Ethical Approaches Quiz

Question 1

Virtue Ethics

Answer 1

Started off with Aristotle in Ancient Greece.

All about finding a happy medium between overdoing something or underdoing it.

Moderation/Temperence

Golden Mean: middle road

FCC created Safe Harbor

Question 2

Care-Based Ethics

Answer 2

Starts of during time of Christ.
It has religious foundations
Golden rule: "Love thy neighbor as thyself" and "Do to others as you would do to you."
Reversibility
Agape (Greek term)

Question 3

Reversibility

Answer 3

Reverse the situation and imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes

Question 4

Agape

Answer 4

Totally selfless, unconditional, pure love that you can give to another. This is about the other person.

Question 5

Duty-Based Ethics

Answer 5

Begins during 1700s in Germany with philosopher Kant.
Focus: As human beings, we have certain duties to abide by.
Maxims/universal laws, absolute truths, categorical imperatives
“the ends do not justify the means”
Non-consequentialist/deon(duty)tological- it’s not about the consequence, it’s about the initial action.

Question 6

Maxims/Universal Laws

Answer 6

Laws that apply to everyone from all places

Question 7

Absolute Truths

Answer 7

Statements that are absolutely true. There is no grey area.

Duty-Based ethics is a form of absolutist thinking.

Question 8

Categorical Imperatives

Answer 8

Commands that fit in certain categories. When it comes to the category of life, the command is to do no harm. Category of truth, the command is to not lie.

Question 9

Utilitarianism

Answer 9

Started during the 1800s in Britain with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Sort of a backlash to duty-based ethics.
“The greater good for the greatest number”
“The ends do justify the means”
Consequentialist/Teleological - end results do matter even if the initial actions may be bad.

Question 10

Social Contract Ethics

Answer 10

During 1600s-1700s in Europe.
Some of the thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Focus: Creating a situation where people can live in harmony / communal living.
Egalitarian - equal voice, equal society which is how we should live.
“If society agrees to it, then that’s what we should do” or “let’s put it to a vote.”
It’s not necessarily voting, but either accepting or rejecting these social contracts, for example red light to stop, we all just agreed that we stop at the red light, and if enough people want to change stopping to another color, then they can so that people can live in harmony to not stirrup drama.
Criticisms: too maleable, not set in stone. They’re apt to be rewritten (ex. Gay marriage when it was originally only hetero marriage).
John Rawls, an American philosopher,(during 1900s) liked social contracts but was bothered by the idea that it can be a problem to minorities. Added a new layer to this approach.
Before any of us vote, each of us should step behind an invisible curtain (veil of ignorance) and forget who we are and take an original position (blank slate).
If you don’t know your identity under the veil, you’re most likely going to vote against it bc you don’t know how it’ll affect you since you’re in an original position (ex. Segregation).