Question

what are the ethical theories?

Answer 1

For individuals, the ethical theory they employ for decision making guidance emphasizes aspects of an ethical dilemma important to them and leads them to the most ethically correct resolution according to the guidelines within the ethical theory itself. Four broad categories of ethical theory include deontology, utilitarianism, rights, and virtues.

Deontology

The deontological class of ethical theories states that people should adhere to their obligations and duties when engaged in decision making when ethics are in play. This means that a person will follow his or her obligations to another individual or society because upholding one’s duty is what is considered ethically correct. For instance, a deontologist will always keep his promises to a friend and will follow the law. A person who adheres to deontological theory will produce very consistent decisions since they will be based on the individual’s set duties.

Deontology contains many positive attributes, but it also contains flaws. One flaw is that there is no rationale or logical basis for deciding an individual’s duties. For instance, a businessperson may decide that it is his/her duty to always be on time to meetings. Although this appears to be something good, we do not know why the person chose to make this his duty. Ask students what reasons they might provide for this behavior. Sometimes, a person’s duties are in conflict. For instance, if the business person who must be on time to meetings is running late, how is he/she supposed to drive? Is speeding breaking his/her duty to society to uphold the law, or is the businessperson supposed to arrive at the meeting late, not fulfilling the duty to be on time? Ask students how they would rectify the conflicting obligations to arrive at an a clear ethically-correct resolution. Also ask students to bring into play the consideration of the welfare of others as a result of the business person’s decision.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarian ethical theories are based on one’s ability to predict the consequences of an action. To a utilitarian, the choice that yields the greatest benefit to the most people is the one that is ethically correct. There are two types of utilitarianism, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism subscribes precisely to the definition of utilitarianism—a person performs the acts that benefit the most people, regardless of personal feelings or the societal constraints such as laws. Rule utilitarianism takes into account the law and is concerned with fairness. A rule utilitarian seeks to benefit the most people but through the fairest and most just means available. Therefore, added benefits of rule utilitarianism are that it values justice and includes beneficence at the same time.

Both act and rule utilitarianism have disadvantages. Although people can use their life experiences to attempt to predict outcomes, no one can be certain that his/her predictions will be accurate. Uncertainty can lead to unexpected results making the utilitarian decision maker appear unethical as time passes, as the choice made did not benefit the most people as predicted.

Another assumption that a utilitarian decision maker must make concerns his/her ability to compare the various types of consequences against each other on a similar scale. But, comparing material gains, such as money, against intangible gains, such as happiness, is very difficult since their qualities differ to such a large extent.

An act utilitarian decision maker is concerned with achieving the maximum good. Thus, one individual’s rights may be infringed upon in order to benefit a greater number of people. In other words, act utilitarianism is not always concerned with justice, beneficence or autonomy for an individual if oppressing the individual leads to the solution that benefits a majority of people.

Still another source of challenge with act utilitarian decision makers occurs when an individual faces one set of variable conditions and then suddenly experiences changes in those conditions. The change in conditions may lead to a change in the original decision—being be nice to someone one moment and then dislike them the next moment because the situation has changed, and liking the person is no longer beneficial to the most people.

In rule utilitarianism, there is the possibility of conflicting rules. Recall the example of the business person running late for a meeting. Suppose the business person happens to be the CEO, who may believe that it is ethically correct to arrive at important meetings on time as the members of the company will benefit from this decision. The CEO may encounter conflicting ideas about what is ethically correct if he/she is running late. Yet, the CEO believes that he/she should follow the law because this benefits society. Simultaneously, he/she believes that it is ethically correct to be on time for his meeting because it is a meeting that also benefits the society. There appears to be no ethically correct answer for this scenario.

Rights

In ethical theories based on rights, the rights established by a society are protected and given the highest priority. Rights are considered to be ethically correct and valid since a large population endorses them. Individuals may also bestow rights upon others if they have the ability and resources to do so. For example, a person may say that her friend may borrow her laptop for the afternoon.

The friend who was given the ability to borrow the laptop now has a right to the laptop in the afternoon. A major complication of this theory on a larger scale is that one must decipher what the characteristics of a right are in a society. The society has to determine what rights it wants to uphold and give to its citizens. In order for a society to determine what rights it wants to enact, it must decide what the society’s goals and ethical priorities are. Therefore, in order for the rights theory to be useful, it must be used in conjunction with another ethical theory that will consistently explain the goals of the society. For example in America people have the right to choose their religion because this right is upheld in the Constitution. One of the goals of the Founding Fathers’ of America was to uphold this right to freedom of religion.

Virtue

The virtue ethical theory judges a person by his/her character rather than by an action that may deviate from his/her normal behavior. It takes the person’s morals, reputation, and motivation into account when rating an unusual and irregular behavior that is considered unethical. For instance, if a person plagiarized a passage that was later detected by a peer, the peer who knows the person well will understand the person’s character and will judge the friend accordingly. If the plagiarizer normally follows the rules and has good standing amongst his colleagues, the peer who encounters the plagiarized passage may be able to judge his friend more leniently. Perhaps the researcher had a late night and simply forgot to credit his or her source appropriately. Conversely, a person who has a reputation for academic misconduct is more likely to be judged harshly for plagiarizing because of his/her consistent past of unethical behavior.

One weakness of virtue ethical theory is that it does not take into consideration a person’s change in moral character. For example, a scientist who may have made mistakes in the past may honestly have the same late night story as the scientist in good standing. Neither of these scientists intentionally plagiarized, but the act was still committed. On the other hand, a researcher may have a sudden change from moral to immoral character may go unnoticed until a significant amount of evidence mounts up against him/her.