Why Do Ethics Matter?

Exam 1-7 ( book of notes…..definitions and how to apply them)
Page 25 for test: what is your preference on which model gets you?
Fair minded people article: make a connection with what we’ve talked about. Connecting the reading to the lecture. Relates to fairness.
Case analysis:
Identify an ethical issue( violation/transaction). Page 26 ( possible)
Shakedown
Read the case and think of 3-4 ways the case relates to things we’ve talked about in class. Second half has to offer a detailed solution to the problem. How do you fix this…what would you do…
Class overview:
Why do ethics matter? Ethics breaks down trusts.
How people have and reach moral standards? Feelings/conscious/ might have been influenced by evolution
Responsibility and
That all cultures deserve and should be treated respectfully. All cultures are equal. An educated person understands, values, and accepts cultural differences. “Not better just different”

Ruggiero suggests that while cultural differences in behavior may be large, there may be greater similarity in underlying values, beliefs across cultures that is commonly thought. This position would certainly be consistent with Wilson’s arguments regarding human evolution and its evolved responses to problems of cooperation and defection.

Ruggiero also argues that moral judgments can under certain circumstances transcend cultural boundaries. To do so must acknowledge three facts:

1. Cultures change over time. Thus the standard in place is not now nor necessarily always “de facto” true.
2. Technology has changed how cultural values, beliefs are developed and accepted.
3. Humans are fallible. As such, it could be that the ancestors are wrong. The notion that our (others) culture’s beliefs have escaped the human capacity for error is arrogant, illogical, and a disservice to those who have striven for changes in moral standards (i.e. MLK,
The principle of right desire: “we ought to desire what is really good for us and nothing else”

The principle of right desire provides foundation for making judgments regarding that which is good and that which is bad. 2. The principle of contradiction: an idea cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same way. The principle of contradiction gives assurance that critical thinking is relevant to ethical issues such that when two ethical judgments are opposed, one must be mistaken.

3. The two principles together provide basis for making high quality ethical decisions. They do not, however, tell us what is good for us, what approaches should be used to make ethical judgments, and what pitfalls we should we be aware of and avoid.

Relativism: there are no nor can there be any objective moral standards

ABSOLUTISM: some principles can never vary and others are subject to time and place. For example: rape is never is never morally acceptable is an absolute. “Thou shall not kill” is not since there are exceptions – self-defense, protection of others, war, greater good?

BASIC CRITERIA FOR DETERMING MORAL STANDARDS