ETHICAL

REASONING
 Preliminary Questions

• What is ethics?
• Why do we need it?
• Why do we study ethics?

• What is ethical reasoning?

• Is ethical reasoning something teachable?
• Why do we need to acquire the skill of ethical
reasoning?
• Why is it important to think about moral judgments?
• Does ethical reasoning motivate, stimulate or incite
ethical action?
What is the difference between these
questions?

• How do I live?
• How should I live?
• How should one live?
• “We are discussing no small matter, but how we
ought to live.” (Socrates in Plato’s Republic)

• Ethics (or moral philosophy), as a discipline of

philosophy, is the conscious reflection on our moral
beliefs and moral judgments with the aim of
improving, extending, or refining those beliefs and
judgments in some way.
 Morality and Ethics
MORALITY

• Precisely because we, the human beings, live together in

groups, in a society, we inevitably face choices that involve
other people - choices that hurt or help them. We may choose
not to pay attention to the concerns of morality; however that
does not mean we can avoid making moral decisions.

• Morality is about living (together), and as long as we

continue living, we will inevitably be confronted with
moral questions.
• Therefore, every society has its set of moral rules or
guidelines that establish the boundaries of acceptable
behavior. Often these rules are expressed in statements about
what you ought to do or should do.

• These moral rules are seldom completely consistent. Our

everyday life raises moral questions that we cannot answer
immediately. Sometimes there are contradictions among our
different values, and sometimes we are uncertain about
which value should be given priority. At other times, our
traditional values do not cover new situations, and we have
to figure out how to extend them.
ETHICS (MORAL PHILOSOPHY)

• That’s when we need to step back and consciously reflect on

our moral beliefs, thereby engaging in ethical reflection.
Ethics, then, is the conscious reflection on our moral beliefs
with the aim of improving, extending, refining or coming to
a better understanding of those beliefs in some way.

• Ethics is the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason (forming

a judgment on the best reason for doing something) while
giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who
will be affected by what one does.

• Ethics, or moral philosophy, asks basic questions about the

good life, about what is better and worse, about whether
there is any objective right and wrong, and how we know it
if there is.
• Ethics, then, is the critical enterprise of asking
whether any particular set of values or beliefs is better
than any other. In such an enterprise we would compare
and evaluate the sets of values and beliefs, giving
reasons for evaluations. We would ask, “are there good
reasons for preferring one set of values over another?”

• When we evaluate an action as right or wrong or some

condition as good or bad, we appeal to certain reasons.
To be required to give reasons to justify one’s moral
conclusions is essential to doing moral philosophy.
 Ethics and Reasons
• Should women be given permission to have abortions?
• Should we torture a terrorist in order to get information from him/her?
• Should we use animals in medical experiments?
• Should we tell our friend that their partner is having an affair with
someone else?

If someone says that abortion should (or should not) be permitted, she
needs to explain why this is so. It is not enough to say that abortion should
not be permitted because it is wrong. We need further argument and
information to know why abortion is wrong.

We need a theory of what is right and wrong, good or evil, justified,

permissible, and unjustifiable; and we need to understand how our theory
applies in concrete cases.
Question:

Why isn’t it sufficient to simply state your opinion

and assert that “x is wrong”, since moral assertions
can do nothing to solve the deep conflicts of value
that we find in our world?
• We know that people disagree about abortion, animal rights,
and other issues. If we are to make progress toward
understanding each other and establishing some consensus
about these topics, then we have to understand why we think
certain things are right and other things are wrong.

• We need to make arguments and give reasons in order to

work out our own conclusions about these issues and in
order to explain our conclusions to others with whom we
disagree.
 FALLACIES
IN ETHICAL REASONING
1. The most common fallacy (or error in reasoning) that occurs in ethical
argument is “begging the question” or arguing in a circle/ circular
reasoning.

• Example: If the government just gets out of the way, everyone can be free
to do the right thing themselves. After all, every day people are smart
enough to make the right decisions on their own naturally and they
should have the freedom to do so.

• The fundamental argument being put forth here is that society would
function better with less government intervention and restriction. Within
that argument is the assumption that people will always do what is best,
but that assumption is also being used to support the argument. As a
result, the argument becomes an example of circular reasoning, begging
the question. Why should we expect people to make the right decisions?
2. It is also not sufficient to appeal to custom, popular
belief, tradition or authority in deriving our
conclusions about moral issues. It is another error in
reasoning.

To appeal to authority on moral issues, we would first

have to decide which authority is to be trusted and
believed. Which religion provides the best set of moral
rules? Which set of laws in which country is to be
followed?
To begin resolving the problem of conflicting laws,
customs or beliefs we need critical philosophical
inquiry into basic ethical questions.
3. Ad Hominem / Against the person. à It is the attack against the
person making the claim, not the refutation of the argument put
forth. Discrediting and attacking the person does not make their
argument wrong.
Example: Francis Bacon's philosophy should be dismissed since
Bacon was removed from his chancellorship for dishonesty.

4. Slippery slope àIt is a fallacy in which a person asserts that

some event must inevitably follow from another without any
argument for the inevitability of the event in question.
Example: We can't permit the sale of marijuana by doctor's
prescription, because that will lead people to believe it's an
acceptable drug; this will open the floodgates to the complete
legalization of the drug use by every pothead in the country.

5. Red Herring à Presenting an irrelevant topic in order to divert

attention from the original issue.
Example: I think there is great merit in making the requirements
stricter for the graduate students. I recommend that you support it,
too. After all, we are in a budget crisis and we do not want our
salaries affected.
6. Be careful with the arguments from analogy à In this type of
argument, one compares familiar examples with the issue being
disputed. If the two cases are similar in relevant ways, then whatever
one concludes about the first familiar case one should also conclude
about the disputed case.

Example: In Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous use of analogy, one is

asked whether it would be ethically acceptable to “unplug” a famous
violinist who had been attached to you and your kidneys to save
your life. She argues that if you say, as she thinks you should, that
you are justified in unplugging the violinist and letting him die, then
a pregnant woman is also justified in doing the same with regard to
her fetus. The reader is prompted to critically examine such an
argument by asking whether or not the two cases were similar in
relevant ways—that is, whether the analogy fits.
7. The difference between the reasons to justify
(rationalizations) and reasons to explain à Finally, we
should note that giving reasons to justify a conclusion is not
the same as giving an explanation for why one believes
something.

One might explain that she does not support euthanasia

because that was the way she was brought up or that she is
opposed to the death penalty because she cannot stand to see
someone die. To justify such a belief, one would need to give
reasons that show why one should believe it, rather than why
one does.
Rationalizations are usually the false reasons that we present
to make us look better to others or ourselves.
 Exercise: How to reason ethically?

Put the following statements in order, starting from the least morally
permissible to the most morally acceptable. How do you defend your
ranking? Write down your list and be prepared to present your reasoning.

• Eating meat only obtained from organic agriculture farming

• Sacrificing animals for religious purposes
• Eating meat once a month
• Being a vegan
• Using animals in medical experiments
• Managing a zoo
• Neutering stray cats
• Protesting against factory farming