Working Conflict Resolution Methods This week, we are discussing conflict resolution in the context of ethics. We’ve all met with conflict at home, at work, with friends, or in public. The way we take on conflict can tell us a lot about our ethics. For our discussion this week, please do the following.   Investigate […]

Utilitarianism and Care-Based Ethics Three basic propositions in utilitarianism (aka ends-based/ Consequentialism):   Actions are judged right and wrong based solely on their consequences; that is, nothing matters but consequences, so right actions are simply those with the best consequences.   To assess consequences, we need to consider only degrees of happiness.   In calculating […]

Deontology (from the Greek for “duty”) is a system of ethics that uses rules (versus more flexible beliefs) to establish right and wrong. Although every system of ethics rooted in deontology may not be absolute (black or white), it’s close. Immanuel Kant is our best-known Western deontological/ rules-based philosopher. He believed, for example, that lying […]

The Social Contract Social Contract theorists say that morality consists of a set of (often “unwritten”?) rules governing how people should treat one another that rational beings will agree to accept for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others agree to follow these rules as well.   Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) runs the reasoning akin […]

Majority Who? What do numbers have to do with conscience?   American writer Mark Twain warned, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”   These approaches to majorities aren’t news. Your parents probably warned you when you were young to follow your conscience, not the […]

Study of Ethics The study of ethics brings together many kinds of thinkers. Most people agree on some basics about human behavior (see Aristotle’s appeals to moderation in his virtue ethics in our lesson this week as an example). But we also understand that there is no one system of ethics that is totally correct. […]

Study of Ethics The study of ethics brings together many kinds of thinkers. Most people agree on some basics about human behavior (see Aristotle’s appeals to moderation in his virtue ethics in our lesson this week as an example). But we also understand that there is no one system of ethics that is totally correct. […]

Principles of Ethics   Ethical Memoir   Early Ethics   Children solve life’s dilemmas all of the time, but until they reach a certain point developmentally, their solutions tend to be desire-based rather than ethics-based. As we grow and learn, our systems of ethics become as unique as we are. Just as most dilemmas are […]

Utilitarian Case Study   Philanthropist for a day~   If you have not read our lesson this week about utilitarianism and its main proponent, John Stuart Mill, you should do so before beginning this assignment. You’ll play a starring role: you act as a philanthropist, with part of your endowment to distribute, using ends-based ethics, […]

Academic Scholarship   The Ethics of Duty   Deontological ethics concerns itself primarily with duty. We hear a lot about duty today, from duty to family to duty to country. Most of us feel a sense of duty when we see human destruction in the natural world, from condos on wetlands to plastic in the […]