A Guide to Ethical Decision-making

Wouldn’t that acceptance be a good outcome? I should think so. Yet one notes here more “buts” than a ram in heat.

I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. I gave an issue - namely, abortion - and showed how I would deal with it.

{ Ethics teaches that autonomy and individuality are values that everyone is entitled to, and should have. Thus a woman has a right to decide on how her body is used. Intelligent people distinguish between a fetus and a human individual with a unique personality. Such an individual is valued Intrinsically by those who are ethical. In contrast, a growth or a cluster of cells, is valued Systemically by most people who know their values. Recall that Intrinsic valuation is infinitely-more-valuable to us human beings than is Systemic valuation. I > S.}

Furthermore, I gave you more than eighty issues and asked you to select one, say, one where there was a conflict between two positive values - such as loyalty versus community, for example - and you declined to select one of those case-studies for me to which to apply my analysis. {Rush Kidder’s book had plenty of these excellent moral dilemmas!]

Hence, for these reasons I get the impression that a certain nihilist does not want to learn the knowledge about which he expresses curiosity; for if he did, he would read up on Robert Hartman’s contribution, or he would study carefully some of the literature to which links are supplied below.

This is a classic example of someone making certain political assumptions about abortion and then distinguishing between what intelligent people are obligated to think in regard to an unwanted pregnancy and what unintelligent people think instead. One of us/one of them.

Like those on the other side are not able to articulate their own rendition of this relationship in defending the right of the unborn baby to live. Or in defending their own set of assumptions in regard to when human life begins – from the point of conception on.

Recall that obtuse intellectual contraptions like this are precisely what I aim to avoid in regard to our reactions to any particular set of circumstances in which a woman is pregnant and does not want to be.

That’s not where I focus my argument though. My aim is to explore your “analysis” – anyone’s analysis – as an existential contraption rooted in dasein. In any particular context involving a conflict between the individual and the community, there are going to be values/loyalties in conflict. Take conscription for example: connectusfund.org/10-meaningful … ry-service

My argument suggests that any particular individual will derive his or her values more from the sequence of experiences in his or her life [out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially] rather than as an ethicist able to actually pin down [philosophically or otherwise] one’s moral obligation here.

You are here agreeing with me that people learn ethics more often by example rather than by the deduction of a conclusion from a logical, well-reasoned argument. They see conduct by someone they respect, or love, and they copy it. Or, as R. S. Hartman, the philosopher, would put it: I-Value [Intrinsic valuation] is greater than (ttakes priority over) E-value [Extrinsic valuation - or empirical, pragmatic considerations.]

I have no clear idea how this point is related to my point in regard to the morality of abortion as an example of what I construe to be conflicting goods.

Note to others:

You tell me how his point here is related to the point I make above it. He merely asserts that if people approach ethics as a “discipline” it will teach them to “stand up for what is right”. And, in regard to conscription, he did the right thing because it was in sync with his own disciplined ethics. How is that not tautological?

I’m not at all certain that you agree with yourself here. From my frame of mind, you don’t seem to be arguing that “people learn ethics more often by example”, but rather through a disciplined understanding of ethics itself garnered from the books you read.

Whereas I focus more on “I” here as an existential contraption out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view derived circumstantially from dasein.

Thus it depends on who someone comes to respect and love and copy in a particular historical, cultural and experiential context. Accepting that in a world of contingency, chance and change, new experiences, relationships and access to ideas can change their minds about any number of things.

That’s why, in regard to abortion, my interest in ethics revolves around the points I raise on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

You will either go there yourself in regard to your own value judgments here or attempt further to explain to me how only a disciplined understanding of ethics led you to what I construe to be the political prejudices you take in regard to abortion here and now.

This thread was created to compatibly resonate with those who feel as I do that Ethics has the potential to be treated scientifically, and who appreciate having some reliable guides to making an Ethical decision.

I am not here to dissuade the moral nihilists from their ideology, nor to convert the heathen, nor anything along that line.

Since Moral Psychology is currently the experimental branch of ethics, and the new paradigm for Ethics can serve as the theoretical branch; in that sense Ethics already is a science. [Of course there will always be room for a philosophy of ethical science.]
The proposed new paradigm - “A Unified Theory of Ethics” - is highly-tentative, is in flux, is in the process of being created and continuously upgraded. It is a cooperative project motivated and researched by those who would like to see ethics become even-more scientific.

I read your thread, iambiguous, on "“Moral Philosophy in the Lives…,” and wonder if what you said to Ecmandu might properly be applied to yourself. Recall you words:

I wouldn’t say that (even though to someone of my age you are just a kid) since I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by giving them a parental command {what Dr. Eric Berne would call “a crossed transaction.”}

In other words, the suggestion is: If you are not aware (that a logical theory may serve as a frame-of-reference which when applied to data helps to organize and explain that data; and that this is the way science works) and thus do not see how the new paradigm explains and clarifies life as lived in the moral realm, then please do write some more of YOUR OWN threads, and avoid hijacking this one. Okay?

You said more than once that your interests lie somewhere else than in learning how a model can be applied to offering some useful guides to making ethical decisions. So please go back to seeing John and Mary’s both sides - and by inference all sides of every question - and leave us to do our own thing.

Thinkdr,

I think your name is arrogant. That’s besides the point.

The whole of ethics can be summarized in one short phrase:

Don’t violate anyone’s consent.

Of the Ten Commandments, there should only be one:

Don’t violate anyone’s consent.

Now you know who the false gods are.

[b]Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you / The Silver Rule

Do unto others what you would have them do unto you / The Golden Rule

Avoid harming human beings as much as possible / surreptitious Rule

Avoid consent violation / Ecmandu Rule

All four saying the same thing basically
[/b]

Yes, they are saying basically the same thing. Thank you for your contribution, surreptitious.

As to Ecmandu’s comment about my nickname: I am a Doctor of Philosophy, and I have been known to think once in a while …even my wife would affirm that.
The important thing is that I have self-respect and that I respect you.
And - as noted before - this project is not about me. It’s about all of us getting closer to living in an ethical world; and gaining for each and all a Quality Life.

How about the rest of you Forum participants? Do you believe that the above Principles have been sufficient to keep everyone ethical?

In the STRUCTURE booklet, on pp. 27-28, a few more moral Principles are listed. The booklet makes the case that the more of these Principles we live by, the more moral we are (the higher, so to speak, is our ‘morality score.’)
Morality, it argues, is a concept that expresses our moral development, or our stage of evolution.

What do you think?

surreptitious75 got me to thinking and reflecting on the subject.

Perhaps the whole program can be summed up in 7 imperative words:

Be kind. Do no harm. Grow morally.

If one wants to write about Ethics, consider that the structure of it can be simplified into these three parts.

I) Being kind.

II) Doing no harm.

III) Growing morally.

The Golden Rule and its variants would be discussed in volume one. This guide to Ethical decision-making suggests that you treat others as you would want to be treated.
Upon each encounter or interaction with others, one is to ask oneself: How can I create value here and now so that each of us can be a winner!? Peter Demerest has titled this “The Central Question of Life.”
Also in that section would be an explanation of how kindness can be immoderate:overdone. Good manners, however, are always in style. In Oriental cultures people bow, nod their heads, as a sign of respect when encountering one another. It helps to hold the culture together.
This part of the book would also discuss in depth Humility; and Moral Courage (as exhibited by ‘whistle-blowers’ who want to keep their jobs but who are moved by their conscieence to expose wrong-doing and corruption.)

What it means in practice to avoid harming, and to avoid being offensive, would be the content of the second volume or subsection of the book.

And what are the good and wise Moral Principles to live by would be found in third part of the treatise. The more of these Principles with which an individual complies, the more he or she is growing morally.

These concepts mentioned above also comprise the New Paradigm for Ethics - and Hardcore Ethics.

Your views on any of this are welcome!

Okay, fair enough.

Now, if you [or anyone here] are inclined to bring the conclusions you come to regarding Ethics being treated scientifically out into the world of actual human interactions confronting conflicting goods in a particular sets of circumstances, please keep me in mind.

I have ways of challenging such conclusions that you may not have thought all the way through.

…Some people just can’t take a hint.

To return to the theme of a “Guide to Ethical Decision-making” it should be noted that to make a wise and good Ethical decision, it helps to know one’s Ethics. Then one recognizes whether the decision one is making is Ethical.

Then, for example, one recognizes early whether one wants to vote for a guy who regards women as merely sexual objects. [Recall an Access Hollywood video that came out three days before the 2015-2016 selection of a candidate to head their party. In the video a candidate is distinctly heard to say: “I can grab women by the cr==ch …” Those who did not mind having a crude (con-artist money-launderer, who didn’t pay his sub-contractors for their work), in the highest office of their country went right ahead and made him their candidate. Others voted in the election for someone of this character anyway.] Did they know Ethics?

An excellent way to know Ethics is to study the content of the References listed in the signature below. The material there is clear and written in plain, easy-to-read language.

At the very outset of Basic Ethics: a systematic approach, in the Foreword, a philosophical argument for its concept of Meta-Philosophy is offered. {How often have you read some Meta-Philosophy?} Then value-theory is offered as meta-Ethics. Then it gets to Ethics. …a logical procedure.
Once Ethics is explained and understood practical applications – such as how to decide who to vote for – are discussed.
The comments in that booklet on Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan turn out to be quite relevant these days!

Also see: wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadehar … ETHICS.pdf - which employs the literary device of a dialog, or conversation.

Tell us your impressions and views on the topic…

In an earlier post I commented:

Now I offer some further reflections regarding the Moral Principle: DO NO HARM!

To do harm to someone is to cause (or her) to be worse off than before.

If a Quality Life {a QL} has, say, six components, and as a result of something you said or did this individual-you-may-have-harmed had four of the components before, and now has only three of them, then it is the case that you did harm to him. He is worse off than before.

One of the components of a QL is well-being. That concept was discussed in THE STRUCTURE OF ETHICS booklet. (Well-being itself has several sub-components.) Another component of a QL is: a sense of purpose.

An ideal goal of an ethical world is that eventually everyone enjoys a QL., i.e., everyone has well-being, a sense of financial security, quality time with those they love, peace-of-mind, happiness, etc.

Do you have any comments, or additions, to help us understand the concepts of “harming,” “well-being” or anything else relevant to the principles of Ethics?

Speak up. Let’s hear your views.

Again, there’s how you think about human morality in what I construe to be your “general description intellectual contraption” above.

Then there is how I insist on bringing theoretical assessments of this sort out into the world of the…“particular context”.

Consider:

John is about to be executed for killing Jim. Some insist that the execution itself does harm to their own rendition of a civilized society. Others insist that, on the contrary, harm – a grave injustice – is done to the victim and his loved ones if the ultimate penalty is not imposed.

Then both camps go back a forth with a whole slew of specific points, aimed at shifting harm from one side to the other: deathpenalty.procon.org/

After all, look at the harm that is done to John’s wife and kids. His friends and loved ones. He is executed but they pay a price as well. And they are often completely innocent.

All I do here, in turn, is to suggest that in many important respects, our own morality and value judgments are rooted more in the life that we live – in dasein – than in any theoretical/philosophical/political argument that can be made. Arguments which can never take into account all of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of existential variables that go into the making of any particular “I” confronting a particular situation involving the death penalty.

In Islam when someone has been murdered the judgement is delivered by the victims own family
They can forgive him and let him go or else find him guilty and give him life or the death penalty
And if they choose forgiveness that will count in their favour on the day of judgement before God

One of the terrorists responsible for the Indonesian bombing was forgiven this year by the son of one of the men he murdered
He will have to serve out his sentence as he was already in prison but that son certainly deserves Paradise if it actually exists
To forgive the man who murdered your own father is truly remarkable and is probably beyond almost anyones ability to do so

Well said! That man who forgave the murderer of his father sets a good example for the rest of us.

Also, this may be of interest.

I came upon some quotes from a wise man named Yochnan Posner. Perhaps these words can serve as guides to good decision-making:

“To the ancients, poverty and suffering were unfortunate facts of life for the unlucky to bear alone. [Today we have] the concept of social responsibility

“…Early societies considered human history as fixed in an endless cycle of war and conquest, and that it is fruitless to hope for more.”

“We can, must, and will change the world for the better/; war will eventually cease. Justice and kindness will eventually prevail. We can escape the cycle by having respect for every person’s life, by having a balance between work and leisure, by having a guiding purpose, and by believing in progress — Y. Posner

Your thoughts on these themes?

In the previous post I brought up various concepts.

For example, social responsibility, justice, balance, purposefulness, and progress.

Also mentioned was the diminishing of the waging of war, and eventual cessation of war altogether. http://www.worldwithoutwar.com

Is anyone here interested in discussing any of these topics further?? …What are you interested in? Speak up. Let us know.

My major concern is Moral Philosophy, theoretical and applied. I’d like to know: do you care about ethics?
Also, if you have read any of the selections listed below, please give me your impressions of it.

A reporter named Jenny Anderson, writing for an internet publication titled QUARTZ, informed us of the following research findings:

One statement in particular caught my eye: the scientist noted that "…All agree that cooperating, promoting the common good, is the right thing to do.”

Do you, Gentle Reader, agree?

I’d love to know if the concept in that selected quote is what you employ as a guide to ethical decision-making. If it is, tell us specifically how.
How do you personally promote the common good, and/or encourage cooperation?

When confronted with an ethical dilemma with regard to which one may care enough to get involved, here are some guidelines:

Ethical behavior is the product of moral sensitivity, (= recognition of the Intrinsic worth of each individual). of moral judgment, moral focus (motivation), and of moral character.

The following is a quote from a book by the late Rushworth Kidder. He was for many years the Executive Director and President of The Institute for Global Ethics: The book’s title is: Ethical Decision Making and Behavior.

]

SOURCE: uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/39590_Chapter7.pdf See pp. 29-30.
For details and deeper explanations you will want to read the entire chapter 7 of that book. It offers the pros and the cons which a research process entails. It provides arguments for each claim as to which is the effective procedure when resolving moral dilemmas. This Chaper 7 is illustrated with case studies. Reflecting upon these sharpens your moral decision-making capabilities.

Feedback?

Tell us, did you once resolve a moral dilemma? We welcome suggestions from your own experience in ethical decision-making!

DEFINING ETHICS

Ethics is about evaluating moral values and principles, and is concerned with working out a basis on which to follow these principles. These principles are neither rules nor absolutes; they are rather voluntary guidelines designed to make life easier, more comfortable, and more trouble-free. To comply with the moral principles, is “right.” Not to, is “wrong.”

Compassionate acts, such as are seen when a person gives a helping hand to another individual, something that occurs every day, are evidence of an objective moral order. Allow me to explain: Human beings want to survive. Actually they want more than mere survival. We are pre-wired to seek our personal benefit, of which survival is a minimum necessary requirement.

What does it take to survive? Well, it is a fact of Biology that for a cell in our body to be healthy it helps if the cells surrounding it are healthy. In the same way, if you, or I, or any individual, gets in trouble then we need our neighbors and family to help us out. We need the people around us. Let’s call them “our support group.”

Isn’t it so that each of the people around us has people around them who could serve as their support group? This keeps them strong. If one of the people around us, if anyone our support group has an infectious disease it is going to threaten the health of others in the group and make them less strong. This is just plain common sense!

So, we deduce, since you need the people around you as your suport, you also need the people around them. And where does it stop? It doesn’t. Therefore by logical reasoning we conclude that we need the entire human species as our “support group.”

It would seem that this is a basic fact of empirical ethics: The human race is a support group for each human individual.

We are, in conclusion, interdependent. [Let’s be mindful of this so that we may have awareness.] And thus it is in our personal best interest to cooperate.

Hence, let us seek harmonious cooperation; and we will be “doing the right thing.”

The essence of my theory is that “Ethics” is a perspective …a perspective on a human individual, or group of them. It arises when we view the human being as highly valuable, of indefinitely-high value. Also, the theory indicates that - if we are ethical - we will make things better, morally better. We are to add value if we want to be ethical. Lots of implications may be deduced from that definition (of the concept “Ethics”) and from that basic idea: Make things better!

One of them is: Do no harm! This in turn implies a renunciation of violence, cruelty, ruthless exploitation, greed, self-mutilation, lack of humility, etc.

What do you think with regard to any of these matters? Your comments, questions, and diiscussion are most welcome. Speak up.

On abortion and euthanasia – an analysis

The question is asked by Surreptitious:

While most of us agree that murder is wrong ….morally wrong, what about the matter of the legalization of abortion – or the issue of euthanasia? There are those who think these acts constitute murder.

Person A says both abortion and euthanasia are instances of murder and neither of them should be legalized.

Person B says that both abortion and euthanasia should be legalized; neither of them is murder.

How can we demonstrate logically that one is definitely right ethically, and one is definitely wrong - and which would it be?
Can such a proposition actually be demonstrated?

The answer is to define our central terms with precision.
Therefor, let us define the term “murder”in a measurable and concise way –and refer only to murder in the first degree:

Def. 1. “Human being" as understood here is "an individual having a personality.’
Def. 2. “Murder” [according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary] is defined as:
The killing of another human being with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation.

Thus, murder, by definition, is the premeditated killing of another person (an individual with personality) involving along with it some malice and some deliberation.

[size=83][It is also murder in the first degree if the muDrer occurs during the 3commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder, or murder one), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder, Murdertwo). So murder, occurring spontaneously in a fit of rage, is murer in the second degree. .
Juries may decide that the killing was accidental and this might, in U.S. law, be labeled ‘Murder in the third degree.”][/size]

Murder is morally wrong. Since neither a woman’s decision to abort her fetus, nor the process of euthanasia, involve any malice they are not examples of murder. With regard to the woman …it is, after all, her body – especially if the procedure is done before the fetus displays any signs of consciousness. If her doctor, for humanitarian reasons justifiably decides to perform a surgery late in the term it is ethical but perhaps earns a lower degree of morality than if the procedure takes place early in the pregnancy.
The woman has the same right to have an abortion as a man has the right to decide to have a vasectomy or any other elective surgery on his own body.

Any free person given oxygen in a medical setting has a right either to pull the oxygen mask off his face or to decline the offer of being put on a ventilator. This is equivalent to the right to ask to be put on hospice since one is suffering constant physical pain. Both are cases of voluntary suicide, in a sense, akin to euthanasia.

Comments?