Introduction to Ethics

1. Introduction to Ethics January 23, 2008 Robert Streiffer, Ph. D. University of Wisconsin Madison Medical History and Bioethics, School of Medicine and Public Health Philosophy, College of Letters and Sciences Affiliate Appointments Agricultural and Applied Economics, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies rstreiffer@wisc.edu / http://philosophy.wisc.edu/streiffer/

2. Overview • The Parts of Ethics • Metaethics • Ethical Theory • Applied Ethics • Ethical Theory • Value Theory • Virtue Theory • Theories of Rights Action • Theories of Right Action • Consequentialism • Deontology • Virtue Ethics • Lessons

3. The Parts of Ethics • Metaethics • Ethical Theory • Applied Ethics • Examples of moral properties: moral and immoral; right and wrong; just and unjust; merciful and cruel; fair and unfair; morally required and morally prohibited • A moral judgment: a judgment to the effect that some person, institution, action, practice, or state of affairs has or does not have a moral property • Moral assessment: trying to find out for ourselves whether or not some moral proposition is true

4. Metaethics • Metaethics seeks to step back and reflect on the general nature of moral assessment itself. • Is it ever possible to succeed in moral assessment? • In what ways is moral assessment similar to scientific assessment? • Are there always reasons to care about the results of moral assessment? • Do the results of moral assessment necessarily depend on contingent details of the culture in which the assessment is made or on the contingent details of the culture in which the activity being assessed takes place?

5. Ethical Theory • Ethical theory seeks to engage in moral assessment, but at a very high level of generality. • What is the basis of all value? • Is there a fundamental principle of right action, from which all of our duties can be derived? • What marks a character trait as a virtue?

6. Applied Ethics • Applied ethics also seeks to engage in moral assessment, but at a detailed enough level to have explicit implications for our day to day activities. • When is it permissible to alter a research photo? • Is it permissible to use animals in harmful research? • Are researches morally required to share data created with public funds?

7. Applied Ethics: Research Ethics • Research ethics: “critically reflecting on ethical questions that researchers face, in their capacity as researchers” (Regan) • Research ethics is a part of applied ethics, and so most of what we are doing will be applied ethics. • However, applied ethics often draws on the other parts of ethics as well.

8. Ethical Theory • Value Theory: What has intrinsic value? • A Theory of Right Action: Which actions are morally permissible, which are morally required, and which are morally prohibited? • Virtue Theory: What character traits make a person a virtuous person (doctor, researcher, etc.)?

9. Traditional Theories of Value • Pleasure • Happiness • Preference Satisfaction • Objective List Views

10. Theories of Right Action • Some cases will help illustrate some differences between the two main ethical traditions about right action and how to reason using them and about them.

11. Right Action: Case 1 The Scarce Drug Case

12. Consequentialism • Consequentialism: The right action is the one that has the best overall consequences; viz., the one that produces the highest overall amount of intrinsic value. • Utilitarianism: The right action is the one that maximizes the overall amount of individual welfare. • Utilitarianism = Consequentialism + Individual welfare is the only thing intrinsically valuable.

13. Utilitarianism • Utilitarianism: The right action is the one that maximizes the overall amount of individual welfare. • Proposed by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).

14. Counterexample to Utilitarianism • Utilitarianism: The right action is the one that maximizes the overall amount of individual welfare. • Mill says “In all ages of speculation one of the strongest obstacles to the reception of the doctrine of utility or happiness as the criterion of right and wrong has been drawn from the idea of justice.”

15. Right Action: Case 2 The Transplant Case

16. Options • Remember that Utilitarianism = Consequentialism + Individual welfare is the only thing intrinsically valuable. • So we have only three options: • Reject the claim that it is wrong to cut up Bloggs in the Transplant Case • Reject Consequentialism • Reject the claim that individual welfare is the only thing intrinsically valuable

17. Option 3: • Reject the claim that individual welfare is the only thing intrinsically valuable • Other things being equal, killing one person is intrinsically worse than allowing even five people to die. • Compare failing to give aid vs. sending poison to a famine aid victim

18. Right Action: Case 3 The Trolley Case

19. Deontology • Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804): there are rules that places constraints on how we may treat ourselves and other people in the pursuit of our own interest or in the pursuit of the common good.

20. The Formula of the End in Itself • “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”

21. Right Action: Case 1 The Scarce Drug Case

22. Right Action: Case 2 The Transplant Case

23. Right Action: Case 3 The Trolley Case

24. Right Action: Case 4 • Combined Scarce Drug/Transplant Case: Bloggs has a mild case of pneumonia. If you refuse to give him antibiotics, he will die, and he could then be used as an organ donor to save five people.

25. Right Action: Case 5 The Loop Case

26. Theories of Right Action • Consequentialism: The right action is the one that has the best overall consequences; viz., the one that produces the highest overall amount of intrinsic value. Utilitarianism is a kind of Consequentialism. • Deontology: An action is right only if it complies with the moral rules that place constraints on how we may treat people in the pursuit of the overall good. Individual rights are a paradigm example of a deontological constraint.

27. Lessons: Ethical Reasoning • A lot of ethical reasoning consists in trying to find general moral principles that are consistent with a wide range of clear cases, and then bringing those principles to bear on more controversial cases. • You can use clear cases to suggest plausible general moral principle, which can then be tested against other clear cases. • You can use analogies to clear cases to try to establish your own view about a particular case.

28. Lessons: Theory Helps • Even though none of the theories are without difficulties, the concepts employed by the theories are obviously crucial to ethical reasoning: individual welfare, the greatest good, respect for persons, etc. • Identifying when an author is appealing to a kind of theory can tip you off as to the likely weaknesses of the reasoning.

29. Lessons: Typical Weaknesses • Typical weaknesses in consequentialist reasoning • Ignores rights • Ignores how benefits and burdens are distributed • Overly narrow conception of what is valuable • Imposes excessively strong duties on others • Fails to impose important constraints on people’s actions

30. Lessons: Typical Weaknesses • Typical weaknesses in deontological reasoning • Treats rights as if they were absolute • Fails to explain the exact nature and scope of the right being appealed to • Fails to justify the claim that people actually have that right

31. Other Theories of Right Action • Egoism: The right action is the one that maximizes the long-term satisfaction of my own interests; viz., the one that has the best overall consequences for me; • Virtue Ethics: The right action is the one that would be performed by a virtuous person (doctor, researcher, graduate student, etc.).