Other Ethical Schools of Thought

Other Ethical Schools of

thought

Ethical Relativism

also known as moral relativism, this ethical doctrine claims that there are no universal or absolute moral principles. Standards of right and wrong are always relative to a particular culture or society. The moral opinion of one individual is as good as any other, for there is no objective basis for saying that a particular action is right or wrong apart from a specific social group.

Ethical Relativism

Strengths – every culture has its own norm of moral actions. Some societies consider as right several kinds of actions or practices that other societies consider as wrong.

One is considered too ambitious, if not arrogant, in claiming that one knows absolute and objective ethical principles that are true, valid and binding on all peoples.

One can see all varying traditional practices attest to the moral claims of ethical relativism. Whether an action is regarded right or wrong depends upon the society judging it.

Ethical Relativism

Criticisms and objections – ethical relativism contradicts common beliefs and ordinary experiences in several ways. It appears to be self-contradictory and inconsistent. It encounters difficulty in being self-consistent and in acting in accordance with one’s own moral claim.

In the medical context – In health care, medical personnel usually encounter the conflict that arises between scientific medical procedures and certain religious aspects of ethical relativism taken in the medical context.

Situation Ethics

Joseph Fletcher, an American Protestant medical doctor

He mentions three approaches to morality: legalism, antinomianism, and situationism.

Situation Ethics

Legalistic approach – prescribes certain general moral prescriptions, laws, or norms by which to judge, determine, and settle the rightness and wrongness of human judgments or decisions. (Normative)

Considered by Fletcher as too restrictive and circumscribed, and hence inadequate for and insensitive to the complexity of ever-varying situations in which one finds oneself.

Situation Ethics

Antinomian – frees the Christian from the obligations of the moral law in which case there are no absolute precepts or moral principles by which to be guided in making decisions.

Too liberal and unconventional, which may lead to anarchy and moral chaos.

Situation Ethics

Situationism – states that the moral norm depends upon a given situation, but whatever this situation may be, one must always act in the name of Christian love.

Contextualism

What is Christian love?

Situation Ethics

Fletcher cites three types of love, namely eros, philia and agape. Christian love best exemplifies agape. It refers to one’s care and concern and kindness towards others. Love of and for one’s neighbor just as Christ exemplified is a love in which one cares for the well-being of another, regardless of his station in life. It is characterized by charity, respect and responsibility towards the other.

Erotic and filial love are ambivalent and both can deflect to the other. Both are biased and partial; they have preferences and inclinations. They are usually motivated by selfish interests and ulterior motives.

Situation Ethics

Six propositions of Fletcher as the Fundamentals of Christian conscience:

The first one points to the nature of love. The second reduces all values to love. The third equates love and justice. The fourth frees love from sentimentality. The fifth states the relation between means and ends. The sixth validates every judgment within its own context.

Situation Ethics

Proposition I: Only one thing is intrinsically good, namely love: nothing else.

Proposition II: The ultimate norm of Christian decisions is love: nothing else.

Proposition III: Love and justice are the same, for justice is love distributed.

Situation Ethics

Proposition IV: Love wills the neighbor’s good whether we like him or not.

Proposition V: Only the end justifies the means: nothing else.

Proposition VI: Decisions ought to be made situationally, not prescriptively

Situation Ethics

In the medical context – Situational ethics combines love and justice in treating ill patients. Health care professionals should not only be fair to patients; they should also show loving care and concern for them. People who need immediate medical service should be given their due within the context of justice and love. (“what ought to be done”) It seems that what makes an act good is whether it is expedient, edifying, constructive and humane; whether it builds up rather than destroys, condemns, or kills an innocent individual.

Situation Ethics

Difficulties – Contextualism may encourage ethical relativism. It may serve to legitimize personal interests and ulterior motives in certain instances among those who make moral decisions. Medical misuse and abuse may be surreptitiously committed under the pretext of agapeic expediency. In short, this does not always guarantee an objective and impartial judgment.

Pragmatism

Charles Peirce and William James,

William James – medical degree from Cambridge; taught ana and physio at Harvard in 1873; Charles Peirce was a philosopher, physicist, mathematician, and founder and inventor of the term pragmatism.

it has been America’s most distinctive and major contribution to the world of philosophy.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is more of a theory of knowledge, truth and the meaning than of morality. Moral interests and moral language, however, appear in almost every important passage of James’s writing on the subject. Pragmatism holds that the true and valid form of knowledge is one in which is practical, workable, beneficial and useful.

Being practical, it is one that we can practice, and it produces practical results

Being workable, it is one that we can put to work, it can be worked out, and it works

Being beneficial, it benefits people

Being useful, it is one that can be used to attain good results.

Pragmatism

If an idea works or brings forth good results, it is true. The truth of an idea is determined by its consequences; if it is devoid of results, it is inconsequential, and hence meaningless.

“Truth happens to an idea; it becomes true and is made true by events. Its verity is, in fact, an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation.”

Forms of Pragmatism

Experimentalism – because of its claim that truth must always be verified and tested by experiment. (The latter determines the truth or falsify an idea)

Forms of Pragmatism

Instrumentalism – John Dewey; Since ideas are instruments of actions and tools for solving problems. If ideas prove to be effective instruments, they are true; otherwise they are false.

Forms of Pragmatism

Reconstructionism – insofar as ideas are instruments in reconstructing experiences. For one to learn, one must reconstruct human experiences and relate them to one’s own. Learning, or education for that matter, enables us to rebuild and reconstruct human experiences.

Forms of Pragmatism

Progressivism – ideas are true if and when they help and individual progress, grow and develop intellectually, as well as morally through his own experience and self-activity.

Pragmatism

In the medical context – truth happens to ideas and is not a quality or property of ideas. Truth is made true by events or happenings. Drug testing – to test the effectiveness or toxicity of a

particular drug, testing it on consenting patients must be done.

Contraception – which method is the most effective?

Pragmatism

Difficulties – the pragmatist is accused of being too materialistic because of a pragmatic claim that truth is the cash value of an idea. The pragmatist is also accused of being too individualistic.

Analize

Difficulties for Utilitarianism and Deontology

Natural Law Ethics

Assumes many names by virtue of its historical development. Thomistic Ethics, after St. Thomas of Aquinas, a profound Italian philosopher and theologian, who gave the doctrine its most influential formulation and articulation in the thirteenth century.

Natural Law Ethics

Scholastic Ethics after the brilliant teachings of a group of scholars, known as the scholars or schoolmen, headed by St. Thomas of Aquinas himself in the University of Paris during the middle ages.

Christian Ethics and/or Roman Catholic Ethics insofar as the church’s contemporary versions of the theory are mostly elaborations and interpretations of St. Thomas’s basic ethical precepts.

Natural Law Ethics

Natural Law Ethics, because it claims that there exists a natural moral law which is manifested by the natural light of human reason, demanding the preservation of the natural order and forbidding its violation.

Natural Law Ethics

The source of the moral law is reason itself. It directs us towards the good as the goal of our action, and that good is discoverable within our nature. “Do good, avoid evil”

Natural Law Ethics

Synderesis – inherent ability of every individual to distinguish the good from the bad. Hence, certain moral principles are objective and can be found in the nature of things through reason and reflection. The voice of reason in synderesis is no

less than the manifestation of the moral law. In short, moral law is the dictate of the voice of reason which is expressed in the moral principle “The good must be done, and evil, avoided”.

The voice of conscience, insofar as the latter refers to the immediate judgment of practical reason applying the general principle of morality “Do good, avoid evil to individual concrete actions or decisions.

Natural Law Ethics

What is good? The human good is that which is suitable to

or proper for human nature. Whenever an act is suitable to human nature then it is good and must be done. Hence, you are following and obeying the voice of reason (conscience). It is for this reason that other Thomists would consider human nature as the proximate norm of morality. The good is built into human nature, and it is that to which we are directed by our natural inclinations as both physical and rational creatures.

Natural Law Ethics

3 Natural inclinations:

Self-preservation

Just dealings with others

Propagation of our species

Natural Law Ethics

Aristotle’s Teleological Concept of Nature – everything serves a purpose

This is the basis of St. Thomas’s argument that each member of the human race serves a purpose intended by nature. The theologian in St. Thomas further holds that this teleological design of the universe is attributed to the planning of a creator, namely God. Although the natural law is discoverable in the universe, its ultimate source is divine wisdom and God’s eternal law. (Natural law is the divine law expressed in human nature)

Natural Law Ethics - Principles

The principle of stewardship – Human life comes from God, and no individual is the master of his/her own body. We are merely caretakers or stewards, with the responsibility of protecting and cultivating spiritual and bodily functions. We are obliged to take good care of ourselves, to maintain a sound mind and body, and to safeguard our dignity. Man is given dominion over all created things. A useful dominion of all things by man requires, therefore, a reasonable and responsible use. He is accountable to God for what he is and what he makes of himself.


The principle of double effect – two kinds of result, a good and a bad one, from a good act.

4 Conditions to be met: The action itself must be good

in itself or at least morally indifferent.

The good effect must precede the evil effect or at least be simultaneous to it.


The intention of the agent should be directed towards the good effect, never to the evil effect. The foreseen evil may not be intended or approved, but merely permitted to occur. (secondary objective or indirectly intended)

Proportionality: the good effect must be more important than or at least equal to the bad effect. There must be proportionate and sufficient reason for allowing the evil effect to occur while performing the action.


The principle of totality – the whole is more important than the parts; it justifies the sacrificing of one part or organ “only insofar as the general well-being of the whole body requires it.”

The principle of inviolability of life – life if God’s and has been loaned to us, hence it is sacred and inviolable.

The principle of sexuality and procreation – two-fold purpose: (1) the procreation and nurturing of children, and

(2) the expression of loving union and companionship.

Both purposes must be achieved only within the conjugal bond.

Natural Law Ethics

In the medical context Medical experimentation – totality and double effect

Euthanasia & suicide – stewardship and inviolability of life

Abortion – sexuality and procreation

Delivery of health care – 3 determinants of moral action (the agent, the means, the end); makes it more human or even Christian.

Natural Law Ethics

Difficulties The basic difficulty is geared to the Aristotelian

assumption of teleological arrangement of nature. “Nature does nothing in vain”. The basis of this is the belief on the existence of a creator or divine planner.

Another objection is that conscience is nothing but a by-product of one’s upbringing and development, so that it differs from one individual to another. (virtually an ethical relativism in disguise)

Ross’s Ethics

William David Ross, a British Aristotelian scholar and moral philosopher, presented a rule-deontological theory I his book The Right and the Good

Influenced by utilitarianism, he rejects the precept that an action is validated by its consequences.

Though he was a deontologist like Kant, he considers absolute principles too rigid.

Ross’s Ethics

Is it morally justified, to lie to someone who has no right to know about it? Does a questioner have the right to know the truth which is not due him?

Despite Kant’s absolutism, Ross perceived the ethical significance of rules in the medical context, although rules should not be so absolute and inflexible that there are no exceptions.

Ross’s Ethics

Rules should serve as guidelines, they must be adjusted or modified, if not set aside, depending upon our perception of what is right and good.

Consider the predicament of whether or not one should lie to a terminally ill patient about his/her condition.

Ross’s Ethics

Right and good are distinct from each other.

Rightness – acts

Moral goodness – motives

Consider also the nonmoral properties surrounding the act. (what, why)

Ross’s Ethics

Actual duty and prima facie duty

If moral rules come into conflict with each other, we make a distinction between prima facie duty and actual duty.

Actual – one’s real duty in a given situation. It is the action one ought to choose from among many other actions

Prima facie – one ought to perform when other relevant factors are not taken into account

Ross’s Ethics

2 principles to resolve conflicting duties

First act in accordance with the stronger, more stringent or more severe prima facie duty

Second, act in accordance with the prima facie duty, which has a greater balance of rightness over wrongness compared to other prima facie duties.

Ross’s Ethics

We have to rely on our moral intuitions (intuitionism) as the ultimate guide in particular cases.

Learn and discern the facts of the case

Consider the possible consequences of our actions

Reflect on our prima facie duties

Decide the best course of action under the circumstances

Ross’s Ethics

Seven types of prima facie duties

Fidelity

Reparation

Gratitude

Justice

Beneficence

Self-improvement

Nonmaleficence

Ross’s Ethics

In the medical context

We have to show discernment and sensitivity with regard to the unique aspects of varying situations before making a moral decision

A synthesis of utilitarianism and kantian ethics

Ross’s Ethics

Difficulties

It is practically impossible for all individuals to be able to discern the same moral principles and prima facie duties.

Leads back to ethical relativism

Reliance to our intuition, our subjective perception of what and how things ought to be.

Rawl’s Theory of Justice

John Rawls, Harvard philosopher,in his A Theory of Justice, has attempted a brilliant synthesis of the strengths of utilitarianism and of Kantian and Ross’s Deontological views

Utilitarianism – lack of justice

Built on both Kant’s and Ross’s fundamental notion of the ultimate dignity of human beings his concept of social morality, which is the basis of social justice


“the original position”, a hypothetical situation of a community of individuals living under the “veil of ignorance”. All are self-interested and rational. All choices and decisions would be fair (justice)

What if some individuals introduce principles that would promote inequalities? “Slavery is good”


Rational people would choose a strategy by which they could select from many alternatives the one whose worst possible result would be better that those of the other alternatives.

This is the context of social justice accdg to Rawls, through which we recognize our duties to ourselves and to others.


Theory of justice

Every individual is inviolable.

An erroneous theory is tolerable in the absence of a good one.

Individual liberties should be restricted in order to maintain equality of opportunity


Principles of justice

Equal access to the basic human rights and liberties

Fair equality of opportunity and the equal distribution of socio-economic inequalities

This 2-fold principle of justice guarantees the worth and self-respect of the individual


Justice in human relations – 4 types of duties

Fairness in or dealings with others

Fidelity

Respect for persons

Beneficence

Natural duties:

The duty of justice

The duty of helpings others in need or in jeopardy

The duty not to harm or injure others

The duty to keep our promises


In the medical context

Recommends the legitimacy of paternalism

Exploitation is not morally legitimate

Allocation of resources

Order of priority


Difficulties

Hypothetical situation – rational beings

Restriction of liberties – utility principle, despite his objection to utilitarianisms lack of justice

Documents

Other Ethical Schools of Thought