Lesson 5: Ethics

What is ethics?
 Ethics is the philosophical study of morality, a rational examination into people’s moral beliefs and behavior.
 the study of what it means to “do the right thing.”
 assumes that people are rational and make free choices.
 rules to follow in our interactions with other people and in our actions that affect other people.
 Ethics as a set of theories “that provide general rules or principles to be used in making moral decisions and, unlike
ordinary intuitions, provide a justification for those rules”
 The word ethics comes from an ancient Greek word eché, which means character
 Robert C. Solomon in Morality and the Good Life gives a traditional philosophical definition of ethics as a set of “theories
of value, virtue, or of right (valuable) action.”
 Every human society, whether civilized or primitive, practices ethics because every society attaches a value on an
individual’s actions, on a continuum of good to bad, right to wrong, according to where that individual’s actions fall within
the domain of that society’s rules and canons
 Carefully read the following scenarios. After reflection, come up with your own answer to each of the questions.

Alexis, a gifted high school student, wants to become a doctor. Because she comes from a poor family, she will need a
scholarship in order to attend college. Some of her classes require students to do extra research projects in order to get an A. Her
high school has a few older PCs, but there are always long lines of students waiting to use them during the school day. After
school, she usually works at a part-time job to help support her family. One evening Alexis visits the library of a private college a
few miles from her family’s apartment, and she finds plenty of unused PCs connected to the Internet. She surreptitiously looks
over the shoulder of another student to learn a valid login/password combination. Alexis returns to the library several times a
week, and by using its PCs and printers she efficiently completes the extra research projects, graduates from high school with
straight A’s, and gets a full ride scholarship to attend a prestigious university.

Questions
1. Did Alexis do anything wrong?
2. Who benefited from Alexis’s course of action?
3. Who was hurt by Alexis’s course of action?
4. Did Alexis have an unfair advantage over her high school classmates?
5. Would any of your answers change if it turns out Alexis did not win a college scholarship after all and is now working at
the Burger Barn?
6. Are there better ways Alexis could have accomplished her objective?
7. What additional information, if any, would help you answer the previous questions?

Reflect on the process you used in each scenario to come up with your answers. How did you decide if particular actions
or decisions were right or wrong? Were your reasons consistent from one case to the next? Did you use the same methodology in
more than one scenario? If someone disagreed with you on the answer to one of these questions, how would you try to convince
that person that your position makes more sense?

Ethics
 Ethics is the rational, systematic analysis of conduct that can cause benefit or harm to other people. Because ethics is
based in reason, people are required to explain why they hold the opinions they do. This gives us the opportunity to
compare ethical evaluations. When two people reach different conclusions, we can weigh the facts and the reasoning
process behind their conclusions to determine the stronger line of thinking.
 It’s important to note that ethics is focused on the voluntary, moral choices people make because they have decided they
ought to take one course of action rather than an alternative. Ethics is not concerned about involuntary choices or choices
outside the moral realm.
 For example, if I am ordering a new car, I may get to choose whether it is red, white, green, or blue. This choice is not in
the moral realm, because it does not involve benefit or harm to other people.
 Now, suppose I’m driving my new red car down a city street. A pedestrian, obscured from my view by a parked car, runs
out into traffic. In an attempt to miss the pedestrian, I swerve, lose control of my car, and kill another pedestrian walking
along the sidewalk. While my action caused harm to another person, this is not an example of ethical decision making,
because my decision was a reflex action rather than a reasoned choice.
 However, suppose I did not have full control of the car because I had been driving while intoxicated. In that case the
consequences of my voluntary choice to drink alcohol before driving affected another moral being (the innocent
pedestrian). Now the problem has entered the realm of ethics.
 The formal study of ethics goes back at least 2,400 years, to the Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates did not put any of
his philosophy in writing, but his student Plato did. In Plato’s dialogue called the Crito, imprisoned Socrates uses ethical
reasoning to explain why he ought to face an unjust death penalty rather than take advantage of an opportunity to flee into
exile with his family.
 In the past two millennia, philosophers have proposed many ethical theories.

Overview of Ethical Theories – Consequentialism

1. Consequentialism
o In consequentialism ethical theory, human actions are judged good or bad, right or wrong, depending on the
results of such actions a desirable result denotes a good action and vice versa. There are three commonly
discussed types of consequentialism theory:
1.) Egoism
 This theory puts an individual’s interests and happiness above everything else. With egoism, any action is
good as long as it maximizes an individual’s overall happiness. There are two kinds of egoism: ethical
egoism, which states how people ought to behave as they pursue their own interests, and psychological
egoism, which describes how people actually behave.
 For example, if a family wanted to be happier, an ethical egoism theorist would prescribe to each family
member how he or she ought to behave to achieve individual happiness first before considering the
happiness of the family. A psychological egoism theorist, however, would describe how each individual
family member should actually behave to achieve his or her happiness and hence the happiness of the
family as a whole.
 Ethical egoism
- is the philosophy that each person should focus exclusively on his or her self-interest. In other
words, according to ethical egoism, the morally right action for a person to take in a particular
situation is the action that will provide that person with the maximum long-term benefit.
- Ethical egoism does not prohibit acting to help someone else, but assisting another is the right
thing to do if and only if it is in the helper’s own long-term best interest.
- Example: Suppose I depend upon a friend to give me a ride to work every day. If my friend’s car
breaks down and she doesn’t have $100 to fix it, I ought to loan her the money. Although I’m out
$100 until she pays me back, I’m better off giving her the loan because I’m still able to travel to
work and make money. If I don’t lend her the money, I’ll lose my income. Lending $100 to my
friend is the right thing to do because it provides me the maximum overall benefit.

 The case of ethical egoism

1) Ethical egoism is a practical moral philosophy.
o We are naturally inclined to do what’s best for ourselves because each of us has only
one life to live, and we want to make the best of it. Unlike other moral codes that ask us
to sacrifice our own well-being for the good of other people, ethical egoism recognizes
that we should focus on our own well-being.
2) It’s better to let other people take care of themselves.
o We can’t know for sure what is good for someone else. All too often, a “good deed”
backfires and actually does more harm than good. Even when people appreciate
something done of their behalf, it’s not healthy. Dependence upon the charity of others
leads to a loss of self-esteem. In contrast, people who accomplish things through their
own efforts have higher self-esteem and are able to interact with other successful people
as equals.
3) The community can benefit when individuals put their well-being first.
o When individuals act in their own self-interest, they often benefit not only themselves but
others as well. For example, successful entrepreneurs may make a lot of money for
themselves, but they also create jobs that strengthen the economy.
4) Other moral principles are rooted in the principle of self-interest.
o Ethical egoism is a rational philosophy. Any rational person will figure out that it doesn’t
make sense to go around breaking promises, because eventually people will realize that
the promise-breaker cannot be trusted, and they will refuse to cooperate with that person.
Therefore, it’s not in a person’s long-term self-interest to break promises. Likewise, it’s a
bad idea to lie to other people or cheat other people because the long-term
consequences of lying and cheating are detrimental to the person doing these things. For
this reason, it can be seen that other well-known moral principles are actually rooted in
the principle of self-interest.

 The case against ethical egoism:

1) An easy moral philosophy may not be the best moral philosophy
o The fact that it may be easier to live by a particular moral philosophy is no proof that it is
the best moral philosophy to live by. Besides, the statement that ethical egoism aligns
with our natural inclination to do what’s best for ourselves ignores the fact that people
often find it difficult to pass up short-term pleasures (such as partying) in order achieve
goals that will most likely result in long-term benefits (such as passing the classes
needed to earn a college degree).
2) We do, in fact, know a lot about what is good for someone else.
o practically everyone shares the “core values” of life, happiness, and the ability to
accomplish goals. It’s not that hard to figure out what would help another. The question
is, how are we going to respond to that person’s need? Charity usually doesn’t lead to
dependence; rather, it gives someone the opportunity to become more independent.
Consider, for example, how a scholarship can provide a bright high school student from a
poor family with a path to a university degree, a well-paying job, and self-sufficiency.
3) A self-interested focus can lead to blatantly immoral behavior.
o Here is a true story related by James Rachels. An affluent doctor in a small Southern
town in the 1970s was visited by a poor, uneducated African American woman, who had
a variety of minor complaints. The doctor quickly determined that the woman was
suffering from malnutrition. He knew that she worked a variety of menial jobs, but earned
very little money to support herself or her children. After spending no more than five
minutes with her, and doing nothing for her, the doctor told her the charge would be $25.
The woman had only $12 to her name, so the doctor took the $12 as payment, leaving
the woman with no money to buy food. There were no negative consequences to the
doctor as a result of his action. According to the theory of ethical egoism, the doctor did
the right thing: he was only supposed to take his own interest into account, and receiving
$12 from the woman was to his advantage. This answer, however, is incorrect; what the
doctor did was morally reprehensible
4) Other moral principles are superior to the principle of self-interest.
o Suppose you have the opportunity to save a drowning person at the cost of getting one of
your shirtsleeves wet. According to the theory of ethical egoism, saving a life is the right
thing to do if and only if that action will provide you with the maximum benefit. Possible
benefits from saving a drowning person include earning that person’s undying gratitude
and gaining favorable publicity. But isn’t this a backward and degrading way of evaluating
the action? Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to consider the action in light of the value of
a human life? If you have the opportunity to save a human life with no signficant negative
consequences to yourself, you should do it, even if your action is not rewarded. This
example demonstrates that the principle of preserving life is superior to the principle of
self-interest

2. Utilitarianism
 English philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806– 1873) proposed utilitarianism.
 an action is good if its benefits exceed its harms, and an action is bad if its harms exceed its benefits.
 Utilitarianism: Unlike egoism, this theory puts a group’s interest and happiness above those of an individual, for the
good of many. Thus, an action is good if it benefits the maximum number of people.
 Utility is the tendency of an object to produce happiness or prevent unhappiness for an individual or a community.
Depending on the circumstances, you may think of “happiness” as advantage, benefit, good, or pleasure, and
“unhappiness” as disadvantage, cost, evil, or pain.
 Focus on the consequences
 Increase social “utility”, happiness
 The utilitarian principle applies to individual actions.
 Among the forms of utilitarianism are the following:
o act utilitarianism - For each action, we consider the impact on utility and judge the action by its net impact.
Tells one to consider seriously the consequences of all actions before choosing the one with the best overall
advantage, happiness in this case, for the maximum number of people.
 Is the ethical theory that an action is good if its net effect (over all affected beings) is to produce more
happiness than unhappiness. Suppose we measure pleasure as a positive number and pain as a
negative number. To make a moral evaluation of an action, we simply add up, over all affected
beings, the change in their happiness. If the sum is positive, the action is good. If the sum is negative,
the action is bad.
o rule utilitarianism - Tells one to obey those rules that bring the maximum happiness to the greatest number
of people. Rule utilitarianism maintains that a behavioral code or rule is good if the consequences of adopting
that rule are favorable to the greatest number of people. The utility principle not to individual actions but to
general ethical rules. Thus, a rule utilitarian might argue that the rule “Do not lie” will increase total utility, and
for that reason it is a good rule.
 Rule utilitarianism is the ethical theory that holds that we ought to adopt those moral rules that, if
followed by everyone, lead to the greatest increase in total happiness over all affected parties. Hence
a rule utilitarian applies the principle of utility to moral rules, while an act utilitarian applies the
principle of utility to individual moral actions.

Overview of Ethical Theories - Deontological theories

 Deontologists tend to emphasize duty and absolute rules, to be followed whether they lead to good or ill consequences in
particular cases.
 Immanuel Kant, the philosopher often presented as the prime example of a deontologist, contributed many important
ideas to ethical theory.
 For example, we know that killing is bad, but if an armed intruder enters your house and you kill him or her, your action is
good, according to deontologists. You did it because you had a duty to protect your family and property.
 Three Ethical Ideas
1. Universality:
o We should follow rules of behavior that we can universally apply to everyone. This principle is so fundamental to
ethical theory that we already accepted it in our explanation of ethics.
2. Rationality:
o Logic determines ethical behavior.
3. Peoples
o are not means to ends but ends themselves

Overview of Ethical Theories - Human Nature/Natural rights

 Come from nature of humanity
o Life
o Liberty
o Property
 Negative Rights (Liberty)
o The right to act without interference
o Example:
 Right to Life
 Right to be from assault
 Right to use your property
 Positive Rights (claim-rights)
o An obligation of some people to provide certain things for others
o Example:
 Positive right to job: someone must hire you
 Positive rights to Life: someone must pay for your food

Overview of Ethical Theories – Relativism

 Relativism is the theory that there are no universal moral norms of right and wrong. According to this theory, different
individuals or groups of people can have completely opposite views of a moral problem, and both can be right. Two
particular kinds of relativism we’ll discuss are subjective relativism and cultural relativism.
 Relativism also states that moral norms are not fixed in time.
 Subjective relativism holds that each person decides right and wrong for himself or herself. This notion is captured in the
popular expression, “What’s right for you may not be right for me.
 Cultural relativism is the ethical theory that the meaning of “right” and “wrong” rests with a society’s actual moral
guidelines. These guidelines vary from place to place and from time to time.

Overview of Ethical Theories – The Divine Command Theory

 The divine command theory is based on the idea that good actions are those aligned with the will of God and bad actions
are those contrary to the will of God. Since the holy books contain God’s directions, we can use the holy books as moral
decision-making guides. God says we should revere our mothers and fathers, so revering our parents is good. God says
do not lie or steal, so lying and stealing are bad. It is important to note that the divine command theory is subscribed to by
some, but not all, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Fundamentalists are more likely to consider holy books authentic and
authoritative. Most sects within these religious traditions augment holy books with other sources when developing their
moral codes.

Overview of Ethical Theories – Hedonism

 Hedonism is one of the oldest ethical theories. It claims that pleasure is the only good thing in human life, the end of life
as the highest good. A hedonist acts only for maximum pleasure, and whatever he or she does, it is done to maximize
pleasure or minimize pain.
 There are two types of hedonism:
1. psychological hedonism - which claims that in fact what people seek in their everyday actions is pleasure, and
2. ethical hedonism - which claims that people ought to seek pleasure and that pleasure is the moral good. Modern
hedonists use the word pleasure to mean happiness.

Overview of Ethical Theories – Emotivism

 This theory maintains that ethical statements are neither true nor false and cannot be proven; they are really only
statements about how someone feels. Philosophers use these theories as engines to help them to understand and justify
human actions. Although over the years and in different places changing values have been attached to human actions,
these ethical theories have remained relatively unchanged. This means that although ethics as a discipline is evolving,
ethical reasoning has relatively remained the same. In other words, Aristotle and Plato’s reasoning to explain and justify
human actions is still valid, although the premises surrounding human actions are changing with time and with every new
technology

Do Organizations have ethics?

 Ultimately, it is individuals who are making decisions and taking actions. We can hold both the individuals and the
organizations responsible for their acts

Ethical Decision-Making Process

 Recognize inherent ethical conflict through
o Comprehension
o Appreciation
o Evaluation of all ethical dimensions of problem
 Know the parties involved
 Being aware of alternatives
 Demonstrating knowledge of ethical practices
 Understanding how the decision will be implemented
 Understanding who will be affected
 Understand and comprehend the impact

Important Distinctions
 Right, wrong, wrong and okay
 Distinguish wrong and harm
 Separating goals from constraints
 Personal preference and ethics
 Law and ethics

What is a Profession
 Webster: “a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation”

Requirements of a Professional
1. A set of highly developed skills and deep knowledge of the domain
2. Autonomy. Room to vary the say the service is provided
3. Observance of a code of conduct:
o Professional code: set of guidelines provided to the professional by the profession
o Personal code: a set of individual moral guidelines on which professionals operate
o Institutional code: imposed by the institution for which the professional works
o Community code: community standard developed over a period of time based on either the religion or culture of
the community

Codes Governing Human Actions

 Professional codes - outer
 Personal codes
 Individual code
 Community code - inner
Pillars of Professionalism
 Commitment
o Person making the commitment must do so willingly
o Person responsible must try to meet the commitment
o Must be agreement on what is be done, by whom, and when
o Commitment must be openly and publicly stated
o Commitment must not be made easily
o Prior to the commitment, if it is clear it cannot be met, advance notice must be given and a new commitment
negotiated
 Integrity
o State of undivided loyalty to self-belief
o Honesty, uncompromising self-value, and incorruptible
o 3 maxims
 Vision
 Capacity to anticipate and make a plan that will circumvent obstacles and maximize benefits
 Love
 Love of what you do
 Commitment
 Bond with work until it is finished

 Responsibility
o Deals with roles, tasks, actions and their ensuing consequences
o Depends on person’s value system
o Various types
 Provider
 Service
 Product
 Consequential
 Accountability
o Obligation to answer for the execution of one’s assigned responsibilities
o 3 key elements
 A set of outcome measures that reliably and objectively evaluate performance – minimum set of
measures
 A set of performance standards defined in terms of these outcome measures
 Set of incentives for meeting the standards and/or penalties for failing

Making of an Ethical Professional: Education and Licensing

 Formal Education
o Targeted and incremental

 Licensing
o Grants individuals formal or legal permission to practice
o Testing
o Set of Rules
o Can be used as control and educating instruments
o Enables professions to enforce their rules by law

Professional Dilemma in Decision Making

 Conflicting Codes of Conduct
 Advances in Technology
 Incomplete or Misleading Information
 Guilt