THE DISCIPLINE OF
ETHICS
What is ethics?
 Analysis
of concepts such as "ought"
"right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad",
duty, responsibility, etc.
 Inquiry into nature of morality or
moral acts.
 The search for the morally good life.
Two Main Branches
Normative
Ethics
Non-Normative
Ethics
Normative Theories of
Obligation
 These
depend on many assumptions:
 Nature
of Reality
– Metaphysics and/or Religion
 Nature
of Humans
– whether there is or is not any "essential" immutable
human nature
 Nature
of other life forms
– pertains to moral considerability
Normative Theories of
Obligation: Consequentialist
 Consequentialist
theories (aka
"Teleological theories") focus on "ends"
(goals, conditions).
• Examples:Natural Law theories (e.g.,
Aristotle/Aquinas)
• Environmental ethics stressing the protection of
environmental processes (such as evolution) as
the central goal (can be bio- or eco- centric)
Normative Theories of
Obligation: Deontological
Deontological
theories focus on
"means" (rules of action, duties)
• Deontological ethics claim some actions
are right or wrong in and of themselves.
(E.g., Kant)
Normative Theories of
Obligation: Virtue Ethics
 Virtue
Ethics-- Focus on traits or
character: the good person can know
and do the right thing.
• Sometimes virtue ethics are seen as a distinct
third theory
• sometimes they are woven into deontological
or consequentialist/teleological theories
Normative Applied Ethics
 Applied
Ethics: making moral
judgments about actions and
conditions
 Three Principles that come into play
 1) Rights
 2) Justice
 3) Beneficence
Applied Ethics: Rights
 Rights
(promoting
autonomy/freedom)
• Usually perceived to "trump" (take priority
over) justice & beneficence principles
– negative: freedoms from...repression; to life,
liberty, pursuit of happiness.
– positive: freedoms to...(food, clothing, shelter).
Applied Ethics: Justice
 2)
Justice -- (Rendering to each their
due)
• Penal Justice: the guilty get punished.
• Distributive justice: re. how burdens and
benefits, goods, services, preferred jobs
and salaries are distributed.
Applied Ethics: Beneficence
 3)
Beneficence (concern for the
commonweal)
• Concerned with the common good, and
re. the obligation to promote good over
evil.
• Here the concern is for norms of value:
what is good? What is bad? What is the
highest good?
Applied Ethics: Rules

From Rights, Justice and Beneficence Principles,
people deduce more general rules
 Environmental
e.g.s:
• Right to clean water/air. Don't violate related
laws.
• Environmental justice. Don't make the poor bear
an undue burden of our society's pollution:
distribute pollution sites in affluent as well as
poor neighborhoods.
• Beneficence. Pursue an environment in which all
species, including humans, can flourish.
Applied Ethics: Judgments
From
Principles & Rules
people make more specific
judgments: both evaluations of
conditions, and action
prohibitions and prescriptions
Applied Ethics: Judgments
 Examples:
– Rights e.g.: Coerced contraception violates human
liberties.
– Justice e.g.: Environmental Justice requires
affluent nations to limit their consumption and
help pay for contraceptive services for the poor
– Beneficence e.g.: Garrett Hardin's argument that
"lifeboat ethics" justify coercive measures to
prevent immigration in the North and to promote
contraception in the South.
Non-Normative Ethics (2 types)
“Metaethics”
“Descriptive
ethics”
“Metathics” (nonnormative)
 analysis
of concepts such as "ought"
"right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad",
duty, responsibility, etc.
 analysis about how people come to,
reason about, and justify their
normative ethics.
» heavily dependent on Analytic Philosophy
Descriptive ethics (non-normative)
analysis
of role of ethics in the social
world
analysis of human "worldviews,"
narratives, customs, rites, and so on;
the cultural carriers of moral notions
and claims
» heavily dependent on the social science
End intro to EE Ethics pt 1
Excursus on Rights, Justice &
Beneficence
 Understanding these critical ethical
principles
Rights-Based Theories
 Rights
are about the protection of an
individual's interests, freedoms, etc.
 Rights are entitlements to act, or to be acted
toward, in some specific way. There are
• - negative rights (freedom from some action by
others) and
• - positive rights (others have a duty to provide
some form of aid).
United Nations endorses positive
rights
 Increasingly
modern culture has recognized
positive rights: to life (food, clothing,
shelter, etc.).
- United Nations Declaration on Universal Human Rights.
 Problems:
• Rights lose their force when people feel
exceptions are morally justified, and most
proposed rights seem to have exceptions.
Justice-Based Theories


Justice is about the distribution of
society's burdens and benefits.
There are different principles underlying
different conceptions of justice:
Usually inequalities are allowed when they are
the result of relevant differences between
persons.
Problem: what are relevant differences?
Justice-Different understandings
Justice as Equality. There are no
relevant differences between
people, therefore all should
share benefits / burdens
equally.
• (Or limited equalitarian thought: all
should be equal as far as subsistence
needs being met before surplus goods
are distributed on any other basis.)
Problem: people differ in all
characteristics; and most
believe that need, ability and
effort are relevant
characteristics.
Justice as
Contribution
(e.g., to the
group, society,
humanity).
Problem: But
this can ignore
human needs.
Justice as meeting needs:
Socialism.
Premise: human potential is realized in creative
work in co-operation with other people; it is not
realized in consumption.
Therefore, work should be done according to one's
creative abilities, and benefits distributed
according to needs.

Problem: Such distribution erodes productive efficiency
and can’t work given competitive human nature.

Moreover, with socialism the freedom to choose a vocation may be eroded,
because you should do that which contributes most to others, rather than
pursue one’s your own passions. (Of course, all societies have limited amounts
of preferred jobs, so vocational choice is always limited.)
Justice as Freedom Libertarianism & Anarchism:
A just society is one free of any coercion,
where the freely entered contract is the only
norm. (Rights = freedom from the coercion
of others.)
Critique: Those without wealth or power
enter any bargaining at a disadvantage so
they cannot make choices with the same
freedom as those already privileged.
Justice as Fairness -Philosophical Liberalism:
Conflicts are to be resolved by procedures
upon which rational people will agree
Basic principle: equal treatment.
Each person has a right to the most liberty
compatible with the most liberty for all.
Justice as Fairness (cont.)
Socio-economic burdens/benefits ought to be
distributed based on merit, as long as the
competition is fair (i.e., as long as there is equal
opportunity).
Critiques: It is not proven that disadvantaged
persons will or should accept an procedural
equality, which empirical evidence does not
demonstrate as reality. I.e., why accept a
hypothetical (and mythical) equality of
opportunity, over a potential equality of condition.
Utilitarianism: Influential
Beneficence-Based ethics
Maxim:
Act to promote the
greatest aggregate ratio of good
over evil (pleasure over pain) for
everyone concerned
Utilitarianism is about
aggregate social benefits.
 Morally
right
action, or a morally
good society,
promotes the
greatest possible
average
satisfactions of
human beings.

This includes
economic factors as
well as less tangible
ones such as well
being (however
defined) and
happiness.
Utilitarianism’s Strengths:
Egalitarian: all are to be considered in end of
happiness. Happiness ought not be at expense of
other's misery.
 Its combination of egoism & altruism: reflects
common sense.
 Allows people to pursue their own interests as
well as the common good.

• "Seeks greatest amount of individual liberty compatible
with the greatest among of public liberty."
Utilitarianism assumes:
 costs/benefits
are measurable.
 all those affected are included in the
analysis.
 we can assign numerical values to
intangibles such as beauty, health, & life
 we can predict consequences
And Utilitarianism cannot decide whose
pleasure and pain counts. Whose does?
Only humans?
What are the priorities between
Principles of Rights, Justice, and
Beneficence?
Rights take precedence (if they are
implicated)
Beneficence/utilitarian principles are usually seen
as the least important ones
However, many believe utilitarian considerations
can override other principles if the gains or the
prevention of harm is important enough.
REMEDIES to violations of
rights or social justice
(Re)distributive Justice: redistribute burdens /
benefits according to a given moral standard (e.g.
economic equality, equal liberty, equal treatment
[fair procedures]).
Retributive Justice: When perpetrator knowingly
violates moral statute, if punishment is no greater
than needed for deterrence.
Compensatory Justice: Theorists have different
views about which conditions must be met
Compensatory Justice: 2 views
about necessary conditions
1) Injurious action must be wrong or negligent; the person's
injury must be the real cause of the injury; and the person
must have voluntarily inflicted the injury.
• Such conditions generally must be met in today's law.
2) Compensation is due if real injury or real privilege is based
on the past actions of one's group, otherwise injustice wins.
For this class:
Is nature due compensatory, “restorative”
action because humans have harmed her?