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Applied Ethics

ISSUES IN SOCIAL ETHICS

The dignity of life

Human Dignity – the state of being worthy of honor or respect (dictionary)

The right to life extend from conception to natural death.
It applies across our whole existence.
“a way of appearing or behaving that suggests seriousness and self-control”
“the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed”
Should be protected as to what is written in the UDHR

Genesis 1: 26-27 God is created according to God’s image and likeness

Human life is sacred because the human person is the most central and clearest reflection of
God among us.
Human beings have transcendent worth and value that comes from God; this dignity is not
based on any human quality, legal mandate, or individual merit or accomplishment.

What is Social Justice?

• Social justice is based on the premise that all people are entitled to the same basic rights and
freedoms as everybody else.
• It is based on the idea of a society which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just
share of the benefits of society
• This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for
personal activity, and social privileges.

WHAT IS JUSTICE?
Aristotle - equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally.
Plato - to each his/her due
Marx –from each according to his ability, to each according to his
need
Rawls – Principles of justice pertain to the assigning of rights and
duties and to the distribution of benefits and burdens of social
cooperation.

Types of justice
Distributive Justice - Benefits and burdens
Retributive Justice- Criminal justice

The central question of distributive justice is the question of how the benefits and burdens of
our lives are to be distributed.
 Justice involves giving each person his or her due.
  Equals are to be treated equally.

What is to be distributed?
 Income (income tax)
 Wealth (inheritance tax)
 Opportunities (equal opportunities)

To whom are good to be distributed?

 Individual persons
 Groups of persons
 Classes

DISTRIBUTION OF WHAT, BY WHOM, WHERE AND BASED ON WHAT?

What are the benefits and burdens to be socially distributed?
Rights, duties, services (medicine, education), honors and dishonors, privileges, support etc.
Who is distributing them?
The state, NGO sector, for-profit sector(+various combinations).
Distributed where? L
ocal government territories, nation-states, supra-national or even global distribution.

DISTRIBUTION BASED ON WHAT?

DESERT – distribution is based on what people deserve.
EQUALITY – classical liberal principle of each accounting for one.
NEED – distribution is based on what people need.

Distributive Justice
- concerns the socially just allocation of goods. Often contrasted with just process, which
is concerned with the administration of law, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes
- In social psychology, distributive justice is defined as perceived fairness of how
rewards and costs are shared by (distributed across) group members. For example, when some
workers work more hours but receive the same pay, group members may feel that distributive
justice has not occurred.
- To determine whether distributive justice has taken place, individuals often turn to the
behavioral expectations of their group. If rewards and costs are allocated according to the
designated distributive norms of the group, distributive justice has occurred.

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

 a system of criminal justice based on the punishment of offenders rather than on

rehabilitation

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
 a system of criminal justice which focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through
reconciliation with victims and the community at large.

Social Contract Theory (Rousseau)

 When we came into contact with other people we entered a Society.

 When we created State & government we entered a Social Contract.
  Agreed to surrender their natural rights into the hands of common superior and to obey
his commands.
 A contract binding each and all to unquestioning obedience to a sovereign could really
establish a stable commonwealth.
An agreement between (a) members of the community or (b) members of the community and
the Sovereign.

The Sovereign: The legitimate head of state after the Social Contract: (a) a person or group of
persons, such as a monarch or a government, or (b) the people representing themselves.

Thomas Hobbes
 Man entered into government for Safety.
 The main role of government is to protect its citizens.
 Rights and liberty always come after safety and protection.
 Never overthrow the government because doing so creates anarchy and then there is no
safety.
 Theory of social justice

According to Rawls all citizens in this situation will agree on two principles:

– The first principle (the principle of equal liberty), “each person must have an equal right to the
most extensive total system of equal basic liberty for all, consistent with a single system for all.”
This means that everyone has the same basic rights and duties. Everyone wants the same
basic rights: freedom of movement, expression, assembly, property etc.. “The basic liberties
may be restricted in the name of freedom.”
– The second principle (the principle of inequality) states that the inequalities (economic and
social) are justified only if: attached to positions, jobs available to all under conditions of equal
opportunity impartial (principle of equal opportunities). This assumes that the company must
reduce the maximum possible natural differences.

Resource-Based Approaches: Ronald Dworkin

People should be made to accept the consequences of their choices

People who choose to work hard to earn more income should not be required to subsidize those
choosing more leisure and hence less income

People should not to suffer consequences of circumstances over which they have no control

People born with handicaps, ill-health, or low levels of natural endowments have not brought
these circumstances upon themselves

Welfare-Based Approaches
 Seeks to maximize well-being of society as a whole
 Utilitarian in inspiration: it seeks to maximize welfare for everyone.

Desert-Based Approaches
 People should be rewarded for their:
 Actual contribution
 Effort
 Seeks to raise the overall standard of living by rewarding effort and achievement
 May be applied only to working adults

JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENT

Crime – An act against the law
Justice – The due allocation of reward and punishment. The maintenance of what is right
Law – Rules made by Parliament and enforceable by the courts.
Responsibility – Being responsible for one’s actions
Sin – An act against the will of God

Why is it important to have laws?

PURPOSE OF PUNISHMENT
Deterrence – The idea that punishments should be of such a nature that they will put people off
committing crimes
Reform – The idea that punishments should try to change criminals so that they will not commit
crimes again
Rehabilitation – To restore to normal life
Retribution – The idea that punishments should make criminals pay for what they have done
wrong

Retributive punishment

• a theory of punishment that when an offender breaks the law, justice requires that he or she
suffer in return.

• It also requires that the response to a crime is proportional to the offence

• Prevention of future crimes (deterrence) or rehabilitation of the offender are other purposes
of punishment.

• Retribution is different from revenge because retributive justice is directed only at wrongs,
has inherent limits, is not personal and involves no pleasure at the suffering of others[1] and
employs procedural standards.
Capital punishment
• Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death
by the state as a punishment for a crime. Capital punishment is a relevant issue for every
human society and it constitutes a “dilemma of hidden human divinity versus hubristic death
penalty.” The concept of a right to life is central to debates on the issues of capital punishment.
• Capital punishment also called the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by
the state as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offences.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica “capital punishment, also called death penalty,
execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense.
Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due
process of law.

Arguments against Capital Punishments

 Denial of basic right – According to Humans Right Association capital punishment

overrules our most basic human right – the right to life. Human life has fundamental
value. The blessedness of human life is denied by the death penalty
 The possibility of error –The most common and most cogent argument against capital
punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or
flaws in the justice system
 Unfair Judgment – In many death penalty cases the defendants remain poorly
represented or not represented at all because of their poverty, which cause greater
injustice. It also notice a kind of racial discrimination this happens due to varied reasons.
Because the poor can offer very low compensation the defense lawyers are often
incompetent, resulting in losing the case. Due to prejudice and bias, poor people, and
people from minority sections become soft target for such capital punishments
 Lack of Deterrence – The purpose of any punishment should be deterrence from
repeating the same act. But, according to the statistics available, the death penalty has
not been effective in controlling the homicide rate. The studies have revealed the
shocking truth that executions actually increase the murder rate. That means the capital
punishment does not deter violent crime. According to a New York Times study, the last
20 years witnessed 48% homicide rate in states with the implementation of capital
punishment compared to 23% in the states without capital punishment.
 Justifying circumstances – Sometimes, persons suffering from emotional trauma,
abandonment, violence, neglect or destructive social environment commit such heinous
crimes. These mitigating situations can have devastating effect on their humanity. So, it
is unfair to hold them fully responsible for their crimes. It is our communal responsibility
to show some sympathy to some extent. It’s generally accepted that people should not
be punished for their actions unless they have a guilty mind – which requires them to
know what they are doing and that it’s wrong.

Business ethics

Ethics is a set of rules that define right and wrong conduct.

Business ethics can be defined as written and unwritten codes of principles and values
that govern decisions and actions within a company. In the business world, the
organization’s culture sets standards for determining the difference between good and
bad decision making and behavior.
 3 Models of Management Ethics

 Moral Management—Conforms to high standards of ethical behavior.

 Immoral Management—A style devoid of ethical principles and active opposition to what
is ethical.
 Amoral Management— Intentional - does not consider ethical factors
Unintentional - casual or careless about ethical considerations in business

The field of business ethics examines moral controversies relating to the social responsibilities
of capitalist business practices, the moral status of corporate entities, deceptive advertising,
insider trading, basic employee rights, job discrimination, affirmative action, drug testing, and
whistle blowing.

Warren Buffet’s rule of thumb for ethical conduct

“…I want employees to ask themselves (when they are in doubt about whether a particular
conduct is ethical or not) whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next
day on the front page of their local paper – to be read by their spouses, children and friends –
with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter.” [Berkshire Hathaway’s code of
ethics]

Environmental ethics
• a discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also
the value and moral status of, the Environment and its non human-contents.
• Environmental ethics believe that humans are a part of society as well as other living
creatures, which includes plants and animals.
• These items are a very important part of the world and are considered to be a functional part
of human life.
• These include the rights of animals, the morality of animal experimentation, preserving
endangered species, pollution control, management of environmental resources, whether
eco-systems are entitled to direct moral consideration, and our obligation to future
generations.

Importance of environmental ethics

* Environmental Ethics is important because its study forces people to consider how their
actions affect others and the environment.

 As stewards of God’s creation… WE are ought to take good care of it because He made
it for us.
 Biomedical/clinical ethics

Medical ethics refers :

• Chiefly to the rules of etiquette adopted by the medical profession to regulate professional
conduct with each other, but also towards their individual patients and towards society, and
includes considerations of the motives behind that conduct.
• The practice of medicine is rooted in a covenant of trust among patients, healthcare
professionals, and society.
• The ethics of medicine must seek to balance the healthcare professional’s responsibility to
each patient and the professional, collective obligation to all who need medical care.

BASIC RIGHTS AND ETHICAL DUTIES

 Human Rights
 Access to health care
 Right to non-discrimination
 Right to privacy and confidentiality
 Right to environment that is not harmful to health or well being Human

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Justice: This refers to the need to treat all people equally and fairly
Society uses a variety of factors as a criteria for distributive justice, including the following:
• to each person an equal share
• to each person according to need
• to each person according to effort
• to each person according to contribution
• to each person according to merit
• to each person according to free-market exchanges
• We should strive to provide some decent minimum level of health care for all citizens,
regardless of ability to pay

Beneficence: This refers to the tradition of acting always in the patients’ best interest to
maximize benefits and minimize harm.
 Non-malfeasance: This principle ensures that treatment or research ought not to produce
harm
• Negligence
• Misconduct

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributive_justice
https://www.slideshare.net/stevenjkashdan/types-of-justice?from_action=save
https://www.slideshare.net/ringer21/john-rawls
https://www.slideshare.net/maheshjp05/social-contract-theory-77485963
https://www.slideshare.net/bhavukrastogi/capital-punishment-28298069
https://www.ttu.ee/public/p/projektid/EEMD/kadri_22_05.pdf