Week 8: Ethics and Justice Theories Flashcards
What is the origin and meaning of Philosophy?
- Derived from Greek word meaning “love of wisdom”
- Deals with search for truth and knowledge
What are the 4 branches of philosophy?
- Ethics
- Logic
- Epistemology
- Metaphysics
What is Ethics?
Study of right and wrong, good and evil, obligations and rights, justice, and social and political ideas
What are the 4 ethical theories?
- Mill’s utilitarianism
- Kant’s formalism, or duty ethics
- Locke’s rights ethics
- Aristotles virtue ethics
Describe several aspects of Mill’s utilitarianism
- best solution produces max benefit for greatest number of people
- difficult to quantify maximum benefit
- best action is solution where benefit equally divided
Describe several aspects of Kant’s formalism
- each person has a fundamental duty to act in a correct, ethical manner
- each person’s conscience imposes an unconditional command to follow actions suitable as universal principles for all to follow
- be honest, obey the law, don’t hurt others
- everyone has individual duty to prevent harm to human life and consider welfare of society to be paramount
- significance of intention of an act or rule rather than actual outcome
Describe several aspects of Locke’s Rights Ethics
- each human has fundamental right to life, human dignity, maximum liberty
- workers have right entrenched in labour codes
- some rights indisputable while others in grey area
Describe several aspects of Aristotle’s virtue ethics
- Life of virtue, informed by reason, moderate patterns of desires
- golden mean or moderate compromise between extremes of excess and deficiency
- can be difficult to apply golden mean to honesty, integrity, fairness
What is a contradictory type of ethical problem where one has to choose between two opposing courses of action?
Dilemma
In regards to the software control system example (pg. 212 - 214 of textbook), what would each ethical theory say about what Legault should do?
Kant’s formalism/duty
Legault has duty to help Smith overcome dependency, but may also not act on unproven allegations. Legault has duty to public and colleagues, which means he must insist Smith seek treatment/report problem to management
Locke’s rights
Smith’s health is a private matter. Legault has no right to investigate Smith’s health or discuss with anyone.
Mill’s utilitarianism
Balances risk of harm to public/project to risk of harm to Smith’s career. Estimated intensity of harm is a factor. Eventual major failure would result in Smith being found out anyways along with major loss to employer, so best course is intervention. This results in greatest good.
Aristotle’s Virtue ethics
Would recongize drug/alcohol dependency as extreme/undesirable. Golden mean is moderate use. This theory would condemn abuse and encourage action to alleviate it.
What is Justice?
A state of affairs in which conduct or action is both fair and right, given the circumstances
What two tests must a decision satisfy in an ethical dilemma?
- test of rightness (ethical theories)
- test of fairness
What are the 4 basic categories of Justice?
- Procedural
- Corrective
- Distributive
- Political
What is Procedural Justice?
Fairness in the decision-making process
- Right to be heard
- Right to be judged impartially
What is Corrective Justice?
- Fairness in rectifying wrongs
- When person is harmed or has property damaged, they have right to rectification/repairment
- Two applications in engineering: Tort Law and Professional discipline
