Rawls Development on Kant’s Duty Ethics
Rawls argues that all rational people would agree to abide by two basic moral principles: 1. Each person is entitled to the most extensive amount of liberty compatible with an equal amount for others and 2. Differences in social power and economic benefits are justified only when they are likely to benefit everyone, including members of most disadvantaged groups
DUTY ETHICS
Contends that certain acts (or duties) should be performed because they are inherently ethical such as: • be honest, • keep promises, • do not inflict sufferings on other people, • be fair, • make reparation when you have been unfair, • How gratitude for kindness extended by others • seek to improve own intelligence and character, • develop one’s talents, • don’t commit suicide. • Duties, rather than good consequences, is fundamental. • Individuals who recognize their ethical duties will choose ethically correct moral actions These duties should meet Kant’s 3 conditions i.e. 1. It should express respect for persons, • People deserve respect because they have capacity to be autonomous and for exercising goodwill.…
Three approaches
1. Cost/benefit – quantifiable approach. Maximize positive utilities (benefits) Against negative utilities (costs). 2. Act utilitarian – “Will the course of action produce more good than any alternative course of action that I could take”? 3. Rule utilitarian – “Would utility be maximized if everyone did the same thing in the same circumstances”? Adoption of commonly accepted rules. 1. COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS: • Assess the available options • Assess the costs and benefits of each option for the entire audience affected • Make the decision that is likely to result in the greatest benefit relative to cost. 2. ACT-UTILITARIANISM: • Focuses on individual actions, rather than general rules. • An act is right if it is likely to produce the most good for the most people involved in the particular situation. • Rules may be broken whenever doing so will produce the most good in a specific situation. • Happiness is the only ‘intrinsic’ good and all others are ‘instrumental’ goods that serve as the means of happiness. 3. RULE-UTILITARIANISM: • This regards moral values as primary. • We should follow the rules and avoid bribes, even when those acts do not have the best consequences in a particular situation, because the general practice of following rules and not bribing produce the most overall good • Rules should be considered in sets called ‘moral codes’. A moral code is justified when followed, would maximize the public good more than alternative codes would.
UTILITARIANISM
• That which produces the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people (e.g. Democracy) • Tries to achieve a balance between the good and bad consequences of an action • Tries to maximize the well-being of society and emphasizes what will provide the most benefits to the largest group of people • This method is fundamental to many types of engineering analysis, including risk- benefit analysis and cost-benefit analysis Drawbacks: • Sometimes what is best for the community as a whole is bad for certain individuals in the community • It is often impossible to know in advance which decision will lead to the most good Organizing Principles to Resolving Ethical Issues • Utilitarian thinking – A standard that promotes those individual actions or rules that produce the greatest total amount of utility to those affected. – A code that enjoins engineers to promote the safety, health, and welfare of the public. – What is utility, though? Happiness? • Preference utilitarianism – promote those conditions that allow each individual to pursue happiness as he or she conceives it. – Two conditions necessary for this: freedom and well-being. – Practically, for engineers, this advocates cost/benefit analyses. Problems with Utilitarianism • Difficult to quantify benefits for ALL those affected. • “Greatest good” difficult to apply to an all-inclusive population. • Someone gets “shafted” – approach justifies perpetrating injustice on individuals, i.e., someone gets left out.
CAUSAL AND LEGAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Causal Responsibility: consists simply in being a cause of some event. E.g. lightning as being responsible for a house catching fire. Legal Responsibility: consists simply in being a cause for harm that was so unlikely and also unforeseeable that no moral responsibility is involved
VARIOUS SENSES OF RESPONSIBILITY
Responsibility ascribed by i) virtue, ii) obligations, iii) general moral capacities of people, iv) liabilities and accountability for actions and v) blameworthiness or praiseworthiness. 1. By virtue: A person is said to be a responsible person when we ascribe a moral virtue to the person. We expect that the person is regularly concerned to do the right thing, is conscientious and diligent in meeting obligations. In this sense, professional responsibility is the central virtue of engineers. 2. By obligation: Moral responsibilities can be thought of as obligations or duties to perform morally right acts. 3. By general moral capacity: When we view a person as a whole rather than one with respect to a specific area, we are actually thinking about the active capacity of the person for knowing how to act in morally appropriate ways e.g. the capacity of children grow as they mature and learn. 4. By accountability: Responsibility also means being accountable, answerable or liable to meet particular obligations. The virtue of professional responsibility implies a willingness to be accountable for one’s conduct. 5. By being blameworthy: When accountability for a wrongdoing is at issue, responsible becomes a synonym for blameworthy. When right conduct is the issue, the context is praiseworthiness.
SELF-RESPECT
• Valuing oneself in morally appropriate ways. • Integral to finding meaning in one’s life and work • A pre-requisite for pursuing other moral ideals and virtues. • Self-respect is a moral concept of properly valuing oneself but self-esteem is a psychological concept of positive attitude towards oneself. Self-respect takes two forms. 1. Recognition self-respect is properly valuing oneself because of one’s inherent moral worth, the same worth that every other human being has. 2. Appraisal self-respect is properly valuing ourselves according to how well we meet moral standards and our personal ideals.
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
• Being morally responsible as a professional. • Most basic and comprehensive professional virtue. • Creation of useful and safe technological products while respecting the autonomy of clients and public, especially in matters of risk taking. This encompasses a wide variety of the more specific virtues grouped as follows: 1. SELF DIRECTION VIRTUES: Fundamental virtues in exercising our moral autonomy and responsibility. E.g. self-understanding, humility, good moral judgment, courage, self-discipline, perseverance, commitments, self-respect and dignity 2. PUBLIC SPIRITED VIRTUES: Focusing on the good of the clients and public affected by the engineers’ work by. Not directly and intentionally harming others i.e. ‘no maleficence’. Beneficence, sense of community, generosity are other virtues falling in this category. 3. TEAMWORK VIRTUES: Enables professionals to work successfully with others. E.g. collegiality, cooperativeness, the ability to communicate, respect for authority, loyalty to employers and leadership qualities. 4. PROFICIENCY VIRTUES: Mastery of one’s craft that characterize good engineering practice e.g. Competence, diligence, creativity, self-renewal through continuous education. MORAL INTEGRITY Moral integrity is the unity of character on the basis of moral concern, and especially on the basis of honesty. The unity is consistency among our attitudes, emotions and conduct in relation to justified moral values.
VIRTUE ETHICS
• “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Socrates, 470-399 B.C.) • “The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires exertion and does not consist in amusement.” (Aristotle, 384-322 B.C.) The Four Main Virtues • Prudence (mind): to think about a moral problem clearly and completely • Temperance (emotions): control attraction to positive emotions • Fortitude (emotions): control aversion for negative emotions • Justice (will): choose according to truth and fairness. Virtue Ethics • Focuses on the type of person we should strive to be • Actions which reflect good character traits (virtues) are inherently right • Actions which reflect bad character traits (vices) are inherently wrong • Virtue ethics are tied more to individual behavior than to that of an organization (e.g. business, government) ARISTOTLE says that moral virtues are tendencies, acquired through habit formation, to reach a proper balance between extremes in conduct, emotion, desire and attitude i.e. virtues are tendencies to find the Golden Mean between the extremes of too much and too little. Some of the virtues are defined using examples here: VirtueToo muchToo less(Golden mean between extremes)CourageFoolhardinessCowardiceTruthfulnessRevealing all in violation of tact and confidentialityBeing secretive or lacking in candorGenerosityWasting one’s resourcesBeing miserlyFriendlinessBeing annoyingly effusiveSulky or surly
TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORIES
S.NOTYPESBASED ON1Virtue ethicsVirtues and vices2UtilitarianismMost good for most people3Duty ethicsDuties to respect persons4Rights ethicsHuman Rights
