Ethics Flashcards
Ethics
- Study of morality
- A branch of philosophy
- Seeks to understand the values in human conduct as humans relate to one another
Ethics
- Study of morality
- A branch of philosophy
- Seeks to understand the values in human conduct as humans relate to one another
Philosophical Ethics
- searches for a way to re-evaluate standards of justification of you moral
- adresses the meanings and uses of such terms as ought, right, wrong, good, bad
Applied Ethics
- resolve moral dilemmas
Professional Ethics
- subset of applied ethics
* particular obligations as a professional that hold you to a higher, lower, equal standards
Moral Issues
- are those which raise questions of value about the rights and welfare of persons
- character of people
Sentience
having power of perception through their senses
*would we accord moral worth to other forms of life?
Moral Domain
domain that is concerned with welfare and fair treatment of sentient beings and character of people
Moral situation problematic, neutral trivial?
- significant interests in terms of the well- fare and fair treatment of sentient beings
- significan interests are not affected
- interests are affected but in a trivial way
Moral situation problematic, neutral trivial?
- significant interests in terms of the well- fare and fair treatment of sentient beings
- significan interests are not affected
- interests are affected but in a trivial way
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What contributes to welfare and fair treatment
veracity (truth telling), confidentiality, privacy, autonomy, equality (of opportunity, of outcome), health, care/loving, safety, justice (what is fair?- difference between justice and law), community
Moral dilemmas
Genuine moral dilemmas often involve conflict between values we want to preserve
justice and equality
- having minimum 2 girls on the team
- everyone gets to play equal playing time
- lay off if you are winning by more than 4 goals… justice of the game
- how do we distribute money for sports teams?
Confidentiality and safety
- injured athlete
- public surveillance
- self harm injuries
Safety and autonomy
- extreme sports
- playing injured
- boxing - paternalistic rules
- seat belts
Justice and privacy
- transgendered players
- players dating players/coaches
Justice and privacy
- transgendered players
- players dating players/coaches
Community and justice
homelessness in Vancouver and Olympics
Safety and fairness on the field
- doping and sport
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Contending with an ethical disagreement
- Disagreement about whether it is a moral situation or a moral issue
- important to demonstrate that is is important because it affects those in the situation - Disagreement about what best contributes to the welfare and fair treatment in a particular situation. What values contribute?
- Agreement that it is a moral situation but disagreement about whether paying attention to the effect on those in the situation is more important than self interest
- Agreements with moral values but disagreements with means to achieve these
Contending with an ethical disagreement
- Disagreement about whether it is a moral situation or a moral issue
- important to demonstrate that is is important because it affects those in the situation - Disagreement about what best contributes to the welfare and fair treatment in a particular situation. What values contribute?
- Agreement that it is a moral situation but disagreement about whether paying attention to the effect on those in the situation is more important than self interest
- Agreements with moral values but disagreements with means to achieve these
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Convention
- the habits and customs of a culture
- Being Polite
- *Just because something has been done that way forever doesnt make it okay
- *make sure that culturally values are ethically good by virtue of being cultural values
Authority
- Values we take or which become expected of us by someone who has power over us
Ex: the grad student washing his professors car
Prudence
acting of one’s own self interest
Greed that causes others to trample others
instrumentality: means to an end
Legality
Values that uphold the letter of the law
Religion
When an appeal is made to religion as the bases of morality
-Is something ethical because God commands it or God commands it because it is ethical?
Ethical Justification
reasons that are used to support an ethical position
Reasons
reasons which refer to significant interests of parties concerned in an issue
Explanation
attempts to provide psychological or sociological reason why someone has made the decision he or she did
**Generally statements of fact that are not debatable
Explanation
attempts to provide psychological or sociological reason why someone has made the decision he or she did
**Generally statements of fact that are not debatable
Virtuous Character
Virtue is excellence or goodness of something; Human qualities that relate not only to an individual’s welfare, but also to the community of which that person is a member.
• Character is a distinctive mark or peculiarity; Makes individual choices and judgements using reason, but also has the strength or will to act on them.
Virtuous Character
Virtue is excellence or goodness of something; Human qualities that relate not only to an individual’s welfare, but also to the community of which that person is a member.
• Character is a distinctive mark or peculiarity; Makes individual choices and judgements using reason, but also has the strength or will to act on them.
Values that can be learned in PA
Moral Values – fairness, helping
• Morally Neutral Values – perseverance, determination, discipline, loyalty
• Immoral Values – cheating, violence, disrespect
Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
• Level I – How is this decision going to affect me?
• Level II – How is this decision going to affect me and those in my group?
• Level III – How will I be thought of? Seeking approval.
• Level IV – What have I been taught to do? Authority.
• Level V – What have I promised or contracted to do? Rules.
• Level VI – Is this behavior universalizable? Justice.
Components of moral response
Components of a moral response
- Need a moral situation
- Have the ability to recognize a moral situation
- Be motivated by moral reasons to act
- Have the skills to act
- Take action
• Regulative Rules
league structure, professional versus amateur status
• Constitutive Rules
– Prescriptive: indicates what players ought to perform while engaged in the activity
– Proscriptive: tells you what you can and can’t do. What will happen if you break the rules
– Descriptive: Ensures that a game, as constituted by its rules, can continue at that time and in the future.
Purpose of Penalties
- Punish intentional rule breaking
- Punish unintentional rule breaking ‘
Ensures that a game, as constituted by its rules, can continue at that time and in the future.
*Good penalty corrects the inequality
*Penalties ensure that the game can continue to play at that time and in the future
Prima Facie
At first Glance
Cheating
deliberately breaking the rules with then intent of not getting caught
- Integrative/ logic of the game: No justification
- Legal: only if you made the case the rule itself is immoral. Otherwise there is no justification.
- Ethical: If there is a ethical justification that could be made. Ex: hitting in women’s hockey and must wear a full cage.
- Prudential: If you think you can get away with it, then you can. But if you get caught and the penalty is retributive then
The good foul
• Deliberate rule breakage but there is no deception. Draw attention in order to take the penalty
• Taking a player down on a break- away
• Deliberately icing the puck
• Foul to stop the clock
• No guarantee that an advantage will be made.
Still self-interested
IMMORAL RULES
- Almost all game rules are morally neutral therefore the integrity is maintained. Sometimes this is not the case: combative sports such as boxing. Must harm someone to carry out the prescriptive rules in boxing.
- Legally: if you follow the frame work of the game then abide by the rules as constituted and not perform the prescriptive rule to draw attention to it
- Ethical: not perform a prescriptive rule and draw attention to the proscriptive rule against it
Black Power Salute: Any time there was a black American metal. Took shoes off- poverty most aft
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Hard Paternalism
paternalism is behaviour by a person, organization or state which limits me person or groups liberty for that person’s own good
Soft Paternalism
a far stronger paternalistic argument arises fro the fact that autonomous decision must follow from the agents own values, without undue pressure from other people or external circumstances
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Conventional morality
to be directed by traditional or customary rules or practices
• Do not question those rules, traditions, and/or practices.
Reflective morality
Is to actively reflect on and think about normative principles that guide behaviours.
• This involves movement beyond conditioned or knee jerk or prima facie reactions and assumptions.
• It goes beyond merely self-interested behaviour.
Reflective morality
Is to actively reflect on and think about normative principles that guide behaviours.
• This involves movement beyond conditioned or knee jerk or prima facie reactions and assumptions.
• It goes beyond merely self-interested behaviour.
* Conviction principle: willingness to sacrifice
Deontological Morality (Kantian Ethics)
- Deonticordeontologicalethics
-derived from the Greek deon – duty, that which is binding.
Any position in ethics which claims that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on whether they correspond to duty or not.
Denies that the moral value of actions or practices is a function of the consequences (outcomes) of those actions.
-universalized, centuries in the making
-aplicable to all persons regardless of outcome/ even if it has adverse outcomes
-Right and wrong on built on the imperative of what ought to be
Teleology (Utilitarian ethics)
• Derived from the Greek – telos – end; goal.
• Associated with utilitarianism – John Stuart
Mill, Jeremy Bentham
• Any position in ethics that holds that the moral value of an action or practice is a function of the consequences or outcomes of that choice.
Utilitarianism (cont.)
• Overall, utilitarian, teleological, and consequential ethics are concerned with:
• Acting to produce the greatest amount of benefit (happiness) and the least possible amount of harm.
• Right and wrong are based on the greatest amount of good resulting.
Contextualized Ethics
- Right and wrong are only determined by noticing the specificities of circumstances and people’s lives, including assymetrical (unbalanced, uneven) power relations.
- Power and context are taken into account.
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Moral assessment of activities
Participation
Regulation
Programming
Is the activity morally problematic
because of the skills asked, the context, or the people left out
Ask yourself
would I participate, would I regulate?
Harm Principle
The sole end for which [human] kind is warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection.
• That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
Hisowngood,eitherphysicalormoral,isnot a sufficient warrant.
• He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise or right.
Harm Principle
The sole end for which [human] kind is warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection.
• That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
Hisowngood,eitherphysicalormoral,isnot a sufficient warrant.
• He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise or right.
What is the relationship to be between participants in PA and professionals?
Need to get our own biases and figure out what is good
Rights and obligations
something to which a person can lay claim as due or owing
how do we navigate when my right to do something comes head to head with someone else’s right
- contract with each other
* we agree to not infringe on each other
Assumptions of an ethics of right
- authority to uphold the contract
Negative rights
Others have the obligation to not deprive another of life, liberty or possessions but they need not take positive steps to maintain life or provide conditions under which freedom can be meaningfully exercised
-The right to be left alone, the right to privacy,
Positive rights
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of oneself and ones family, including food, clothing housing and medical care
- Basic right that everyone be given and therefore should be provided
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Assumptions of contracts
rights involve obligations which we attempt to protect through contracts
- people are minimally trusting, trustworthy
- people who are equally or more powerful with enforce contract
Care and trust
we are human, by virtue of being in relationship instead of looking at individuals as separate autonomous beings
How do we know that we can trust someone
- Process
- Vulnerability
- Support
- Fragile
- Faith
- Loyalty
What happens when we trust
- the truster is vulnerable to the person who is trusted
-you want want the trust entails
-Understand that there could be ill will but you don’t expect it
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When is it problematic to trust
Moral test of trust
- relationship would survive an awareness by each party of what the other relies on in the relationship in order to continue in a trusting relationship
Can we reconcile paternalism and trusting?
When someone trusts another to help achieve certain specified rules and the person trusted has, without coercion, been granted certain discretionary powers to make those decisions to help the truster achieve these values
The good foul
• Deliberate rule breakage but there is no deception. Draw attention in order to take the penalty
• Taking a player down on a break- away
• Deliberately icing the puck
• Foul to stop the clock
• No guarantee that an advantage will be made.
Still self-interested
Teleology (Utilitarian ethics)
• Derived from the Greek – telos – end; goal.
• Associated with utilitarianism – John Stuart
Mill, Jeremy Bentham
• Any position in ethics that holds that the moral value of an action or practice is a function of the consequences or outcomes of that choice.
Utilitarianism (cont.)
• Overall, utilitarian, teleological, and consequential ethics are concerned with:
• Acting to produce the greatest amount of benefit (happiness) and the least possible amount of harm.
• Right and wrong are based on the greatest amount of good resulting.
What happens when we trust
- the truster is vulnerable to the person who is trusted
- you want want the trust entails
- Understand that there could be ill will but you don’t expect it
Moral test of trust
- relationship would survive an awareness by each party of what the other relies on in the relationship in order to continue in a trusting relationship
Can we reconcile paternalism and trusting?
When someone trusts another to help achieve certain specified rules and the person trusted has, without coercion, been granted certain discretionary powers to make those decisions to help the truster achieve these values
