How to Speak Ethics a Crash Course

8/15/2019 How to Speak Ethics a Crash Course

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Were too busy doing it to have the time, or feel the need to slow down and

take a closer look at what were saying. But, if we dont do that, well never

figure out the limits in the way were used to talking, and appreciate the

benefits of changing, of developing better language tools for doing the jobswe need to do with our ethical language.

Whats a parallel? Think about little kids coming into school for the first

time. Obviously, most of them are already talking. Theyve accumulated

language in the home, on the streets, from TV, wherever. And theyve stuck

the pieces together with the limited language-building skills in their heads.

So, what do we do about this language stuff? We scrape it, we polish it, we

complement it, and, most importantly, we try to get them to become more

aware of how much more they can do with words, and more eager to learn

how to develop that mastery.

Okay, lets start learning how to speak Ethics better! And that requires

getting self-conscious about what were already doing, and then about what

more we could do.

I. THE BASIC LOGIC: Remember what Ive stressed from the

beginning: Doing Ethics is a way of solving problems. And the nature of

the problems? Right; theyre Dilemmas. We feel ourselves caught between

two (or more) individually appealing but mutually exclusive options: Am Igoing to lie about why I didnt do the work? Am I going to rat on a

teammate? And, were forced to take a stand. So, whats the basic work that

Ethics does for us? Ethics is our attempt to build a solid ground to stand

on when we have to take a stand. When we are caught on the horns of a


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Dilemma (not a comfortable resting place!), Ethics does the heavy-

lifting of justifying our choice of one option over the other.

Three Ways We Ground our Choices and Judgments:

There are three basic types of moves that people make when they try to

ground their individual judgments and choices: Lets call them Principlists,

Contractualists, and Consequentialists.

Mirror-work: While we discuss these three types, you might want to take

your own Ethical pulse. Check on which of these moves is (or are) closest

to your own way of grounding your choices.

To get started, think of each of these as figuratively looking in a different

direction to find the solid ground for the actions and judgments we have to

make in the present.

The Principlist looks Up to the Absolute

The Contractualist looks Back to the Past

The Consequentialist looks Forward to the Future


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The Principlists:

Principlists look for an absolute value to ground their personal judgments, a

universal rule to ground their individual actions. Figuratively, they look up to find some abiding higher principle, or a higher being, who defines the

enduring structure of right and wrong. Examples would be in the form of

ethical commandments, such as Thou shall not kill, or Always tell the

truth, or Respect others rights.

A categorical imperative is the way the 18 th century philosopher Immanuel

Kant described the ethical (and, one is tempted to add, the psychological)

force of such principles. They are categorical in the sense of not being

contingent on anything else in a situation, and therefore, not allowing any

exceptions. For the Principlist, the ethical person must obey the demands of

the principle, regardless of circumstances or consequences. You must, for

example, always tell the truth, even if it results in a danger of harm for

yourself or others. Often this attitude is called deontological after the

Greek word for duty, deontos. But, the term principlism catches its

spirit better, as expressed by a person insisting that she has to do something,

and has to do it come-what-may, because, Its a matter of principle!

What are the principles that grab hold of people? Well examine the most

frequently and highly-rated answers in our Vocabulary section.


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The Contractualists:

Back to the future might be the motto of the Contractualist. To find what

choices they should make now, they look to the past. For the Contractualist,our present choices are controlled by our past commitments.

Like the Principlist, there is a categorical and unconditional nature to the

determinative force in their ethical decision-making. But, unlike the

Principlists, there is usually an historical event or framework that has pre-

emptively limited the ethically acceptable options in the present. Sexually,

contractualists would reject an affair because of their marriage vows.

Scholastically, they would refuse to cheat on an exam because of having

signed an Honor Code. Medically, they often take their stand on the Oath

either because they made an explicit promise by reciting the Hippocratic

Oath at graduation from medical school, or because they made an implicit

commitment to accepting the traditional normative standards of their

professional role.

Contractualists (e.g., cops or some teachers) will often say, I dont make the

rules. Indeed, its really just the opposite: the rules make the person. The

binding nature of the contract makes them feel they have no choice. What

they do now has been predetermined by the promise they made in the past.


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The Consequentialists:

Consequentialists look to the future to find the factors that they believe

should determine what they ought to do in the present. Put yourself in the

situation of doing your income taxes, and imagine (this is completely

hypothetical, of course) that you are considering whether or not to claim a

pleasure trip as a deductible business expense. If youre a Principlist?

Absolutely not! Thou shalt not lie: no excuses, no exceptions. If youre a

Contractualist? Check out your employee contract: What are the rules you

agreed to follow? Okay, theres your answer. But, if youre a

Consequentialist, youve got more work to do.

First, recognize that for a Consequentialist, both complete Honesty and some

degree of Dishonesty may be justifiable choices. You will only know which

is the righter or better answer after you have calculated which choice will

produce the better package of consequences. So, my fellow

Consequentialists, we would sit there and consider such factors as how much

wed save by the deception and how much we need the extra bucks (to do

really good things, of course). We would also think about how likely we areto get caught and how severe the penalties will be, etc., etc. Then we would

weigh the risks and benefits of one path, compare it with the risks and

benefits of the other, and choose the package of consequences that we decide


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would be, in practical terms, better, i.e., produce the most good and the

least bad.

Consider an example: In Richard Nashs play The Rainmaker, Noahrealizes that his old-maid sister is out in the barn on a summers evening

with the smooth-talking Rainmaker and comes running into the house to get

his gun to defend the familys honor. But, his father grabs the gun away

from him, saying Noah, youre so full of whats right you cant see whats

good. (Bantam Books, NYC 1957, p.99)

So, what would the Consequentialists do about the 16-year-old patient who

has admitted to drug use? First, there would be no principled or contractual

restrictions on options. Any option that produces the maximum benefit

would be permissible. Indeed, as maximizing beneficial consequences is the

determinative moral imperative, whichever option promised to achieve the

most beneficial future would not only be permissible, but ethically

obligatory. Therefore, the Consequentialist would compare the benefits and

harms of maintaining confidentiality: the adolescent feels secure and so

cooperates more; more cooperation produces more guided protection, etc.;

but, the teacher cannot always be there, and keeping quiet may fail to alert

other life-guards, etc; but, it might just drive the kid away from trusting

any adult, and produce more drug abuse as a passive-aggressive or defensive

reaction to a perceived betrayal, and so on, and on, and on, till all thesignificant consequences have been examined and weighted: and compared

on a balance-scale.


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The basic decision-making process for the Consequentialist may be

described in a quasi-mathematical formulation:

Step One: For Option A, add up all the possible benefits and possibleharms, and factor the probability of each.

Step Two: Subtract the value of the harms from the value of the benefits toget the net value of Option A.

Step Three: Repeat for Option B (and Option C, etc.).

Step Four: Compare the Net Value of Option A versus the Net Value of Option B (and C, etc.).

Step Five: Whichever option has the better (or less bad) net value is theethically appropriate/obligatory choice.

Consequentialists are allowed to be much more independent, much more

empowered than Principlists or Contractualists to act on the basis of their

own judgment. For example, neither a principle such as autonomy, nor a

contract, whether explicit or implicit, would preclude breaking

confidentiality, if the Consequentialist judged that action would produce

better consequences. One could break promises, or lie, or choose any other

action, so long as it could justifiably be claimed that your intention was to

produce the greatest possible good, and that your calculation had fairly

demonstrated that the course you chose would most likely achieve that end.

However, given the dangers of this self-appointed authority to act on ones

own individual calculations, and of this self-licensed liberty to override

principles and contracts, there clearly is an imperative need to make such


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calculations with great discipline. Nowhere is the need greater for

employing and enforcing the normative standards of the Good Judge than

when the judge is a Consequentialist, and the judgments will have

irreversible consequences for the critical needs and interests of yourself andother persons.

Class Exercise: Where do You look to find the ANSWER?

Darrens Dilemma : In an episode of the TV show Boston Public, Darren, a

high school senior, has busted his butt to stay in school and get good grades,

and has been accepted to a really good college. Hes got his ticket out. But,

he goes into a convenience store with his bad-news brother, who gets

enraged at the shopkeeper, shoots and kills him, and flees. Darrens only

chance to save himself is to turn in his brother.

You could then ask the class a series of questions.

Targeting Questions:

If you were a Principlist, what would you think?

If you were a Contractualist, what would you think?

If you were a Consequentialist, what would you think?

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How to Speak Ethics a Crash Course