ethics.html

Ethics

This page is intended to be a teaching/learning resource for students. .

Students should read the material on the BASIC page of this site concerning philosophical discussion, reading and writing. Also, TOOLS contains links to philosohical dictionaries, glossaries and encyclopedias as well as links to regular dictionaries, grammars etc.

Links in Ethics which I have found very useful.

General
- WWW Virtual Ethics Center. This site has some excellent resources. Every student should spend time browsing this site. Although some of the material is only for engineers and scientists, much is useful for both general and professional ethics. Beginners will welcome the key word list and glossary.
- Lawrence Hinman offers many links in his site: Ethics updates. The page uses a popular convention of separating "general theory" from "applied ethics". Although I think that such a separation is "wrongheaded", students should be aware of the material in ethics that includes this distinction.
Moral decision making
- A number of papers about moral decision making are found at the Center for Applied Ethics. The site also contains a number of links to other sites in ethics. While I do not agree with everything at this site, I believe it is useful and offers students significant alternative views.
Other sites can be found by doing a search with your favorite search engine or by following some of the useful links in philosophy from the Tools page on this site.

Phl. 367 Medical Ethics

2. Why be moral?

This question opens a long and complex topic. The question is important but it is, in some sense, a question that one should ask before signing up for a course in eithics. For those who want to explore the question, here are some suggested readings:

Plato. Republic In Book II Glaucon makes the case for immorality and Socrates refutes this argument. The Republic is on-line and I suggest that you read these famous passages by going to the TOOLS section of this web page and find the link for e-texts and reading the relevant sections of The Republic.

NOTE: Students in PHL 103 Introduction to Philosophy who are interested in exploring the question, "Why be moral?", may use it for one of their research or final examination projects. There is much in our every day life which can be the subject of reflection in answering this question and there is much written on the question so that there should be no problem in keeping reflections philosophical.

Personal Ethic

One of the things that I ask students to do is to reflect on and to formulate their personal ethic: the tenets or principles that are/will be central to their decision making.

How can we discover our personal ethic?

In order to formulate our personal ethic, we need to recognize the influence on our current values and forms of deliberation. One way of doing this is to create a personal narrative which describes the major experiences, struggles, persons, books etc. which have shaped us as ehtical persons. This can take any literary form.... a series of journal entires, an "open letter" etc. Task #3: Write your "ethical narrative". You should do this early in the semester since one of the aims of writing a personal ethic is to re-examine the beliefs and values we have adopted through our socialization. Remember, philosophy begins when we ask ourselves, "But is it really true?'
Next, we need to make some important philosophical decisions .
1. Who or what is part of our moral community? ie., who or what deserves "moral regard". There is an overview article on this topic under the title moral personhoodin the Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
2. What are our foundational tenets about these members of our moral community?
3. Next, we need to articulate what makes some action "right" when it affects a member of our moral community. How do we figure out what is right in any given instance? What are relevant concepts that we use in reflecting on a decision?
4. How do we interact with others who may disagree with our basic philosohy?
Finally, how do we justify our ethical choices to ourselves or others who might question our decisions?

When you have constructed your personal medical ethics, you have your blue print for all decisions that involve ethical components. Sometimes you will be formulating a more limited "personal ethic" eg. a personal business ethic, a personal medical ethic , a personal social services ethic . These may need some discussion about that field: its purpose, the relationship among the field, ethics and the law etc. This becomes important if you think that a "professional ethics" is not the same as the ethic you would use in your everyday life.

Advice: There is a tendency to want to "put off" writing the ethic. Students want it to become clearer but the only way this task becomes clearer is by actually working on it. Only you can write your ethic. Only you can decide what form it should take. Others can judge it for its clarity, its consistency, its depth, its breadth or adequacy for decision making but no one can decide what to say or how to say it.

You need to write your beliefs. You need to seek others to examine your writing for clarity - Do the words you have written express what you really mean? You need to seek out others to raise critical questions so you can move from socialized beliefs to your philosophy.

This is a task which becomes clearer as you work on it. If you wait too long to begin, you will be tempted to imitate what others have done at other times. Students who make such imitations, never reach a level of authenticity. My advice is: BEGIN!!!!

I shall be glad to work with you; to read drafts of your ethic and make comments that might be useful to you...but of course I will do this early in the task and not the week it is due.

Scenarios

Scenario #1Linda and Beth

scenario #2Mrs. W.

scenario #3N.P.

scenario #4Margaret

scenario #5Renee and Tim

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This page is still under construction. Suggestions will be gratefully received and acknowledged when used.
Kate Lindemann
Last Updated: January 11,2001