Not sure if anyone else in this class ever wondered why we are spending so much time learning and applying ethical theories into social issues (I keep asking myself why we are doing this), so I googled and searched: "how important are the ethical theories in modern society" and found something that somehow answers part of my questions...
This is actually the handout from a similar course offered at Stanford, the writer (probably the instructor) didn't give too much details about all the ethical theories, but it notes some problems we may consider when we apply the ethical theories (it mentions not just the for or against arguments about a theory, but also what we need to be cautious about when we apply the theories).
For example, it mentions the problems about applying utilitarianism (some points are mentioned in our textbook, but not all):
a) Actions such as deceit, murder, theft, etc. are usually morally wrong because of harmful consequences, but they can be ethically justified if it can be proven that they produce the greatest good for the greatest number. So even human and moral rights are not absolute here. If we maximize happiness for a society by enslaving a small segment of society, is this morally justified?
b) How do you define “good” and “happiness”?
c) How to avoid self-serving assumptions and prejudices in performing the cost-benefit analysis? If you do not overcome these assumptions, you end up with rationalizations of unethical or selfish behavior. The job of objectively considering all the consequences of each alternative, from the point of view of each stakeholder is very difficult.
In particular, the second and third point answer the questions I have been having. How do we define good and happiness? How do we avoid self-serving assumptions and prejudices? It seems to me our textbook author prefers less protection in IP rights, thus he uses all the examples that favour his arguments to come to a conclusion that copying software is not a bad thing. However, with a little research I also found some studies that may be used to rebut his arguments (something like the impact on sales with or without anti-piracy campaigns implemented , the impact of piracy on domestic and global economics.... ). Was there a failure to avoid self-serving assumptions or prejudices in his analysis? Was his argument a fallacy? If you do pay attention, you would notice that there is no reference at all when the author applies ethical theories to backup his arguments. It seems to me that the application of ethical theories involves more "opinion reasoning" than "evidentiary reasoning"?
Those questions have bothered me for a while, and I was wondering why or how should we evaluate the usefulness of these theories. Are they comprehensive enough for today's society? If not, are they still valuable resources to help us solve new issues? Or it's just that our approach in discussing those theories is not comprehensive enough? I guess I spot some light in the "algorithm" mentioned in the article in some extent:
And here is the "algorithm" to apply when confronted with an ethical issue (from the handout):
1. Identify and carefully define the ethical and legal issues in the case.
2. What is your first impression toward the issues, i.e., what does your moral intuition tell you?
3. Define in detail all possible courses of action.
4. Consult the appropriate codes of ethics (ACM, IEEE, corporate or organizational, etc.) for guidance.
5. Use the ethical theories (see above) to help reason about the issues.
6. What is the "best" action based on the theories and codes? If there are conflicts, which approach should take precedence under the circumstances? Why?
7. Take action.
(Yes, I think identify and define the issues is a very important step, and note that "Use the ethical theories" is only one of the 7 steps in this algorithm...)
Whoa, great post! I totally agree that the author does seem quite opinionated in his arguments... which is ironic for an ethical theory text.
ReplyDeleteI too find the best way of finding out how to properly 'use' the theories and find holes in them is by actually applying them to TODAY'S hard problems. However, at the same time it wouldn't be easy to 'add' more to these theories as they are delicate enough as they are.
Can you give an example of a theory you think is needed in today's society that none of the theories we have learned cover, and with the example you would apply it to in real life? If so, is it possible to make it work with any of the pre-existing ones?
All in all though, great post! I would love to hear Joseph's opinion on this :)
Nader
Let me start with the same line as Nader above. It is a great post and I do agree the textbook is not as great as it claims to be.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that a book for a scientific audience, such as us, should argue with little more hard evidence and numbers. However, just playing devil's advocate, in utilitarian sense, it is not just about numbers. The sales of a product might decrease because of piracy, or the global economy might take a hit because of piracy. However, how would you quantify that? How many points toward negative utility does that equate to? The world is not a video game with a message that says 'IP Piracy is prominent in your country: Happiness -5.'
I do agree that more evidence would help. I do agree that sometimes the author of the textbook is not telling us the whole story. However, I am not certain that more evidence will results more definitive answers in any of the modern day controversies, such as IP rights, gun rights, abortion, etc. It will help me make my personal stance on issues. However, unless somebody surveys every human beings on a single topic and make everyone rate their happiness level in -5 to +5 scale or something like that, I am sure how more evidence can help us make definitive ethical decisions.
@Nader: coming up with a new theory probably requires really in-depth thinking and philosophical reasoning (I'm not sure if I can come up any in my life, I'd say, can we leave it to doctoral students XD). But I think we can use more than just ethical theories to solve issues, although not all problems have a definitive answer/solution.
ReplyDeleteWe can probably combine some other methodologies that are used in a different discipline to assist us in problem solving. For example, we can gather every piece of facts that cause the conflict by the use of new technology, distinguish the facts from the part that have existing solutions. How did people in the past face changes of technology? Technology wasn't developed that fast in the past, but there were also different kinds of conflicts when certain new technologies were first introduced. Were the approaches they adopted to solve the issues made the society a better place? If not, what lessons have we learned? Are we able to use a similar approach in our new problem? If our issue is too innovate, we can apply the ethical theories for some guidelines. What I am suggesting is to use experience from the past, distinguish the new issues from known issues, and apply the ethical theories to the distincted part. We can probably use economic analysis if we are applying utilitarian theories to evaluate the overall goods and bads. (this is actually how the case law works, except there is no ethical theory applications but Congress/Parliment who can make codified laws to reduce judges' power in interpreting laws.)
@Peter: I'm not saying the conclusion about copying should be different, but utilitarian is such a complex theory, while it's hard to present every piece of evaluation, the author didn't mention any opposite side stories before he writes the conclusion - this surprised me and gave me an impression that we can probably manipulate the theory to reason a conclusion that favours our opinion?
ReplyDeleteMore evidences or exploration on different side of stories don't always give us a more definitive answer, but at least we would make a less biased decision after full disclosure of facts.