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 UTILITARIANISM
•Conceived in the 19th century by Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill,
•the most popular in business: the cost-
benefit analysis in business is a form of this
 

theory.
•basis for the rightness of an action:
consequences or effect on all persons
affected (including the agent).
UTILITARIANISM
An action is right if and only if
the sum total benefits produced
by that act is greater than the
sum total benefits produced by
any other act the agent could
have performed in its place.
UTILITARIANISM
Two main limitations

1. In its traditional form, it is difficult to use

when dealing with values that are difficult
and perhaps impossible           to measure
quantitatively.
UTILITARIANISM
Two main limitations
2. It ignores the questions of rights (individual
entitlements to freedom of choice and to well
being) and justice (how benefits and burdens
are distributed among people).

Rule utilitarianism (vs. case utilitarianism)

tries to answer this by proposing the
evaluation of rules instead of cases.
RIGHTS

•the individual’s entitlement to something.

• In contrast to legal rights, moral or
human rights are derived from a system
of moral standards that specify that all
human beings are permitted, empowered
to do something, or entitled to have
something done for them.
The basis of moral
rights is Immanuel
Kant’s Categorical
Imperative, which,
for our purposes,
has two
formulations:
First formulation:
“I ought never to act
except in such a way
that I can also will
that my maxim
should become a
universal law.”
An action is morally right
for a person in a certain
situation if, and only if,
the person’s reason for
carrying out the action is
a reason that he or she
would be willing to have
every person act on, in
any similar situation.
Two criteria, therefore, are
necessary for determining moral
right and wrong:
 
• UNIVERSALIZABILITY
• REVERSIBILITY
(similar to the Golden Rule: Do
unto others what you would want
them do unto you.)
Second Formulation:
“Act in such a way that
you always treat
humanity, whether in
your own person or in
the person of any
other, never simply as
a means, but always
at the same time as an
end.”
 An action is morally
right for a person, if, and
only if, in performing the
action, the person does not
use others merely as a
means for advancing his or
her own interest, but also
both respects and develops
their capacity to choose
freely for themselves.
JUSTICE & FAIRNESS
“Justice consists…in treating equals equally
and unequals unequally, and in giving each
person his due.”
Three categories of justice and fairness:
a. Compensatory Justice: concerns the just
way in compensating someone for a past
injustice or what he/she lost when wronged
by others.
 
b. Retributive justice: consists in the just
imposition of punishment and penalties on
those who do wrong. This is related to
procedural justice, referring to fair decision
procedures, practices, agreements.
c. Distributive Justice: involves the fair
distribution of benefits and burdens.
When issues concerning the common good are
at stake, distributive justice comes into play.
The principle of distributive justice simply
states:
Individuals who are similar in all respects
relevant to the kind of treatment in question
should be given similar benefits and burdens,
even if they are dissimilar in other irrelevant
respects; and individuals who are dissimilar in a
relevant respect ought to be treated
dissimilarly, in proportion to their dissimilarity.
 4. VIRTUE ETHICS

Virtues are dispositions, attitudes, habits that

form the character of a person, developing
his or her highest potentials. Aristotle held
that virtues are habits that enable a person to
act in accordance with reason, and acting in
accordance with reason is choosing the
mean between the two extremes, the
extreme of excess and the extreme of lack.
 An action is morally right if in carrying
out the action the agent exercises, exhibits,
or develops a morally virtuous character,
and it is morally wrong to the extent that by
carrying out the action the agent exercises,
exhibits, or develops a morally vicious
character.
 
Virtue ethics then determines the rightness
or wrongness of an action “by examining
the kind of character the action tends to
produce or the kind of a character that
tends to produce the action.”
 5. CARE
  One criticism of Kohlberg comes from Carol
Gilligan, a psychologist who studied the moral
development of women. For Gilligan, the moral
development for women is marked by progress
towards more adequate ways of caring.
(Most ethicists recently have pointed out the
ethics of caring is not only for women but also for
men.)
An ethics of care emphasizes two
moral demands:
a. We should preserve and nurture those concrete
and valuable relationships we have with specific
persons who have become part of our lives and
have formed us as we are.
b. We should care for those with whom we are
concretely related by attending to their particular
needs, values, desires, well-being as seen from
their own personal perspective, and by responding
to these needs, values, desires, well-being,
especially of those who are vulnerable and
dependent on our care.
Two important points:
1. An ethics of care should
encompass larger systems of
relationship leading to a
“communitarian ethic”.
2. An ethics of care provides a
corrective to other ethical principles
that emphasize impartiality and
universality.
In Summary, when making a
moral decision, ask the
following questions:
 
1. Does the action maximize
social benefits and minimize
social injuries?
2. Is the action consistent with
the moral rights of those
affected?
3. Will the action bring just
distribution of benefits and
burdens?
4. What kind of person will one
become if one makes this
decision?
5. Does the action exhibit care
for the well being of those who
are closely related to or
dependent on oneself?