to act. In other words, it attempts to discover general rules or principles of moral behavior. In this area of ethics, you’ll find claims like the following:
If doing x will benefit someone without harming anyone else, then it is morally right for you to do x.
Obligation is something that one ought to do or not do for moral reasons such as keeping just laws, promises, or respecting the rights of others.
Philosophy is the area of inquiry that attempts to discover truths involving fundamental concepts, such as the concepts of God, knowledge, truths, reality, the mind and consciousness, free will, right and wrong.
Profession is an occupation, the practice of which directly influences human well-being and requires mastery of a complex body of knowledge and specialized skills, requiring both formal education and practical experience.
Professional ethics concerns the moral issues that arise because of the specialist knowledge that professionals attain, and how the use of this knowledge should be governed when providing a service to the public.
Rights are claims that have some justification behind them. A moral right is a morally justified claim. A legal right is a legally justified claim. When we use the term right we usually mean a moral right. Rights specify the acts that are permitted, forbidden, or required. If they specify the acts that the rights-holder may perform (such as vote, or drive a car), they are often called licenses. If they specify acts that others may not perform (as the right to life obliges others to refrain from killing the rights holder), they are called liberties or (in law) negative rights. If they specify what the rights-holder should receive, some philosophers call them claim rights. The law calls them positive rights.
Rights Approach: The ethical action is the one that most dutifully respects the rights of all affected. In deciding whether an action is moral or immoral using this approach, we must ask, does the action respect the moral rights of everyone? Actions are wrong to the extent that they violate the rights of individuals; the more serious the violation, the more wrongful the action.
Standard is something established as a basis of comparison in measuring or judging capacity, quantity, content, value, quality etc. a specified set of safety or performance qualities which a device or process must possess. These must generally be demonstrated by a series of tests conducted under pre-determined conditions.
Utilitarian Approach: The ethical action is the one that produce the greatest balance of benefits over harms. To analyze an issue using the utilitarian approach, we first identify the various courses of action available to us. Second, we ask who will be affected by each action and what benefits or harms will be derived from each. And third, we choose the action that will produce the greatest benefits and the least harm.
Virtue Approach: The ethical action is the one that embodies the habits and values of humans at their best. In dealing with an ethical problem using the virtue approach, we might ask, what kind of person should I be? What will promote the development of character within myself and my community?
Virtues are attitudes or character traits that enable us to be and to act in ways that develop our highest potential. They enable us to pursue the ideals we have adopted. Honesty. Courage, compassion, generosity, fidelity, integrity, fairness, self-control and prudence are all examples of virtues.
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