...Ethics and Morality Doreen B. Jackson Everest University 1. How would Robert Coles respond to this quote? Robert Coles might answer this quote by making us consider going from thinking to action, and using moral analysis to the fulfilling moral commitments. Moral conduct is not commensurate with moral reasoning although there is a correlation between a plan of action and moral reasoning. Students might learn of the moral code of ethics, but they are the ones required to make the commitment by studying and following them, therefore becoming a more ethical person. My answer to the quote is, we as people make our own choices concerning our own actions. We are confronted with moral dilemmas that allow us to make those choices. When studying our daily living we show our morality by our chosen actions and our spoken words. We decide whether our decisions are good or will have ramifications. If our actions are not continually studied a code of ethics may never be maintained causing adversity in our personal and social lives. 2. How do you explain the fact that morally evil people can be highly educated in terms of ethics and religion? In other words, how do you account for the gap that sometimes occurs between knowledge of ethics and being ethical person? To them morality is simply rules that are memorized. Morality can be stated or referenced but not adopted. Moral choices require deep thought and consideration. The so called evil persons do not have empathy...
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...Judith Thompson presents an interesting slant on the moral permissibility of abortion in that she assumes the fetus is a person from conception, therefore having the right to life. However, the fetus’ right to life does not suggest that it has the right to unlimited means to ensure its survival. An abortion is still permissible if the mother does not grant fetus the right to use her body. Thompson gives several analogies of scenarios in which abortions are morally permissible, in which the right for mother to have an abortion outweighs the fetus’ right to use the mother’s body. In the Jane scenario she would argue that it is ultimately morally impermissible for her to obtain an abortion because the fetus is given the right to use the mother’s body. Jane’s pregnancy can be thought of as an accident, because she and her husband almost always faithfully use condoms to prevent accidental conception. Therefore she did not intend to carry the fetus. Thompson states that if the mother did not intend to conceive, and attempted to follow the proper safeguards, then she does not grant the fetus the use of her body. Some may view Jane’s one instance of not using a condom as culpable because she should understand the risk of pregnancy during unprotected sex, and therefore, she is responsible for the fetus’ existence. Thompson states that it is preposterous to argue that the conception of a fetus due to a misjudgment such as forgetting a condom should be seen as an invitation for the fetus...
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...Theory of Knowledge: Ethics & Moral Reasoning When we argue about ethical questions, there are two things we often look at: whether people are being consistent in their judgments, and whether the alleged facts on which those judgments are based are true. Consistency: to what extent do you think the following individuals are morally inconsistent? • A vegetarian who buys leather shoes • A public school teacher who educates her children at private schools. • A politician who advocates family values and has an extra-marital affair. • An environmental activist who drives an SUV Facts: what facts, if any, are relevant in assessing the following value-judgments? • Child labor should be outlawed • Genetically modified food should be banned • Rich countries should give more financial aid to poor countries Moral relativism According to moral relativism our values are determined by the society we grow up in, and there are no universal values. Moral values are simply customs or conventions that vary from culture to culture. Does relativism imply tolerance? Argument against moral relativism: A committed Nazi says that in his value system genocide is acceptable. The “he’s got his values and I’ve goes mine and who am I to say he’s wrong” response seems completely inappropriate in this case. Surely we want to say that the Nazi really IS wrong! Discussion of tolerance and moral relativism: Imagine that you come across...
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...the aforementioned phrases. However, what are they classified as? Do these expressions deal with morality, ethics, or both? Although these terms are often confused, morality and ethics are very distinct. On the surface this terminology may seem analogous, but their definitions are quite dissimilar. Morality and ethics are major components when examining the decision making of corporations. Despite having different meanings, morality and ethics are interrelated words that play a major part in business organizations. Morality The term morality deals with an individual or groups interpretation of what is right and wrong. In fact, it can be defined as the standards that a group or individual has about what is good and evil or right and wrong (Velasquez, 2006). Morals for the most part, are fairly unwavering within a group. The vast majority of people would agree that it is wrong or immoral to murder, steal, lie, or cheat. These are examples of moral standards. Moral standards are described as the types of behaviors or actions believed to be morally good or bad (Velasquez, 2006). There is also what is known as nonmoral standards. These principles judge what is good or bad in a nonmoral way such as good grammar or proper etiquette (Velasquez, 2006). In addition to understanding the meaning of morality, it is important to understand where these standards come from. Morality comes from many different influences in a person’s life. These standards are usually absorbed as...
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...Unit 1 – Ethics, Morality and Legalities Abstract This paper will attempt to dissect the fine line between lobbying and bribery and give some direction as to where one ends and the other begins with relationship to ethics, morality and legalities. Unit 1 - Ethics, Morality and Legalities 1. What is the difference between lobbying and bribery? Meriam-Websters online dictionary. (2011). Defines bribe(ry) as money or favor given to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust. Meriam-Websters online dictionary. (2011). Defines lobbying as conducting activities aimed at influencing public officials and especially members of a legislative body on legislation. Based upon the previous definitions of bribery and lobbying it is hard to tell the difference between the two. However, upon closer inspection bribery clearly defines what cannot be done and lobbying is simply conducting activities to influence public official or legislative bodies. Jrank.org. (2011) states that lobbying is considered so essential to the proper functioning of the U.S Government that is specifically protected by the First Amendment of the U.S Constitution. 2. What argument cold the SLOC members make that the payments made do not fit the definition of an illegal bribe (under the FCPA)? SLOC members could argue that the payments made to IOC members were not to influence them to secure their business interests. According to justice.gov. (nd) was...
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...Comparing Ethics and Morality M. Williams ETH/316 December 5, 2013 Leroy T. Smith III, PhDc In order to determine the differences, you would have to know the meanings of each. Virtue would emphasize one’s character which embodies determining or evaluating ethical behavior; living with high moral standards. Virtue-based ethical theories place less emphasis on which rules people should follow and instead focus on helping people develop good character traits, such as kindness and generosity. These character traits will, in turn, allow a person to make the correct decisions later on in life. (Cline, 2013) Utilitarianism is the morally correct course of action that affects the greater good, without a regard to benefits or burdens. According to utilitarianism, morality is a matter of the non-moral good produced that results from moral actions, rules, and moral duty are instrumental, not intrinsic. One main problem is that utilitarianism if adopted, justifies as morally appropriate things that are clearly immoral. (Moreland, 2009) Deontology determines the morality of an action based on a set of rules or a “binding duty”. Deontological ethics is in keeping with Scripture, natural moral law, and intuitions from common sense. For example, acts of lying, promise breaking, or murder are intrinsically wrong, and we have a duty not to do these things. (Moreland, 2009) A personal example of these values is when I was walking out of Kroger, my son and I observed an older woman struggling...
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...Ethics and Morality Paper Michael R. Zukoski ETH/316 Monday 30, 2014 Professor Cherrie Barnes Ethics and Morality Paper My discussion is going to comprise the variants between virtue, and utilitarianism theories, plus deontological ethics and include an explanation of how each one addresses ethics and morality. I will talk about a personal experience to explain how the relationship between virtue, values, and moral concepts are related to one of the three theories. Virtue theory can be a list of character traits that you can associate with moral people. These character traits can be good, or bad, and even somewhere in-between. Character traits are habit-like tendencies that are deeply ingrained or rooted, which are more second nature type tendencies. An example is we are not born always to tell the truth or lie, but we choose to do so by repeatedly doing one or the other. They can fall into these categories: moral, which is the actions judged as right or good, honest, and virtuous, or immoral that’s used to describe behaviors or actions opposite those of moral reasoning (Manias, Monroe, & Till, 2013, p. 25). We can use the example of a truthful person will usually tell the truth, not for fear of the negative consequences of being found out, but because it is the right thing to do. Utilitarianism is the view that we ought to do morally in producing the greatest “good or benefit” possible to any number of people (Manias, Monroe, & Till...
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...adfh JIS S e c 3 (1 ) 2 0 0 7 Journal of Inform ation System Security w w w.jissec.o rg Ethics and Morality - a business opportunity for the Amoral? Ian O. Angell Professor of Information Systems Information Systems Department London School of Economics and Political Science London, United Kingdom Preamble It is common for speakers at computer security conferences to tell audiences that 'they should do' this, and 'should do' that. The word 'should' is regularly thrown about as some jumbled-up mixture of efficiency and ethics, without any justification of the imperative. This paper will concentrate on the ethical issues, and so it will quickly dispose of 'efficiency,' leaving detailed argument for another time. Then, taking the devil's advocate position, it will focus on demolishing the certainty behind the ethical obligation, by questioning the role of ethics in society in general, but specifically in computer security. Indeed this paper will claim that an unsuspected morality and ritual lies behind many real-world security choices and much so-called 'objective' academic analysis. Furthermore, it will propose that such moralistic positions are highly problematic, and that all recommendations phrased in terms of virtue rather than pragmatism be treated as highly suspect. This polemical paper formed the basis of a keynote address given at the 5th Computer Security Conference, held in Las Vegas on the 20th-21st April 2006. 4 Angell, JISSec ...
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...“first generation Muslims struggle to balance strict, old world ways of their parents with a desire to fit into a more liberal society (Cohen).” Problems arise when people charged for murder plead for leniency on account that the killing was done to defend their family’s honour (Massinon). For many “honour killers,” the act of killing in defence of family honour allow for a “full or partial defence against criminal ruling” in their countries of origin (Cohen). If honour killing is indeed considered a moral and ethical behaviour in one’s culture, to the extent that such actions are supported by a country’s law, could such an action then be considered moral? Using the approaches of utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics, this paper attempts to determine the morality of honour killing and argues that the practice is immoral. The tradition of honour killing exists to deter the behaviour of adultery by women. In cultures that condone or encourage honour killing, when a woman is found adulterous, the families of both the woman and the husband feel a deep sense of anger and shame, and their suffering cannot be alleviated until family honour is restored...
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...ETH/316 ETHICS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Morality and Ethics in the 21st Century and Beyond Morality and Ethics study of Human Cloning and The Holocaust | Marcus D. Taylor 12/5/2011 Both morality and ethics will become a downgraded value as time goes on. And this is an ongoing version of the ideologies of events that happened the past. As time approaches a new dawn the world will be forced to adapt to change. There will be questions on what changes will affect the morals and ethics accepted from its society. Morality will change as it has in the past due to the evolving technology. Take for example the new technological developments of Cloning. Cloning is one of the most extensively discussed topics in the modern world. It is a subject that universally evokes immense reactions from society. Cloning is the technique of producing a genetically identical duplicate of an organism by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilized ovum with the nucleus of a body cell from the organism (Yourdictionary.com). In 1903, plants were the first living organisms to be cloned, pioneering the concept. Progressive developments in research now usher in greater advancements in this technology, including the successful cloning of the sheep now known as “Dolly” in 1997 by Scottish scientist, Dr. Ian Wilmut. Logically, the next step is to clone human beings. Is human cloning essential for improvements in enhancing the quality of life? Since cloning still raises...
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...Bradley Scotland Examine Two Critiques of the Relationship Between Religion and Morality The sense of ‘doing the right thing’ is a generally unifying concept held by the majority of humanity. Morality is a more or less uniform concept; for religious believers, this unity comes from a greater power pointing humanity in the right direction on decision making. For non-believers, the opposite applies. Possibly the most famous opponent of the link between religion and morality is Richard Dawkins. Dawkins takes the argument in the complete other direction claiming that religion leads to evil. Religion serves as a virus that corrupts human minds; on the matter Dawkins said religion is, ‘an indulgence of irrationality that nourishes extremism, division and terror.’ Dawkins assault on religion is aimed primarily at extreme Islamists and Evangelical Christians. Dawkins strongly dislikes the idea of educational institutions being misused to teach what are in his view, lies, such as creationism and biblical texts over evolution; likening it to ‘child abuse.’ The link to abusing children is an extreme one to make; but for Dawkins to mislead children and fill their head with lies is wrong. To take that further; Dawkins hates the fear installed in children through religion such as the concept of hell and eternal damnation. Education is a tool that allows practices, belief, and knowledge to continue and to be passed on; for Dawkins this means that the divisions insinuated by crossing paths...
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...a) Explain the differences between absolute and relative morality. (25) To start, it is necessary to define the terms 'absolute' and 'relative' with reference to morality. Absolute means any theory in which the rules are absolute: they are unchanging and universal. Relative means any theory in which something is judged in relation to something else and is therefore open to change. Absolute laws or rules of morality will never change. Another way of putting this is that they are objective. Objective means that I am not bringing in any personal opinions or bias, so the rules that I work out are rules that anybody else would rationally come up with. We may come to work out these rules by use of reason and so any rational human being would be able to use his/her reason to come up with the same set of rules. For example, I may, using reason, work out that it is wrong to lie. An absolutist would think that it is therefore always wrong to lie, in any situation and in any culture. So it is just as wrong for me to lie about cheating on my boyfriend as it is to lie about the fact that Santa isn't real. And I can never think it is right to lie, even, to use Kant's famous example, if there was a murder at my door enquiring as to the whereabouts of my friend. If I knew my friend was hiding in my house, I would have to tell this to the murderer. In this situation, Kant would say that if I had lied to the murdered, and then in some strange coincidence my friend had left my house and was...
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...Whistleblowing and ethics helplines in the 1Modes of Managing Morality Model Leon J van Vuuren Department of Human Resource Management University of Johannesburg Abstract The Modes of Managing Morality (MMM) model provides a heuristic device to assist business ethics scholars and practitioners to make sense of the differences that exist in the ways in which different organisations manage their ethics. Although it is difficult to demonstrate a clear distinction between ethics advice and whistleblowing, these activities are often fused in organisations and the seeking of ethics advice may of necessity sometimes spill over to a need for whistleblowing. The extent and ways organisations are tolerant to and utilise ethics communication in each of these modes were illustrated in this paper. In particular, the varied prominence of whistleblowing and ethics advice facilities in each of the reactive (some whistleblowing), compliance (ethics advice supplementary to whistleblowing) and integrity (whistleblowing supplementary to ethics advice) modes were indicated. The seamless integration of ethics talk and ethics advice in the TAO-mode makes whistleblowing superfluous in this mode. The necessity for leaders and managers to acquire an ethics management competence that would, among others, allow them to actively engage in and encourage ethics talk, was emphasised. Keywords: Ethics, ethics talk, hotlines, help lines, help desk, whistleblowing, Modes of Managing Morality Model, compliance...
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...'Virtue ethics offers a refreshing approach to morality but its main weakness is that it is too vague.’ Discuss Virtue ethics is it two edged blade in that it has many advantages but also some drawbacks. For example, it is important to question the exactness of its nature and want to make such clarifications. For example, we may ask what exactly constitutes a virtue, are some of the virtues to be prioritised and what are the consequences of not being virtuous. Some maybe argue that within virtue ethics there is entailed no clear guidance for specific behaviour, whether or not we should follow a role model and is being virtuous its own reward. Perhaps the virtues are gender specific, perhaps they should be relative to each situation and perhaps they help us achieve Eudemonia. These are all uncertainties that need to be dealt with when analysing virtue ethics. On the one hand virtue ethics ethics is perhaps too vague. In theory an ethical ideology should provide humans with some kind of clear moral compass for acting in a principled manner, according to a specific guideline. Since virtue ethics is so ambiguous and interpretable there may be discrepancies between people attempting to follow it. By the same token virtue ethics is also a subjective system as it gives no specific advice on how to act in certain situations, this is accentuated as it is unclear whether or not humans should follow a role model. In modern day society many issues are very contentious are whether or...
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...acting immorally is unreasonable because it is inconsistently unfair and unjust towards whomever it may have a negative impact on, even though that person may not know. According to Kant, an action is morally right if its maxim is universalizable. In which a maxim is a “principle of action you give yourself when you are about to do something” (162), and universalizable means that your acts of your maxim would be supported by everyone. According to Russ Shafer-Landau in The Fundamentals of Ethics, Kant believes that, “the morality of our actions has nothing to do with results. It has everything to do with our intentions and reasons for action, those are contained in the principle we live by” (163). Morality relies on people acting out with a good intention, but the action has to be universalizable, and if it is not, we are being inconsistent. Being inconsistent contradicts the reason of the action and therefore the immoral act is irrational. According to Russ Shafer-Landau in The Fundamentals of Ethics, “Kant thought all moral duties are categorical imperatives” (168), and “categorical imperatives are rational requirements that do not depend on what we care about” (168). If all our moral duties are categorical...
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