Milgram experiment - when people are ordered to do something by someone they view

in authority, most will obey even when doing so violates their consciousness.
Obedience to authority over consciousness.
Sherman experiment - Education can strengthen the power of conscience over
authority.

consistency - absence of contradiction. A person's actions are in harmony with

his/her inner values.
To achieve consistency, we must work to shape our desires to produce a kind of
internal harmony.

>While consistency is surely not suffient for ethics, it is at least necessary for
ethics.

________________
Ethical relativism
Practices considered morally acceptable in some societies but condemned in others.

action depends on the societal norms.

_____________________
Everyday ethics:
Morality requires regular reflection on the day-to-day decisions that confront us.

The five questions - A systematic approach:

Did I practice any virtues today?
Did I do more good than harm today?
Did I treat people with dignity and respect today?
Was I fair and just today?
Was my community better because I was in it? Was I better because I was in my
community?

This everyday ethical reflection must occur before we can effectively confront the
larget moral questions.

Animal rights: Belief that only human have moral standing. This view is
athropocentric (human centric). Aristotle viewed nature as hierarchy, believing
that less rational creatures are made for the benefit of those that are more
rational.
Immanuel Kant says animals are not self-conscious and are a means to an end.
Jeremy Bentham and JS Mill - "The question is not can they reason or can they talk,
but, can they suffer?"
from anthropocentric view to ecocentric view.
_______________________
Development of ethics:
Ethics are absorbed through -
Parent-Child reltionship
Imitastion of adult behaviour
Social Interaction

Role of __ in development of ethics -

Family - first social relationship, trust and firmness.
religion - accept an established set of moral rules.

factors influencing individual ethics:

family influence
peer influence
situational factors
life experiences
personal values
morals

>There must be a crisis, challenge, problem or serious interruption of the normal

life pattern or comfort zone to influence the ethical system.
_______________________

Stages of Moral development:

Developed by Kohlberg -
Humans are intrinsically motivated to explore and become competent at functioning
in their environments.
He proposed the Socratic method of teaching.

>oriented by reciprocity and mutual care and respect, growing humans adapt to
larger larger circles of justice, care and respect.

Moral reasoning is the basis for ethical behaviour.

6 stages:
Obedience and punishment orientation
Self-interest orientation
Interpersonal accord and personality
Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
Social contract orientation
Universal ethical principles

equality, recoprocity
________________________________
Relevance of ethics:
Ethics can provide a moral map - a framework that we can use to find our way
through difficult issues
Ethics can pinpoint a disagreement - Can take a lot of heat out of an argumehnt
Ethics doesn't always give right answers - It is just a set of principles.
Ethics is a source of group strength

Need of ethics in public relations:

A sense of belongingness
personal and professional integrity
Improve business relationships
Prohibit inappropriate behaviour

>ethical inquiry is normative in the sense that it suggests "norms".

Functional norms - Driving in the left side
Moral norm - Non-discrimination

Pluralism, rights and fairness are three core principle which have a universal
resonance.
Rights - protections and entitlements in relation to duties and responsibilities.

Kitty Genovese 1964 case study - We share the basic duty not to allow the
conditions of harm.

>as you all know, it has been the pursuit of utopia - of perfect societies and
outcomws - that have led to the worst episodes in human history.

The key problem, therefore, is not corruption, but weak enforcement

An active civil society acts as a watchdog over the actions of__
>If public sector pay is low, corruption tends to be a survival strategy.

The role of civil service institutes is often compared with the position of the
watchdogs on the behaviour of public officials.

Govt ovbersight and external mechanisms are no adequate unless they are
supplemented by strong civic institutions which are able to question govt decisions
and official actions to ensure that they abide by the rule of law and ethical
standards in the public service.

_______________________

How to identify an ethical issue?

>are we maximising good and minimising harm for everyone affected?
>are we respecting human rights?
>are we doing our part to look out for the common good in this situation?
>Does this action represent the kind of person I was to be?
___________________

Branches of ethics
Environmental ethics -
ecologic humanism - all ontological entites, animate or in-animate, can be given
ethical worth purely on the basis that they exist.
anthropocentrism

Climate ethics -
Human induced climate change

Bioethics-

___________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________
HUMAN VALUES:

>when your values are clear, making decisions is easier

>the purpose of education is to provide adequate competence to actualise this
aspiration.
Consistency