ST.

IGNATIUS COLLEGES  
Santa Rosa Main Campus 
A.Y. 2020-2021 

Text Reference and Assessments for Modular Students 

ETHICS 

Dennis L. Janda, MPA, MBA 

Professor  

History of Ethics 

Discourse:  

Conflicts, along with everything necessary to approach them ethically (mainly the ability
to generate  and articulate reasoned thoughts), are as old as the first time someone was tempted
to take something from  another. For that reason, there’s no strict historical advance to the study:
there’s no reason to confidently assert  that the way we do ethics today is superior to the way we
did it in the past. In that way, ethics isn’t like the  physical sciences where we can at least suspect
that knowledge of the world yields technology allowing more  understanding, which would’ve
been impossible to attain earlier on. There appears to be, in other words,  marching progress in
science. Ethics doesn’t have that. Still, a number of critical historical moments in ethics’  history
can be spotted. 
In ancient Greece, Plato presented the theory that we could attain a general knowledge of
justice that  would allow a clear resolution to every specific ethical dilemma. He meant
something like this: Most of us know what a chair is, but it’s hard to pin down. Is something a
chair if it has four legs? No, beds have four  legs and some chairs (barstools) have only three. Is
it a chair if you sit on it? No, that would make the porch  steps in front of a house a chair.
Nonetheless, because we have the general idea of a chair in our mind, we can  enter just about
any room in any home and know immediately where we should sit. What Plato proposed is  that
justice works like that. We have or at least we can work toward getting a general idea of right
and wrong,  and when we have the idea, we can walk into a concrete situation and correctly
judge what the right course of  action is. 
Moving this over to the case of Ann Marie Wagoner, the University of Alabama student
who’s  outraged by her university’s kickback textbooks, she may feel tempted, standing there in
the bookstore, to  make off with a copy. The answer to the question of whether she ought to do
that will be answered by the  general sense of justice she’s been able to develop and clarify in
her mind. In the seventeenth and eighteenth  centuries, a distinct idea of fundamental ethics took
hold: natural rights. The proposal here is that individuals  are naturally and undeniably endowed
with rights to their own lives, their freedom, and to pursue happiness  as they see fit. As opposed
to the notion that certain acts are firmly right or wrong, proponents of this theory  including John
Locke and framers of the new American nation proposed that individuals may sort things out 
as they please as long as their decisions and actions don’t interfere with the right of others to do
the same.  Frequently understood as a theory of freedom maximization, the proposition is that
your freedom is only  limited by the freedoms others possess. 
For Wagoner, this way of understanding right and wrong provides little immediate hope
for changing  textbook practices at the University of Alabama. It’s difficult to see how the
university’s decision to assign a  certain book at a certain price interferes with Wagoner’s
freedom. She can always choose to not purchase the book, to buy one of the standard versions at
Amazon, or to drop the class. What she probably can’t justify  choosing, within this theory, is
responding to the kickback textbooks by stealing a copy. Were she to do that,  it would violate
another’s freedom, in this case, the right of the university (in agreement with a publisher) to 
offer a product for sale at a price they determine. 
A third important historical direction in the history of ethics originated with the proposal
that what you  do doesn’t matter so much as the effects of what you do. Right and wrong are
found in the consequences  following an action, not in the action itself. In the 1800s John Stuart
Mill and others advocated the idea that  any act benefitting the general welfare was
recommendable and ethically respectable. Correspondingly, any  act harming a community’s
general happiness should be avoided. Decisions about good or bad, that means,  don’t focus on
what happens now but what comes later, and they’re not about the one person making the 
decision but the consequences as they envelop a larger community. For someone like Wagoner
who’s angry  about the kickback money hidden in her book costs, this consequence-centered
theory opens the door to a  dramatic action. She may decide to steal a book from the bookstore
and, after alerting a reporter from the  student newspaper of her plan, promptly turn herself into
the authorities as a form of protest. “I stole this  book,” she could say, “but that’s nothing
compared with the theft happening every day on this campus by our  university.” This plan of
action may work out or maybe not. But in terms of ethics, the focus should be on the  theft’s
results, not the fact that she sneaked a book past security. The ethical verdict here is not about
whether  robbery is right or wrong but whether the protest stunt will ultimately improve
university life. If it does, we  can say that the original theft was good. 
Finally, ethics is like most fields of study in that it has been accompanied from the
beginning by  skeptics, by people suspecting that either there is no real right and wrong or, even
if there is, we’ll never have  much luck figuring out the difference. The twentieth century has
been influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche’s  affirmation that moral codes (and everything else,
actually) are just interpretations of reality that may be  accepted now, but there’s no guarantee
things will remain that way tomorrow. Is stealing a textbook right or  wrong? According to this
view, the answer always is, “It depends.” It depends on the circumstances, on the  people
involved and how well they can convince others to accept one or another verdict. In practical
terms,  this view translates into a theory of cultural or contextual relativism. What’s right and
wrong only reflects  what a particular person or community decides to believe at a certain
moment, and little more. 

Learning Assessment: 

Create an outline of the concerns of ethics based on the history of its development. 
Theories of Duties and Rights 
Discourse:  
 Over centuries of thought and investigation by philosophers, clergy, politicians,
entrepreneurs, parents,  students by just about everyone who cares about how we live together in
a shared world a limited number of  duties have recurred persistently. Called perennial duties,
these are basic obligations we have as human beings;  they’re the fundamental rules telling us
how we should act. If we embrace them, we can be confident that in  difficult situations we’ll
make morally respectable decisions. Broadly, this group of perennial duties falls into  two sorts:
Duties to ourselves and Duties to others 
Duties to the self-begin with our responsibility to develop our abilities and talents. The
abilities we  find within us, the idea is, aren’t just gifts; it’s not only a strike of luck that some of
us are born with a knack  for math, or an ear for music, or the ability to shepherd conflicts
between people into agreements. All these  skills are also responsibilities. When we receive
them, they come with the duty to develop them, to not let  them go to waste in front of the TV or
on a pointless job. Most of us have a feeling for this. It’s one thing if a  vaguely clumsy girl in a
ballet class decides to not sign up the next semester and instead use the time trying  to boost her
GPA, but if someone who’s really good who’s strong, and elegant, and a natural decides to just 
walk away, of course the coach and friends are going to encourage her to think about it again.
She has  something that so few have, it’s a shame to waste it; it’s a kind of betrayal of her own
uniqueness. This is the  spot where the ethics come in: the idea is that she really should continue
her development; it’s a responsibility  she has to herself because she really can develop. 
What about Andrew Madoff, the cancer sufferer? He not only donated money to cancer
research  charities but also dedicated his time, serving as chairman of the Lymphoma Research
Foundation (until his  dad was arrested). This dedication does seem like a duty because of his
unique situation: as a sufferer, he  perfectly understood the misery caused by the disease, and as
a wealthy person, he could muster a serious  force against the suffering. When he did, he fulfilled
the duty to exploit his particular abilities. The other  significant duty to oneself is nearly a
corollary of the first: the duty to do ourselves no harm. At root, this  means we have a
responsibility to maintain ourselves healthily in the world. It doesn’t do any good to dedicate 
hours training the body to dance beautifully if the rest of the hours are dedicated to alcoholism
and Xanax.  Similarly, Andrew should not only fight cancer publicly by advocating for medical
research but also fight  privately by adhering to his treatment regime. At the extreme, this duty
also prohibits suicide, a possibility  that no doubt crosses. Bernie Madoff’s mind from time to
time as he contemplates spending the rest of his life  in a jail cell. 
What Do I Owe Others? Historically Accumulated Duties to Others 
The duties we have to ourselves be the most immediate, but the most commonly
referenced duties are  those we have to others. Avoid wronging others is the guiding duty to
those around us. It’s difficult, however,  to know exactly what it means to wrong another in
every particular case. It does seem clear that Madoff 
wronged his clients when he pocketed their money. The case of his wife is blurrier, though. She
was allowed  to keep more than $2 million after her husband’s sentencing. She claims she has a
right to it because she never  knew what her husband was doing, and anyway, at least that much
money came to her from other perfectly  legal investment initiatives her husband undertook. So
she can make a case that the money is hers to keep and  she’s not wronging anyone by holding
onto it. Still, it’s hard not to wonder about investors here, especially  ones like Sheryl Weinstein,
who lost everything, including their homes. Honesty is the duty to tell the truth  and not leave
anything important out. On this front, obviously, Madoff wronged his investors by misleading 
them about what was happening with their money. Respect others is the duty to treat others as
equals in human  terms. This doesn’t mean treating everyone the same way. When a four-year-
old asks where babies come  from, the stork is a fine answer. When adult investors asked Madoff
where the profits came from, what they  got was more or less a fairy tale. Now, the first case is
an example of respect: it demonstrates an understanding  of another’s capacity to comprehend
the world and an attempt to provide an explanation matching that ability.  The second is a lie; but
more than that, it’s a sting of disrespect. When Madoff invented stories about where  the money
came from, he disdained his investors as beneath him, treating them as unworthy of the truth. 
Beneficence is the duty to promote the welfare of others; it’s the Good Samaritan side of ethical
duties. With  respect to his own family members, Madoff certainly fulfilled this obligation: every
one of them received constant and lavish amounts of cash. There’s also beneficence in Andrew’s
work for charitable causes, even  if there’s a self-serving element, too. By contrast, Madoff
displayed little beneficence for his clients. Gratitude  is the duty to thank and remember those
who help us. One of the curious parts of Madoff’s last chapter is that  in the end, at the
sentencing hearing, a parade of witnesses stood up to berate him. But even though Madoff  had
donated millions of dollars to charities over the years, not a single person or representative of a
charitable  organization stood up to say something on his behalf. That’s ingratitude, no doubt.
But there’s more here than  ingratitude; there’s also an important point about all ethics guided by
basic duties: the duties don’t exist alone.  They’re all part of a single fabric, and sometimes they
pull against each other. In this case, the duty Madoff’s  beneficiaries probably felt to a man
who’d given them so much was overwhelmed by the demand of another  duty: the duty to
respect others, specifically those who lost everything to Madoff. It’s difficult to imagine a  way
to treat people more disdainfully than to thank the criminal who stole their money for being so
generous.  Those who received charitable contributions from Madoff were tugged in one
direction by gratitude to him  and in another by respect for his many victims. All the receivers
opted, finally, to respect the victims. Fidelity  is the duty to keep our promises and hold up our
end of agreements. The Madoff case is littered with abuses  on this front. On the professional
side, there’s the financier who didn’t invest his clients’ money as he’d  promised; on the personal
side, there’s Madoff and Weinstein staining their wedding vows. From one end to the other in
terms of fidelity, this is an ugly case. Reparation is the duty to compensate others when we harm 
them. Madoff’s wife, Ruth, obviously didn’t feel much of this. She walked away with $2.5
million. The judge  overseeing the case, on the other hand, filled in some of what Ruth lacked.
To pay back bilked investors, the  court seized her jewelry, her art, and her mink and sable coats.
Those things, along with the couple’s three  multimillion-dollar homes, the limousines, and the
yacht, were all sold at public auction.
The Concept of Fairness 
The final duty to be considered fairness requires more development than those already
listed because  of its complexity. According to Aristotle, fairness 16 is treating equals equally
and unequals unequally. The  treat equals equally part means, for a professional investor like
Madoff, that all his clients get the same deal:  those who invest equal amounts of money at about
the same time should get an equal return. So even though  Madoff was sleeping with one of his
investors, this shouldn’t allow him to treat her account distinctly from  the ones belonging to the
rest. Impartiality must govern the operation. 
The other side of fairness is the requirement to treat unequal’s unequally. Where there’s a
meaningful  difference between investors which means a difference pertaining to the investment
and not something  extraneous like a romantic involvement there should correspond a
proportional difference in what investors receive. Under this clause, Madoff could find
 justification for allowing two distinct rates of return for his  clients. Those that put up money at
the beginning when everything seemed riskier could justifiably receive a  higher payout than the
one yielded to more recent participants. Similarly, in any company, if layoffs are  necessary, it
might make sense to say that those who’ve been working in the organization longest should be 
the last ones to lose their jobs. In either case, the important point is that fairness doesn’t mean
everyone gets  the same treatment; it means that rules for treating people must be applied
equally. If a corporate executive  decides on layoffs according to a last-in-first-out process, that’s
fine, but it would be unfair to make exceptions. 

Learning Assessment: 

1. Bermie Madoff was a very good though obviously not perfect fraudster. He got away with a
lot for a long  time. How could the duty to develop one’s own abilities be mustered to support
his decision to become a  criminal? 
2. In the Madoff case, what duties could be mustered to refute the conclusion that he did the
right thing by  engaging in fraud? 
3. Madoff gave up most of his money and possessions and went to jail for his crimes. Is there
anything else  he should have done to satisfy the ethical duty of reparation? 
4. In your own words, what does it mean to treat equals equally and unequal’s unequally? 

Immanuel Kant: The Duties of the Categorical Imperative 

Discourse: 

German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) accepted the basic proposition that a
theory of duties  a set of rules telling us what we’re obligated to do in any particular situation
was the right approach to ethical  problems. What he set out to add, though, was a stricter
mechanism for the use of duties in our everyday  experience. He wanted a way to get all these
duties we’ve been talking about to work together, to produce a 
unified recommendation, instead of leaving us confused between loyalty to one principle and
another. At least  on some basic issues, Kant set out to produce ethical certainty. 
Lying is about as primary as issues get in ethics, and the Madoff case is shot through with
it: Bernie  Madoff always claimed that the Ponzi scheme wasn’t the original idea. He sought
money from investors  planning to score big with complicated financial maneuvers. He took a
few losses early on, though, and faced  the possibility of everyone just taking their cash and
going home. That’s when he started channeling money  from new investors to older ones,
claiming the funds were the fruit of his excellent stock dealing. He always  intended, Madoff
says, to get the money back, score some huge successes, and they’d let him get on the  straight
and narrow again. It never happened. But that doesn’t change the fact that Madoff thought it
would.  He was lying temporarily, and for the good of everyone in the long run. 
Sheryl Weinstein had a twenty-year affair with Madoff. She also invested her family’s
life savings  with him. When the Ponzi scheme came undone, she lost everything. To get some
money back, she considered  writing a tell-all, and that led to a heart-wrenching decision
between money and her personal life. Her twenty year dalliance was not widely known, and
things could have remained that way: her husband and son could’ve  gone on without the whole
world knowing that the husband was a cuckold and the son the product of a  poisoned family.
But they needed money because they’d lost everything, including their home, in Madoff’s  scam.
So does she keep up the false story or does she turn the truth into a profit opportunity? 
What does Kant say about all this? The answer is his categorical imperative. An
imperative is  something you need to do. A hypothetical imperative is something you need to do,
but only in certain  circumstances; for example, I have to eat, but only in those circumstances
where I’m hungry. A categorical  imperative, by contrast, is something you need to do all the
time: there are ethical rules that don’t depend on  the circumstances, and it’s the job of the
categorical imperative to tell us what they are. Here, we will consider  two distinct expressions
of Kant’s categorical imperative, two ways that guidance is provided. 
The first version or expression of the categorical imperative: Act in a way that the rule
for your action  could be universalized. When you’re thinking about doing something, this means
you should imagine that  everyone did it all the time. Now, can this make sense? Can it happen?
Is there a world you can imagine where  everyone does this thing that you’re considering at
every opportunity? Take the case of Madoff asking himself,  “Should I lie to keep investor
money flowing in?” What we need to do is imagine this act as universalized:  everyone lies all
the time. Just imagine that. You ask someone whether it’s sunny outside. It is sunny, but they 
say, “No, it’s raining.” The next day you ask someone else. Again, it’s sunny, but they say, “No,
it’s snowing.”  This goes on day after day. Pretty soon, wouldn’t you just give up listening to
what people say? Here’s the  larger point: if everyone lies all the time, pretty soon people are
going to stop listening to anyone. And if no  one’s listening, is it possible to lie to them? What
Kant’s categorical imperative shows is that lying cannot be  universalized. The act of lying can’t
survive in a world where everyone’s just making stuff up all the time.  Since no one will be
taking anyone else seriously, you may try to sell a false story but no one will be buying. 
Something similar happens in comic books. No one accuses authors and illustrators of lying
when Batman  kicks some bad guys into the next universe and then strips off his mask and his
hair is perfect. That’s not a lie; 
it’s fiction. And fictional stories can’t lie because no one expects they’ll tell the truth. No one
asks whether  it’s real or fake, only whether it’s entertaining. The same would go in the real
world if everyone lied all the  time. Reality would be like a comic: it might be fun, or maybe not,
but accusing someone of lying would  definitely be absurd. Bringing this back to Madoff, as
Kant sees it he has to make a basic decision: should I  lie to investors to keep my operation
afloat? The answer is no. According to the categorical imperative, it must  be no, not because
lying is directly immoral, but because lying cannot be universalized and therefore it’s  immoral.
One more point about the universalization of acts: even if you insist that a world could exist
where  everyone lied all the time, would you really want to live there? Most of us don’t mind
lying so much as long  as we’re the ones getting away with it. But if everyone’s doing it, that’s
different. Most of us might agree that  if we had a choice between living in a place where
everyone told the truth and one where everyone lied, we’d  go for the honest reality. It just
makes sense: lying will help you only if you’re the sole liar, but if everyone’s  busy taking
advantage of everyone else, then there’s nothing in it for you, and you might just as well join 
everyone in telling the truth. 
Conclusion. The first expression of the categorical imperative act in such a way that the
rule for your  action could be universalized is a consistency principle. Like the golden rule (treat
others as you’d like to be  treated), it forces you to ask how things would work if everyone else
did what you’re considering doing. 

Learning Assessment: 

1. Imagine Madoff lied to attain his clients’ money as he did, but instead of living the high life,
he donated  everything to charity. For Kant, does this remove the ethical stain from his name?
Why not? 2. Think back to your first job, whatever it was. Did you feel like you were used by
the organization, or did  you feel like they were doing you a favor, giving you the job? How
does the experience relate to the imperative to treat others as an end and not a means? 

Rights 
Discourse: 

An ethics based on rights is similar to an ethics based on duties. In both cases specific
principles  provide ethical guidance for your acts, and those principles are to be obeyed
regardless of the consequences  further down the line. Unlike duties, however, rights-based
ethics concentrate their force in delineating your possibilities. The question isn’t so much What
are you morally required to do; it’s more about defining exactly  where and when you’re free to
do whatever you want and then deciding where you need to stop and make  room for other
people to be free too. Stated slightly differently, duties tend to be ethics as what you can’t do, 
and rights tend to be about what you can do. 
One definition of a right in ethics is a justified claim against others. I have the right to
launch a  gardening business or a church enterprise or both on my property, and you’re not
allowed to simply storm in  and ruin things. You do have the right, however, to produce your
own garden company and church on your  property. On my side, I have the right to free speech,
to say whatever I want no matter how outrageous and 
you can’t stop me. You can, however, say whatever you want, too; you can respond to my words
with whatever  comes into your head or just ignore me completely. A right, in sum, is something
you may do if you wish, and  others are morally obligated to permit your action. Duties tend to
be protective in nature; they’re about assuring  that people aren’t mistreated. Rights are the flip
side; they’re liberating in nature, they’re about assuring that  you’re as free as possible.  
Finally, duties tend to be community oriented: they’re about how we get along with
others. Rights tend  to center on the individual and what he or she can do regardless of whether
anyone else is around or not.  English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) maintained that
rights are Universal. The fundamental  rights don’t transform as you move from place to place or
change with the years. Equal. They’re the same for  all, men and women, young and old.
Inalienable. They can’t be taken, they can’t be sold, and they can’t be  given away. We can’t not
have them. This leads to a curious paradox at the heart of rights theory. Freedom is a bedrock
right, but we’re not free to sell ourselves into slavery. We can’t because freedom is the way we
are;  since freedom is part of my essence, it can’t go away without me disappearing too. One
justification for an ethics of rights is comparable with the earlier-noted idea about duties being 
part of the logic of the universe. Both duties and rights exist because that’s the way things are in
the moral  world. Just like the laws of physics tell us how far a ball will fly when thrown at a
certain speed, so too the  rules of rights tell us what ought to happen and not happen in ethical
reality. The English philosopher John  Locke subscribed to this view when he called our rights
“natural.” 
He meant that they’re part of who we are and what we do and just by living we incarnate
them. Another  justification for an ethics of rights is to derive them from the idea of duties. Kant
reappears here, especially  his imperative to treat others as ends and not as means to ends. If we
are ends in ourselves, if we possess basic  dignity, then that dignity must be reflected somehow:
it must have some content, some meaning, and the case  can be made that the content is our
possession of certain autonomous rights. 

Learning Assessment: 

Read an article from a newspaper or from the internet; and identify a moral issue where you
can use Kant’s  categorical imperative to discern the duty of the persons involved.  

Utilitarianism: The Greater Good 

Discourse: 

Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism. For consequentialism, the moral rightness

or wrongness  of an act depends on the consequences it produces. On consequentialist grounds,
actions and inactions whose  negative consequences outweigh the positive consequences will be
deemed morally wrong while actions and  inactions whose positive consequences outweigh the
negative consequences will be deemed morally right. On  utilitarian grounds, actions and
inactions which benefit few people and harm more people will be deemed 
morally wrong while actions and inactions which harm fewer people and benefit more people
will be deemed  morally right. 
Benefit and harm can be characterized in more than one way; for classical utilitarians
such as Jeremy  Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), they are defined in
terms of happiness/unhappiness  and pleasure/pain. On this view, actions and inactions that
cause less pain or unhappiness and more pleasure  or happiness than available alternative actions
and inactions will be deemed morally right, while actions and  inactions that cause more pain or
unhappiness and less pleasure or happiness than available alternative actions  and inactions will
be deemed morally wrong. Although pleasure and happiness can have different meanings,  in the
context of this chapter they will be treated as synonymous. 
Utilitarian’s concern is how to increase net utility. Their moral theory is based on the
principle of  utility which states that “the morally right action is the action that produces the most
good” (Driver 2014).  The morally wrong action is the one that leads to the reduction of the
maximum good. For instance, a utilitarian  may argue that although some armed robbers robbed
a bank in a heist, as long as there are more people who  benefit from the robbery (say, in a Robin
Hood-like manner the robbers generously shared the money with  many people) than there are
people who suffer from the robbery (say, only the billionaire who owns the bank  will bear the
cost of the loss), the heist will be morally right rather than morally wrong. And on this
utilitarian  premise, if more people suffer from the heist while fewer people benefit from it, the
heist will be morally  wrong. 
 From the above description of utilitarianism, it is noticeable that utilitarianism is opposed
to  deontology, which is a moral theory that says that as moral agents we have certain duties or
obligations, and  these duties or obligations are formalized in terms of rules. There is a variant of
utilitarianism, namely rule  utilitarianism that provides rules for evaluating the utility of actions.
The difference between a utilitarian rule  and a deontological rule is that according to rule
utilitarians, acting according to the rule is correct because  the rule is one that, if widely accepted
and followed, will produce the most good. According to deontologists,  whether the
consequences of our actions are positive or negative does not determine their moral rightness or 
moral wrongness. What determines their moral rightness or moral wrongness is whether we act
or fail to act  in accordance with our duty or duties.  

Learning Assessment: 

Distinguish the Utilitarian principle and the Kantian deontology.  

The Discourse Ethics of Jürgen Habermas 

Discourse: 

Cognitivism: First, discourse ethics starts from the assumption that even moral problems
are capable  of being solved in a rational and cognitive way. This is against a moral skepticism
which asserts that questions  of practical reason could not be decided on rational grounds: "The
non-cognitivistic conceptions are reducing 
the value of the whole world of moral intuitions based in everyday-life." With this confession to
a cognitivism  in moral theory, however, Habermas does not intend to assimilate the specific
phenomenon of 'morality' to  what is the domain of cognitivism, 'truth.' To say it in analytic
terms: normative sentences could not be treated  as propositions or as assertive sentences. There
is obvious difference between "You ought not kill" and "This  grass is green". Hence the term
"moral truth" is a quite difficult one, as Habermas himself recognizes. And  thus he claims for
normative sentences only the 'weaker assumption of a validity claim that is analogous to  the
validity claim of truth'. This weaker assumption implies two consequences. First, with this
restriction  Habermas take a step back from transcendental foundations as 'final grounding'.
Secondly Habermas situates  the validity claim of normative sentences in a social-evolutionary
context: the differentiation of the validity  claims of normative justification and of truth is the
result of the process of modernization. Discourse ethics is  a normative ethics for pluralistic
societies which no longer have a single, overarching moral authority.  

Justice vs. Good: Another second basic decision results from the cognitivistic theory of
ethics:  questions of morality are defined as questions of justifying norms. The mediating
structure of 'substantive  ethics' which is crucial to Hegel's central critique of Kant's moral
theory, is in Habermas' theory only important  for particular forms of life and contexts. In his
conception of the lifeworld Habermas has worked out the  limitedness of this horizon - a
limitedness which is culturally, historically, and socially mediated, and within  which takes place
the substantial determination of our imaginations and aims to fulfill individually our 'good  life.'
The phenomenal domain of morality, as Habermas understands it, is, in his view, structured by
inter subjectivity quite differently from the phenomenal domain of substantive ethics. The 'moral
point of view' has  a force to transcend the particularity of the contexts. We are entering the
sphere of morality when we are in  conflict with others, when there is conflict and dissent. Moral
theory has the task of preparing our means of  responding to a partial destruction of the
lifeworld. Moral theory provides a sort of mending or repair. Thus  Habermas differentiates
strictly between 'questions of the good life' and 'questions of justice'. (In this direction  lies also
the difference between 'norms' and 'values.') This is quite plausible because determining what a
'good  life' is, under conditions of a value pluralism, has to be necessarily a limited
determination. For that reason,  Habermas emphasizes the role of a formal moral theory, such as
discourse ethics, in creating the 'free spaces'  needed for a pluralism of many different 'good
lives.' But certainly moral questions arise in contexts of the  lifeworld, where our beliefs and
decisions are shaped by values, habits and prejudices. Here reappears the  problem: to what
degree must moral theory transcend the particularity of the lifeworld, so as to ensure  impartiality
and justice - without, on the other hand, being so general and universal that it is no longer
relevant  as a criterion for moral conflicts?  

Universalization: The essential point of discourse ethics by Habermas is formulated in

the principle of  universalization and what it entails - namely, the principle of discourse.
Habermas reformulates the Kantian  version of the principle of universalization in terms of inter-
subjectivity. To begin with, the principle of  universalization explains what our everyday, but
post-conventional intuition would outline for us as a strategy  for solving moral conflicts: the
principle of impartiality. This basic assumption of impartiality already draws 
a line between a cognitivistic and universal ethics and an ethics oriented towards solidarity, as
advocated by  Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice, 1982). The psychologist Carol Gilligan
criticized L. Kohlberg's theory  of moral development, especially its emphasis on the level of
'post-conventionality' as the highest and 'best'  level of moral judgment. Gilligan's critique
applies first of all to Kohlberg's reduction of moral judgments to  a formal procedure of justice -
a procedure which is ultimately a procedure of 'post-conventionality.' While  Gilligan's critique
of biases in Kohlberg's model is quite fruitful, a first problem in her approach is that she 
provides no way of distinguishing coerced solidarity from voluntary solidarity. There is a second
problem  inherent in decisions guided by solidarity: those decisions could be easily unjust and
unfair decisions for those  who are affected by those decisions, but who are not part of the shared
community. 

Learning Assessment: 

Study the pressing issues in your community and choose a situation where discourse ethics
can be applied.  Make a reflection paper.  

Confucian Ethical Traditions 

Discourse: 
 A common way to understand Confucian ethics is that it is a virtue ethic. For some
scholars this will  be an obvious, uncontroversial truth. For others, it is a misconstrual that
imposes contentious Western  assumptions on Confucianism about what it is to be a person and
what ethics should be about. In light of this  controversy, it is important to specify the sense in
which it is relatively uncontroversial to claim that virtues  constitute a major focus of attention in
these texts. Virtues in the relevant sense are qualities or traits that  persons could have and that
are appropriate objects of aspiration to realize. These virtues go into the  conception of an ideal
of a kind of person that one aspires to be. Given this rather broad sense of “virtue,” it  is
unobjectionable to say that Confucian texts discuss ethics primarily in terms of virtues and
corresponding  ideals of the person. 

What makes the characterization of Confucianism as a virtue ethic controversial are more
specific,  narrower senses of “virtue” employed in Western philosophical theories? Tiwald
(2018) distinguishes between  something like the broad sense of virtue and a philosophical usage
that confers on qualities or traits of character  explanatory priority over right action and
promoting good consequences. Virtue ethics in this sense is a  competitor to rule deontological
and consequentialist theories. There simply is not enough discussion in the  Confucian texts,
especially in the classical period, that is addressed to the kind of questions these Western 
theories seek to answer. 

There are other narrower senses of “virtue” that are clearly mischaracterizations when
applied to  Confucian ethics. Virtues might be supposed to be qualities that people have or can
have in isolation from  others with whom they interact or from their communities, societies, or
culture. Such atomistic virtues could 
make up ideals of the person that in turn can be specified or realized in social isolation. Further,
virtues might  be supposed to be identifiable through generalizations that hold true in every case,
such that the ways these  traits are concretely manifested in conduct do not vary across context
or situation. Prominent and influential  critics of the “virtue” characterization of Confucian
ethics--Roger Ames (2011) and Robert Neville (2016)-- seem to be supposing that the term is
loaded with such controversial presuppositions. 

As will become clear in subsequent discussion here, one can employ virtue language with
the  appropriate qualifiers and at the same time acknowledge much of what the critics claim as
insights of  Confucian ethics: e.g., that the process of realizing the virtues characteristically takes
place in relationship to  others--those to whom one has responsibilities as a son or daughter or
mother or father, for example--and that  it can be part of one’s very identity to be a particular
person’s son or daughter, mother or father. It is part of  the Confucian vision of a life befitting
human beings that it is a life of relationships marked by mutual care  and respect, that one
achieves fullest personhood that way. One achieves this in a manner that is particular to  one’s
circumstances, including the particular others with whom one most interacts. None of this is
inconsistent  with virtue characterizations in the broad sense (for an alternative role-ethic
characterization of Confucian  ethics that incorporates these insights in a different way, see
Ames, 2011).  

Why is the central virtue discussed in such an elusive fashion in the Analects? The
answer may lie in  the role that pre-theoretical experience plays in Chinese philosophy. Tan
(2005) has pointed to the number  and vividness of the persons in the Analects who serve as
moral exemplars. She suggests that the text invites  us to exercise our imaginations in
envisioning what these people might have been like and what we ourselves  might become in
trying to emulate them. Use of the imagination, she points out, draws our attention to the 
particularities of virtue and engages our emotions and desires. Amy Olberding (2008, 2012)
develops the  notion of exemplarism into a Confucian epistemology, according to which we get
much of our important  knowledge by encountering the relevant objects or persons. Upon initial
contact, we may have little general  knowledge of the qualities that make them so compelling to
us, but we are motivated to further investigate.  Confucius treated as exemplars legendary figures
from the early days of the Zhou dynasty, such as the Duke  of Zhou and Kings Wu and Wen.
Confucius served as an exemplar to his students, perhaps of the virtue of  ren, though he never
claimed the virtue for himself. Book Ten of the Analects displays what might appear to  be an
obsessive concern with the way Confucius greeted persons in everyday life, e.g., if he saw they
were  dressed in mourning dress, he would take on a solemn appearance or lean forward on the
stanchion of his  carriage. Such concern becomes much more comprehensible if Confucius is
being treated as an exemplar of  virtue from which the students are trying to learn. The focus of
Book Ten and elsewhere in the Analects also  suggests that the primary locus of virtue is to be
found in how people treat each other in the fabric of everyday  life and not in the dramatic moral
dilemmas so much discussed in contemporary Western moral philosophy. 
Learning Assessment: 

The students will relate the identified doctrines of the said religion to the teachings of
Christianity.  

Conceptual Model for Ethical Business Decision-making 

Discourse: 

In a dyadic business exchange environment, the relationship between two organizations

is  basically between two agents, and the relations can be of a personal-relationship nature as the
business  relationship may grow to become personal one with time. On many occasions, in spite
of the personal  nature of the relationship, interacting agents are still able to coordinate their
actions to bring economic  benefits to their organizations. However, it is possible that a ‘selfish’
agent may put his or her personal  interest before the organization’s benefit; this demands
investigation of the loss of collective welfare due  to selfish and uncoordinated behavior. Recent
research efforts have focused on quantifying this loss for  specific environments; the
investigation of price anarchy has provided a number of measures by which  is it is possible to
design social systems with robustness against selfish behaviors (Jensen, 2002; Namatame  et al,
2006). 
Business decision-making which is crucial for the growth of any business, happens at all
levels of a  business, from strategic decisions about investment and direction of future growth
taken by the board of  directors, tactical decisions taken by the managers about how their own
department may contribute most  effectively to the overall business objectives, and operational
decisions by all employees who make  decisions about the conduct of their own tasks, responses
to customers and improvements to business practice  (Tutor2U, 2007; Ma and Davidrajuh,
2005). Decision-makers use of computer aids (spread sheets, decision  support systems,
knowledge bases, etc.) to support their decision making process, and make use of  mathematical
models for the analysis of the problem, to measure the costs of chosen action, and to evaluate 
the quality of the decisions made (Ma and Davidrajuh, 2005). 
Three theories of ethics that are applied in business environments are stockholder theory, 
stakeholder theory, and social contract theory. These theories are called normative theories as
they are  prescriptive ethical principles for business environment and described in language
accessible to the  ordinary businessperson (Smith and Hasnas, 1999; Pearlson and Saunders,
2006). These theories and  their interpretations and implications are given below: 
Stockholder theory According to the stockholder theory, the stockholders contribute
capital to  the businesses and corporate managers who act as agents in advancing the
stockholders interests  (Pearlson and Saunders, 2006). According to the originator of this theory,
the only social responsibility  of business and hence the agents, is to use the resources to engage
in business activities designed to increase  profits for the stockholders; profit making must be
done by open and free competition, without deception or  fraud (Friedman, 1962; Pearlson and
Saunders, 2006).
Stakeholder theory Freeman (1984) provides a formal definition of stakeholder theory:
“A  stakeholder in any organization is (by definition) any group or individual who can affect or
is affected  by the achievement of the organization’s objectives”. According to the Stakeholder
theory, in addition to  the obligation to the stockholder, agents are also responsible for taking
care of the interests of all the  stakeholders of the business; the term stakeholder refers to any
group that vitally affects the survival and  success of the corporation (e.g. employees, suppliers,
distributors, customers) or whose interest the  corporation vitally affects (e.g. the local
community, customers) (Smith and Hasnas, 1999). This means,  unlike stockholder theory that
primarily look into the interests of stockholders, stakeholder theory  balances the rights of all
stakeholders (Pearlson and Saunders, 2006). 
Social Contract Theory Both stockholder theory and stakeholder theory do not talk about
the  society; according to the social contract theory, agents are responsible for taking care of the
needs of  a society without thinking about corporate or other complex business arrangements.
Social contract  theory forces the agents to interact in a way that brings benefits to the members
of a society. Hence,  society can grant legal recognition (‘social contract’) to a corporation to
allow it to employ social  resources toward given ends (Smith and Hasnas, 1999). The social
contract allows a corporation to exist and  demands that agents create more value to the society
than they consume for the business interactions. 

Learning Assessment: 

The students will write a philosophical reflection paper concerning social contract theory of
business.  

Feminist Ethics 
Discourse: 
 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, early feminist writers, including Mary
Wollstonecraft  (1759-1797), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815- 1902), began to address topics related to the political, economic,
and educational status of women, and  “women’s morality” (Tong and Williams 2018). This was
partly motivated by a growing awareness of the real  inequalities between men and women,
including legal and social restrictions and prohibitions. These authors  argued that disparities in
educational opportunities, and the restrictions across race and gender of roles and 
responsibilities open to women, prevented women from fully developing as people and citizens 
(Wollstonecraft [1792] 2004). This was First Wave feminism, and it accomplished significant
progress on  emancipation and enfranchisement for women and visible minorities in the West. 
In the twentieth century, Betty Friedan (1921-2006) would report similar phenomena
among her white  university-educated peers in the 1950s United States, who had returned to the
home to be full-time housewives.  Friedan wrote that this group of women appeared to suffer a
sort of stunting, an erosion of their abilities, and  a freezing of personal, intellectual, and moral
development into a childlike and immature state (Friedan [1963]  1997). It should be noted,
though, that this was not the experience of black women in the US, who often 
worked outside the home, frequently in the employ of white women, nor the experience of
working-class  women across races (Collins 1989). However, women found significant
commonalities among themselves in  the disparity of political and employment rights compared
to men in their social groups (Thompson 2002).  Around the same time in France, Simone de
Beauvoir (1908-1986) published her seminal work examining the  situation of women in French
society, describing women’s second-class status as founded upon the social and  political
interpretations of biological differences between male and female (de Beauvoir [1949] 2014).
The  work of de Beauvoir, Friedan, and many others spurred Second Wave feminism among
women in Europe and  North America, as they began to examine anew the cultural, political, and
moral positions that women  occupied. Second Wave feminists focused their efforts on such
issues as reproductive rights, domestic and  sexual violence, paid maternity leave, and equal pay
in the workplace. 
Thus, an ethics that paid particular attention to these traditionally undervalued virtues,
principles,  values, perspectives, and ways of knowing was required to provide a full
understanding of human experiences  and moral life. In the Third Wave, feminists began to
criticize and discuss the various shortcomings of the  Second Wave, including its marginalisation
of the voices and perspectives of women of oppressed races,  ethnicities, sexual identities, and
socio-economic positions (Combahee River Collective 1977; Mohanty,  Torres, and Russo
1991). A feminist ethic, which paid attention to these different identities and perspectives, 
became centrally important to taking women’s lives and experiences seriously, and central to
eliminating  oppression of women, sexual minorities, and other oppressed groups. Thus, Jaggar
framed feminist ethics as  the creation of a gendered ethics that aims to eliminate or at least
ameliorate the oppression of any group of  people, but most particularly women. 

Learning Assessment: 

The students will reflect on their experiences as woman or of women that are personally closed
to them. 
 The Ethics of Care 
Discourse: 

Care ethics, as it has become known, is an early feminist ethic that arose out of reactions
to popular  psychoanalytical accounts of male and female development in the mid-twentieth
century, and the questioning  of women’s roles in society. This ethic began from observational
studies in psychology, and later became a  positive normative account of moral behavior. The
early formulations of care ethics were criticized by both  feminist theorists and philosophers
working in other moral traditions. The objections to these early  formulations are important, and
have led to useful and interesting developments. Care ethics has advanced as  a normative
theory, but has perhaps made its strongest contribution as a metaethic, a position from which to 
begin our moral reasoning, rather than as a tool to use in sorting out particular moral cases or
dilemmas. 
For Gilligan, this ethic of care particular to women develops in three stages. First, a
woman exhibits a  focus on caring for the self in order to ensure survival, which is accompanied
by a transitional phase in which 
this mode of thinking about the self as primary is criticized as selfish. Following this critical
phase, a new  understanding of the connections between one’s self and others leads to the
development of a concept of  responsibility. Gilligan wrote that this concept of responsibility is
fused with a “maternal morality,” which is  focused on ensuring care for the dependent and
unequal people in one’s circle. At this stage, the Good is  defined in terms of caring for others.
However, Gilligan continues, too much of a focus on others in this second  stage of moral
development leads to an imbalance of attention, which means that a woman must reconsider  the
balance between self-sacrifice and the kinds of care included in conventional ideas of feminine
goodness.  The third phase, then, is one which balances the self with others, and focuses on
relationships and a new  understanding of the connections between the self and others. The
central insight in this ethic of care, Gilligan  writes, is that the self and others are interdependent
(Gilligan 1982). 
A few years after Gilligan, Nel Noddings published Caring: A Feminine Approach to
Ethics and Moral  Education, which provided a deeper analysis into the people—the care
provider and the care receiver—and  the processes involved in caring. In this book, Noddings
argued that morality requires a person to have two  emotions. The first of these emotions is a
sentiment of “natural care.” Noddings describes this care as pre 
ethical; the caretaking that a mother engages in for her child, or a maternal animal for her
offspring are equally  examples of this natural care. As Gilligan also argued, Noddings says that
concern for others, or recognition  of others’ concern for us, gives rise to a conflict between
responding to the needs of others and taking care of  our own needs. This conflict gives rise, in
turn, to the opportunity for “ethical caring,” or responding to the  recognition that another has
needs, and that we are in a position to meet these needs, and further  acknowledging that this
situation makes a moral claim on us. However, in many cases we can recognize and  respond to
another’s needs by way of natural care, a disposition to care for the other that arises
spontaneously  in us, rather than by way of ethical care, which one would only act from if natural
care has failed. In this way,  natural care is preferable to ethical care on Noddings’ account
(Noddings 1984). 

Learning Assessment: 
The students will evaluate themselves about the level of their caring thinking through a
reflection paper. 

Relational Theory 
Discourse: 

A metaethics of care provides the background for a group of ideas sometimes called
“relational  theory.” Here, relational autonomy and relational identity will specifically be
discussed. Natalie Stoljar writes  that the term “relational” makes a metaphysical claim, which
denies a notion of “atomistic” personhood,  “emphasizing instead that agents are socially and
historically embedded, not metaphysically isolated, and are,  moreover, shaped by factors such
as race and class” (Stoljar 2015). Thus, the insights provided by early  formulations of care
ethics provide a portion of the metaphysical and metaethical starting point for seeing  persons as
always and unavoidably interconnected. In other words, insights from care ethics provide 
foundational building-block concepts for an interpretation of reality, and what our moral theories
should take  into account. Thus, interpersonal and social-group relations are an important feature
of the world, and must  accordingly form an important part of our moral theorizing. 
When referring to autonomy, Stoljar writes that the term “relational” may serve to deny
that autonomy  requires self-sufficiency, as it had traditionally been formulated. In most pre-
feminist formulations of  autonomy, especially following the development by various scholars of
Immanuel Kant’s theory, a model of  cool and detached reasoning, unconcerned with personal or
familial commitments, became a requirement of  independent decision-making. However, this
way of thinking about autonomy is problematic because, under such requirements, one must
either acknowledge that no person fully meets the criteria, or willfully ignore  that any person’s
ability to be independent is facilitated by the ongoing care provided to them by others. If we 
move away from this idea of what autonomy means, and acknowledge that relationships of care
and  interdependence are valuable and morally significant, then as Stoljar argues, any useful
theory of autonomy  must at least “be ‘relational’ in the sense that it must acknowledge that
autonomy is compatible with the agent  standing in and valuing significant family and other
social relationships” (Stoljar 2015). 
In response, many theorists working on questions of agency, decision theory, and ethics,
among other  areas, have adopted an account of autonomy that is relational (Christman 1991;
Westlund 2009; Benson 1991).  Relational theories of autonomy generally start with the minimal
acknowledgment that we begin as non autonomous beings, as infants, and develop into
autonomous beings gradually as we learn various sets of skills  and gain specific abilities central
to making our own decisions, from the mundane to the momentous. Many  relational theories of
autonomy also take into account that our autonomy is impacted by the process of  socialization
(Benson 1991; Meyers 1987), or may be suspended at various times in our lives. For example, 
we may become gravely ill, and become comparatively much more dependent upon others for
the duration of  the illness. We may also become less autonomous as we enter into the later
decades of life. Autonomy, thus,  may be something that is a matter of degrees or stages of life
(Meyers 1987; Friedman 1997). Relational  theories of autonomy can account for these facts of
human existence, attending to the importance of our close  relationships in facilitating decision-
making and the achievement of a good and satisfying life. 
 Relational identity is another theoretical perspective on human development and
experience that is  metaethically informed by care and by recognition of intersectionality: the
intersecting identities people hold.  Intersectionality was conceptualized by Kimberlé Crenshaw,
reflecting the reality of black women’s identities  as being formed within the hierarchical power
structures of both gender and race (as well as class, sexual  orientation, ability, and so on)
(Crenshaw 1989; 1991). In political or social movements that are oriented  around “single-axis”
issues, e.g. exclusively race or exclusively gender, Crenshaw argued that people with  more than
one of these identities were further marginalized. Crenshaw’s work is politically important, and 
important to a feminist ethic which seeks, as Jaggar said, to theorize for all oppressed people and
especially  women. The acceptance of intersectionality has led to a recognition that persons are
complex, and may  simultaneously experience realms of their identity that are privileged while
other realms of their identity are 
oppressed. A feminist ethic must begin from the recognition of these intersecting dynamics of
power within  and among individual women and social groups. 

Learning Assessment: 

The students will make an art work which portrays relational theory.  

Bio-Medical Ethics, Law and Religion 

Discourse: 

Ethics is the application of values and moral rules to human activities. Bioethics is a
subsection of  ethics, actually a part of applied ethics, which uses ethical principles and decision
making to solve actual or  anticipated dilemmas in medicine and biology. Ethics seeks to find
reasoned, consistent, and defensible solutions to moral problems. Clinical bioethical reasoning is
primarily case based. Much like clinical practice  that relies both on general rules and case-based
experiences, bioethical reasoning relies on learned and  accepted moral rules, prior bioethical
decisions derived from thoughtful reflection, and a recognition of unique  factors in individual
situations that differentiate one case from another. This method of case-based reasoning  is
termed casuistry, although physicians may better know it as clinical reasoning. When clinicians
think of  bioethics, they often think either of the legal bases for their actions both prescriptive
and proscriptive or their  religious background. Neither directly applies. Rather, clinicians are
obligated to make patient-centered,  value-driven ethical decisions. 
Bioethics and the law. How does bioethics differ from law? Both give rules of conduct to
follow. Laws  stem from legislative statutes, administrative agency rules, or court decisions, and
they often vary in different  locales and are enforceable only in those jurisdictions where they
prevail. Ethics incorporates the broad values  and beliefs of correct conduct. Although bioethical
principles do not change because of geography (at least  not within one culture), interpretation of
the principles may evolve as societies change. This same evolution  occurs within the law. Good
ethics often makes good law, whereas good law does not necessarily make good  ethics.
Although societal values are incorporated into both the law and within ethical principles and
decisions,  ethical principles are basic to society. Most laws, although based loosely on societal
principles, are actually  derived from other laws. 
 Significant overlap exists between legal and ethical decision making. Both ethical
analysis (in  bioethics committee deliberations) and the law (in the courts) use case-based
reasoning in an attempt to  achieve consistency. Legal and ethical dicta have existed since
ancient time, have evolved over time,  incorporate basic societal values, and form the basis for
policy development within health care as well as in  other parts of society. 
The law and bioethics differ markedly, however, in some areas. For instance, the law
operates under  formal adversarial process rules, such as those in the courtroom, which allow
little room for deviation, whereas  bioethics consultations are flexible enough to conform to the
needs of each institution and circumstance, and, 
rather than being adversarial, are designed to assist all parties involved in the process. The law
also has some  unalterable directives, sometimes called black-letter law, that require specific
actions. Bioethics, although  based on principles, is designed to weigh every specific situation on
its own merits. Perhaps the key difference  between bioethics and the law is that bioethics relies
heavily on the individual person’s values-the patients’  or their surrogates’. Also, even without
the intervention of trained bioethicists, medical personnel can and  often should be able to make
ethically sound decisions. The law does not consider individual values and  generally requires
lawyers for interpretation. 
Bioethics and Religion. In homogenous societies, religions have long been the arbiters of
ethical  norms. In multicultural societies, with no single religion holding sway over the entire
populace, a patient  value-based approach to ethical issues is necessary. Religion still influences
bioethics, however. Modern  bioethics uses many decision-making methods, arguments, and
ideals that originated from religion. In  addition, clinicians’ personal spirituality may allow them
to relate better to patients and families in crisis.  Although various religions may appear
dissimilar, most have a form of the Golden Rule, or a basic tenet that  holds, "do unto others as
you would have them do unto you." Moral rules govern actions that are immoral to  do without
an adequate moral reason and can justifiably be enforced and their violation punished. Although 
none of these rules is absolute, they all require one to not cause evil. Somewhat paradoxically,
however, they  may neither require preventing evil nor doing good. Problems surface when
trying to apply religion-based  rules to specific bioethical situations. For example, although "do
not kill" is generally accepted, the  interpretation of the activities that constitute killing, active or
passive euthanasia, or merely reasonable  medical care vary with the world’s religions, as they
do among various philosophers. Therefore several  generally accepted secular principles have
emerged, such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and  fairness, which have guided
ethical thinking over the past three decades. 

Learning Assessment: 

The students will identify an ethical dilemma and provide a response to such
dilemma using any  philosophical systems.  

Ethics in the Age of the Internet 

Discourse: 
 As technology continues to progress and access to the Internet proliferates worldwide,
traditional  barriers, such as time and distance, have been overcome by the fluid interaction and
exchange of diverse  civilizations and cultures. The confluence of access and information has led
to the emergence of an  interconnected global village, in which events in one corner of the world
can bear important and sometimes  devastating consequences in the other, as witnessed by the
tragic events of 11 September 2001. While  universal access to this vast network of information
has clearly enhanced our overall knowledge, it has also 
exacerbated complex ideological, political and social disparities among various communities in
the  underprivileged fringes of our global village. 
With the advent of information technology, modern class systems are no longer
determined by birth  but increasingly by access to opportunity. One of the neglected corollaries
of technological advancement is  the creation of envy and animosity among those who have
suddenly become aware of what the world has to  offer, only to be frustrated by the inability to
access such opportunities. Previously concealed by geographical  constraints, the ubiquitous
impression that others are living a more prosperous life merely by being born in a  country that
offers seemingly unlimited opportunities for advancement has thus created a mixture of 
resentment, expectation and hope among those struggling in poverty-stricken and oppressed
conditions.  Individuals attempting to maintain their cultural identity while pursuing their
aspirations face difficult choices  that transcendent simple economics. Such tensions can result in
cultural clashes between civilizations, and  those who are unable to reconcile cultural differences
or forgo their cultural identity find themselves grappling  with an ever-changing dynamic that
eludes comprehension. 
Unless basic ideological needs of human beings are reassessed, it is doubtful that
economic aid and  technical expertise alone can bridge the increasing rift between cultures. From
unconscionable acts of  persecution to the horrors of war, it is often the difference in the belief of
what is right and wrong that has  motivated and served to justify the greatest atrocities. 
The more engrained and inflexible an ideology, the harder it becomes to accommodate
and tolerate  difference. From friendships, family relationships and even self-perception,
individual ideology is the very  thread by which our lives are tied within the fabric of society. 
The reality of globalization requires that we learn to embrace diversity and plurality
while fostering an  innate sense of unity and harmony. We must seek to equip ourselves with the
tools that will enable us to  comprehend our fellow human beings more profoundly and to
conduct ourselves in an appropriate and  universally acceptable manner, regardless of particular
ideology, race or religion. 
All of us share a direct responsibility for improving the state of the world; however,
notwithstanding  popular perception, the process of initiating true global change must begin from
within, for ultimately any  society is only as benevolent and tolerant as the individuals who
comprise it. By seeking to first educate and  improve ourselves, we can set in motion the
mechanism to effect substantive change on a universal scale. 
One key to pursuing such an internal transformation is the acquisition of awareness and
understanding  of the prevalent social, cultural and ethical issues that impact our daily lives. The
more informed, involved  and concerned we become as citizens of the world, the more
effectively each of us can contribute towards  building a more peaceful, just and secure society. 
Considering that the equalization of opportunities is not reasonably foreseeable in the
near future, what  is needed are new tools that will enable us to cope with the ideological and
social disparities brought to light  by technological advancements. While it is perhaps human
nature to consider our plight as being unique to  our time, such a myopic view of history puts us
at danger of repeating the errors of the past. Indeed, the clash  between civilizations and cultures
is in no way a phenomenon that is unique to our time; the only difference 
is the scale with which such clashes occur. The world population is exponentially expanding. We
have access  to more information than ever before and can communicate it faster and more
effectively across the globe.  Universal access to this global web of information has levelled the
playing field, and the world has shrunk  into a global village. 
In today`s multilateral world, prosperity and hope live alongside doom and despair. In a
world marked  by diminishing borders and clashing ideologies, the necessity of collectively
developing and formulating  universal standards of ethical behavior has become an urgent
priority that can no longer be ignored. The  development of a shared global ethic to guide human
action mandates an in-depth study of our duties and  obligations alongside our fundamental
rights and liberties. 

Learning Assessment: 

The students will make a digital art work which portrays the nature of human being as a moral
agent in the  IT world.  

Environmental Ethics 
Discourse: 

Environmental ethics is theory and practice about appropriate concern for, values in, and
duties to the  natural world. Environmental ethics as a separate field of study was unknown in
Western philosophy until the  mid-1970s. That was to change rapidly. Today, thousands of
works have been published, by policymakers,  lawyers, environmental professionals, foresters,
conservation biologists, ecologists, philosophers, economists,  sociologists, historians,
developers, business persons, citizens -all with an ethical concern about human uses  of and
relations to the natural environment. For example, if global warming is occurring, then sea level
is  likely to continue to rise, and changes in weather patterns are also likely to occur. Many
scientists think that  global change has already occurred due to anthropogenic forces. While it is
not arguable that humans can exert  global-scale influence on the planet, it is not known whether
changes induced by humans are equal to or  greater than (or complementary to) natural changes.
Scientific research must continue in order to address these  questions. Change is a key
component of climate. It has been shown that human migrations due to climate  change are not
unprecedented in the Earth's history. But are the changes that have been induced by humans 
causing such rapid changes that humans cannot adapt? Will the depletion of the ozone layer
cause death to  many species and disease for humans? Will desertification ren-der large areas of
arable land useless? The  answers to these questions are controversial and probably lie
somewhere between the extreme positions. The  seriousness of the problems has not been
quantified. Some think it unwise to institute expensive changes when  the problems and
consequences are uncertain. Alterative wait-and-see approach can have disastrous 
consequences. Tougher laws seem neces-sary. Because the actions of humanity may have far
reaching effects,  many environmental problems must be considered global in scope. The actions
of people residing in mid lat-itude areas of the Earth may affect people living in high latitudes
and vice versa. Solutions to major 
prob-lems (e.g., ozone-layer depletion) cannot be devised without attention to global concerns.
People must  work together on both a global and an individual level in order to solve many of the
Earth's myriad  environ-mental problems. The proposed solu-tion to the ozone-layer depletion
problem is an excellent  example of an international effort to solve a global-scale problem. 
Sustainable development -Human habitation and activity that meets the needs of the
present without  compromising the ability of future generations to meet their!' own needs;
according to J. Ronald Engel, "the  kind of human activity that nourishes and perpetuates the
historical fulfill-ment of the whole community of  life on Earth."  
Environmental ethics. Theory and practice about appropriate concern for, values in, and
duties to the  natural world.  
Naturalistic ethics. An ethic in which humans are concerned about appropriate respect
and. duty toward  those who are other than human.  
Humanistic ethics. An ethic in which humans care about the environment because of the
impact it has  on human beings rather than out· of intrinsic respect for nature (Cr. naturalistic
ethics).  Biocentrism. An ethic that respects life, with the focus on any and all living beings. 
Deep Ecology. An ethic that holds that humans, like all other species, are what they are only in
their  connections with their natural environment, that there is no division in reality between the
human and the non human realms.  
Axiological Environmental Ethics. An ethic that focuses on questions of what is
intrinsically valu-able  in nature and how these elements can be sus-tained and increased.  
Bioregionalism. A view that emphasizes living on regional landscapes. The most
workable ethic is one  in which persons identify with their geography.  
Ecofeminism. According to Karen Warren, "the position that there are important
connections  historical, experiential, symbolic, theoretical between the domination of women and
the domination of nature,  an understanding of which is crucial to both feminism and
environmental ethics." 

Learning Assessment: 

The students will relate the identified environmental ethical principles with societal realities.