Last minute advice A2 Applied Ethics

I would strongly advise students to pre-prepare a position on the key syllabus areas – eg are you basically for or against emotivism in the meta-ethcial debate, and why, and backed up by which arguments from which philosophers? I would also pre-prepare your view on the applied issues – for example, which ethical aproach do you think is the best for dealing with issues raised by business ethics or issues raised by sexual ethics? Which theory of environmental ethics best meets the concerns of climate change and is most likely to entail appropriate action? How would you define 'best approach' here? is it one that includes a cocnern for our motives, for example, or which has a clearest sense of intrinsic goodness?

Environmental ethics

This is a big area but one in which there is a central question to consider – how may the environment be ascribed intrinsic goodness? In other words, on what basis are we to argue, if we do, that the environment is good in itself rather than instrumentally good – good for human beings? Environmentalists like Aldo Leopold and his Land Ethic argues that goodness lies in the interdependency of all things – hence the word ‘eco-holism’ meaning ‘of one entity’. Humans should not be seen as superior to the rest of nature, but part of a whole. More traditional theories like utilitarianism would argue that the natural world is a means to an end – the end being human happiness or the welfare and interests, in Singer’s theory, of higher order sentient beings (eg including primates but not fish). In a recent article on environmental virtue ethics, Rosalind Hursthouse follows the writer Paul Taylor in arguing for a sense of wonder and respect for nature being two virtues that could be built in to our character through education in order to provide a safeguard against human abuse of the environment. The Gaia theory of James Lovelock has an almost religious basis in the belief in the one, biotic super-organism which has (in early Lovelock at least) an overarching telos or goal which is to contribute to the good of the whole biosphere by creating mechanisms which regulate things like temperature and the level of oxygen in the atmosphere. By the Daisyworld experiment Lovelock attempts to refute the criticism of Richard Dawkins, that nature (be it animate or inanimate) cannot have conscious goals and purposes. Studnets should be prepared to provide a critical analysis of Gaia theory, Lovelock’s Land Ethic, or Christian approaches to the environment. Don’t forget to revise Lynn White’s argument that Christianity has been part of the problem – it’s on the website!

Business Ethics

When this was added to the syllabus teachers were a little baffled about how to teach it. I think it is best done through case studies which then link the behaviour of individuals and corporations to theories we have already studied – Kant’s theory of the good will and his stress on purity of motive, utilitarian theories of maximising welfare or happiness, and natural law with its stress on the true purpose of human beings to act rationally for the common good or flourishing life of the community as expressed in the term ‘eudaimonia”. So I would check out on the website the case study on Ford Pinto and utilitarian ethics which shows just how wrong things can go when you ascribe economic values to everything (a bit like Bentham’s hedons) but end up with a value you impute for a human life at $145.000. It is then a small move to argue, as Ford did, that it isn’t worth recalling dangerous cars on straight cost/benefit calculation. Then you could look at Enron, the energy giant that manipulated energy prices in California by deliberately creating power cuts and ask how would a Kantian have behaved in these circumstances? Duty to treat people properly (not just as a means to an end but an end in themselves) would surely have prevented this kind of callous abuse and dishonesty. Or you could explore the virtue ethics of MacIntyre and his critique of the bureaucratic nature of our culture where managers may indulge in ‘manipulative social relations’ – in other words, put profit before human interests. Surely a character-based ethic that inculcated in each of us a ‘second nature’ which recoiled against such behaviour would help create the sort of moral courage which would prevent immoral conduct? Even if it cost the ‘whistleblower’ his or her job.

Sexual ethics

Sexual ethics is a top tip for this year – something like “Virtue ethics is the best approach to issues surrounding sexual ethics” or “which ethical theory do you think is the best approach….”.The four issues you need to know about are: pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex (adultery), contraception and homosexuality. They could name one of these in the question or they could ask a general question in which you need to narrow your answer down (by the way, always be prepared to narrow the scope of a question down – this is part of the skill of writing effective answers. You can only answer what it is reasonable to suppose a human being can answer in 45 minutes!). What are the general issues surrounding sexual ethics? Well, there are three general ones: issues of personal welfare from the individual’s viewpoint, issues of social welfare from society’s viewpoint (this is where statements about ‘family values’ come in – they are values which are arguably producing social goods) and issues of intrinsic goodness of a sexual act (which could be linked to motive as in Kantian ethics, or results as in utilitarian ethics, or natural rational purpose as in Natural Law, or human flourishing as in Virtue Ethics). If you haven’t done it already, get together this weekend with your friends and produce a mega-grid which includes all the major theories you are meant to know about and then lists the moral issues each of these four areas produce, and then relates the ethical theory to those areas. Remember there is a meta-ethical question behind much of this – is there an objective (naturalistic) basis for adjudicating between different ethical viewpoints, or is it just ‘up to me’ (subjective)? And don’t forget to prepare an example which grounds what you are talking about in a film, novel, real life experience or hypothetical set of circumstances. Then you should be able to nail any question they throw at you!

Best wishes

Peter