Approaches to Ethics

Question 1

Deontology

Answer 1

Deontology defines actions as right or wrong
based on their adherence to rules and principles such as fidelity to promises, truthfulness, and justice. Instead of looking at consequences of actions to determine whether they are right or wrong,
deontology examines a situation for the existence of essential right or wrong.

Question 2

Utilitarianism

Answer 2

The greatest good for the greatest number of people
is the guiding principle for determining right action in a utilitarian system
(Klugman, 2017). As with deontology, utilitarianism relies on the
application of a certain principle (i.e., measures of “good” and “greatest”).
The difference between utilitarianism and deontology is the focus on
outcomes. Utilitarianism measures the effect that an act will have;
deontology looks at the act itself and judges its “rightness” by the rules or
principles it upholds.

Question 3

Casuistry

Answer 3

Casuistry, or case-based reasoning, turns away from conventional
principles of ethics as a way to determine best actions and focuses instead
on the details of a situation. People who take this approach to ethics find
similar precedent cases and determine a course of action on the basis of
what was done to manage that prior situation.

Question 4

Feminist Ethics

Answer 4

it looks to the nature of relationships to guide participants
in making difficult decisions, especially relationships in which power is
unequal or in which a point of view has become ignored or invisible.

Question 5

Ethics of Care

Answer 5

Similar to feminist ethics, care-based ethics focuses on
understanding relationships, personal narratives and the context in which
ethical problems arise. Unlike feminism, ethics of care emphasizes the role
of the decision maker in the situation.