Week 4: Ethical Reasoning

PP: Team 1-3: MillTeam 4-6: Kant

AIO: Gene Modification

TOK Chs. 7-8, p. 237-257

Team 1: 237-241Team 2: 242-246Team 3: 246-251Team 4: 251-257Team 5: Case Study 1Team 6: Case Study 2

Socratic Seminar

• SS: TYFA selected ch. 1-3, 14-16 Discussion:– What did your section reveal

about the nature of persuasion?– How might it interact with

specific concepts of TOK? Why is persuasion a part of knowing and arguing?

• AIO: Discrimination Discussion– Discuss your problems of Knowledge– Combine your problems into an

overarching question for futher research?

– How might the AIO topic be related to the TYFA readings?

Where are we Going?

• Activity: Island Rescue– Definition of Ethics

through concept clarification modeling

• Warrants (Toulmin)– Presuppositions and

challenges

• 6 categories of Ethical Knowing

• Blog: Ethical Agents

What is Ethics? Rescue Activity

• Situation, you are stranded on Primavera Island in the “Ring of Fire”

• Due to volcanic activity, there is a record tsunami that will make landfall in 10 minutes. Causalities are expected to be absolute.

• Mr. Morris is the pilot of the only F77 to successfully reach land in time to make a rescue.

• Normally, the helicopter can carry only six passengers, but it is thought that it could be overloaded to the maximum of eight. (7 passengers plus the pilot)

What is Ethics? Rescue Activity

• Consider the people and make a case for who should be on the helicopter.

• You must come to agreement about 7 survivors.

What is Ethics? Rescue Activity Breakdown

1. Whom did you select to survive?2. What were your reasons for the choices?3. How much agreement and disagreement did you find among your choices?4. What values do the choices reflect?5. How do you feel about yourselves in relation to this exercise?6. Did you use rationalizations to avoid making the decisions in this learning activity?7. What working definition can we make about Ethics from this activity?

Why Ethical Reasoning?

1. Ethics makes clear to us why one act is better than another

2. Ethics contributes an orderly social life by providing humanity some basis for agreement, understanding some principles or rules of procedure

3. Moral conduct and ethical systems, both of the past and the present, must be intelligently appraised and criticized.

4. Ethics seeks to point out to men the true values of life

Warrants Towards Ethical Reasoning

• Two basic assumptions of Ethical Reasoning:– Man is a rational being– Man is free to make choices

• How might the goal and method of ethics change if one or both of these presuppositions were shown to be false?

The Objects of Ethical Reasoning

• The doer of the action (The subject)

• The action done– Formal Object of Ethics is

the Action, not the subject.

• How might the emphasis on one object or the other effect ethical reasoning? What is the functional difference between “morality” and “ethics”?

The Spectrum of Ethical Reasoning

• Consequentialist (Teleological) Ethics– Ethical Actions have

consequences– Do the consequences

result in a positive outcome?

– How many people benefit? How many people are hurt?

– Are more benefiting than hurting?

• Non-consequentialist (Deontological) Ethics– Ethical Actions have moral,

categorical imperatives– If everyone were to do this

action, would the resulting world be rational? (queue allegory)

– Ethical Actions participate in rational truths despite consequences.

– Nay/Horray judgement on the action itself

External v. Internal Ethical Reasoning

• External:– Ethical actions are a result

of the cultural, societal, religious, and political evolution of group identity

– One does the “right” action in order to belong.

– What other reasons would one do “right” in this category?

• Internal:– Called “Virtue Ethics”.– Focusing on the Subject, not the

action (i.e. “be an honest person”)

– Philosophical roots in Socrates and Aristotle

– Do “right” actions because one must have “right” ethical character.What other reasons would one want to do “right” in this category?

Practical v. Theoretical Ethics

• Practical Ethics Involves the Application of reasoning in a complex society– Often results in an

imperfect synthesis of various theories

• Theoretical Ethics is meant to practice reasoning within general frameworks.

• How might these two categories be associated with the theories of truth?

Blog Activity: Other Categories?

• What might be some other categories of Ethical reasoning?

• Consider two ethical characters throughout history, one that operates under a category we discussed, and one that operates under a category we have not. Identify and explain both.