24.i.08 Ethics

Began class this evening with the following items on my card:

1. topic selection and questionnaire (for the descriptive ethics project) due
2. review the above to refine as needed
3. In Epictetus: What is Epictetus' method? With what problems is he particularly concerned? What are his basic principles?
4. If you have a copy of Plato: Five Dialogues, begin reading "Euthyphro" and "Meno". Compare the dialogues. How is the process followed in the "Euthyphro" like or unlike that in the "Meno". How are piety and virtue related? Would Socrates' approach to problems be irrelevant today? Explain your responses.

A question was raised about the distinction between method, problem, and principle.

Method is the general approach, the mental toolkit used, to investigate morality. A method may work descriptively (to say what a morality is) or prescriptively (or "constructively" or "creatively": to say what a morality should be). A descriptive method might be logical or rational, in which a problem is analyzed, that is, divided into parts which are then categorized according to some standard. Another type of descriptive method is intuitive, in which one is supposed to have a "moral sense" of the rightness or wrongness of various elements of a moral problem. Both rational/logical methods and intuitive methods may also be prescriptive. Another prescriptive method might be called apodeictic (sometimes spelled apodictic): a method of pronouncement as of universal, unquestionable law.

A problem, or issue, or situation, could be general or specific, simple or complex, but it is, essentially, an act or group of acts which might be perceived as having moral weight. Think "math problem", like "if n = m+1, what is the value of m in the following problem: n+m=31?" An example of a moral problem might be:

A man, completely and sincerely devoted to his wife, learns that she has a rare, degenerative disease. The man and his wife seek treatment for the disease, but their insurance money runs out. Because of her illness, the woman must leave her job, and eventually she is bedridden. Her husband is challenged to care for her and hold his job, and he finds that he must cut back his hours, further reducing the family income. Then the man learns from a pharmacist of a cure for the disease, which has been shown to be almost 100% effective, but which is extraordinarily expensive. In fact, the pharmacist has a stock of the drug on hand, but since the husband cannot pay, and now has no insurance, she refuses the drug to the husband. Then the husband learns that the security system at the pharmacy is broken and the back door is unlocked. Taking care to cover his tracks, the husband enters the pharmacy and takes enough of the drug to cure his wife (in his community, this is considered theft). He is not discovered, and although the drug is found missing, he is never prosecuted. His wife recovers, returns to her job, and within a year, the couple find that they have enough money to pay the pharmacist for the drug they took. So, one day, using unmarked bills, the husband returns to the pharmacy and leaves the money on the counter while purchasing another product.

Now, alright, this is a far-fetched story in some ways, but it sets up a series of questions:

Everything has turned out happily. In the end, no one is the worse for the events: the wife is recovered, the husband is back at work, and the pharmacist has her profits. Does this end justify the means -- stealing? Is stealing ever acceptable?

Did the man steal?

Is it right for a person to be denied care which is readily available because he or she cannot pay? At what point is it reasonable (morally upright) to deny care? Under what conditions?

Should the man have sought medical treatment for his wife, or was her illness merely part of the will of God or an act of Nature which should not have been questioned?

Should the wife, seeing that her husband was n danger of losing his job, resigned herself to her fate, and perhaps even committed suicide to save her husband from the hardships he faced?

Should the pharmacist have negotiated some sort of payment plan with the husband, or simply given the drug out of charity, despite its high cost?

Was the man justified in his actions because of the injustice of the insurance in not paying for his wife's treatments?

This is not an exhaustive list of questions which could be drawn from this problem.

The way questions about a problem are formulated, and the way they are interpreted or treated is the method.

In examining a problem, certain principles, or basic general notions, can be extracted or applied.

Some examples of general principles:

the value of an act is in the act itself
the value of an act is in the intent which underlies the act
the value of an act is imposed by outside forces (for examples, the will of the gods, or community standards)
the value of an act is not objective, but is an emotional judgement applied by some perceiver


Those principles define the basic criteria or morality.

Once those criteria are established, other principles, which often seem like laws, can be extrapolated or applied.

For examples:

Act only in such a way that you could wish that everyone would do the same thing (I am thinking here of Kant's categorical imperative, which is more properly stated "act only according to that maxim which you could at the same time will to be a universal law").

Do not steal.

Do not deny care from those in need.

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

A husband is obligated by his marriage vows to sacrifice everything for his wife.

Governments are formed to protect the rights of the governed.

All humans are endowed with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Seek the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number.

You may not agree with all -- or even any -- of these principles. And they may contradict each other. But they are principles, which may be abstracted or drawn out from a series of problems compared one with the other, or, once principles have been formulated, they may be applied to multiple instances.

A problem is a specific issue or situation, or it may be more general, like a topic ("euthanasia" or "partial-birth abortions" or "military conscription") -- in any case, a method may be applied to it using principles, or principles drawn from it again by using some particular method.


Having given a talk on the distinction between methods, problems, and principles paralleling that given here, I circulated through the room, spending about fifteen minutes with each student discussing the topics and questionnaires. The problem here is that, while the exercise is a fine one, there is not sufficient time to prepare adequately and review to refine before the due date. Although fifteen minutes is probably a reasonable conference time, that gives only six conferences in a full class session, but there are thirteen students enrolled in the course; the conferences must be shortened; general comments or repeated comments should be made once; this requires careful preparation on my part. Also, for the process to work well, the students must have their work, and their best work, ready at the due date.

In this assignment, I think probably a fixed model of the layout and possible forms for questions should have been distributed. In future courses using this exercise, that should be done.

In this course, I am grading at the end of the project, although the various elements of the project represent specific percentages of the whole. I did not prepare or distribute rubrics for the topic selection sheet or for the questionnaire; rubrics should be prepared to make grading straightforward.

I am requesting students to rework their topics and questionnaires, and then to submit all the materials for the project together as a portfolio on the due date for the last element of the project; I will then grade the project as a whole, and within that project the individual elements of the project. I did, however, offer to students the possibility of receiving a grade on individual elements of the projects if they thought that that would be valuable. As of yet, none have requested grading on the individual elements.

Barring the need for shorter conference times (perhaps a stop watch would be useful) and rubrics for the elements of the projects, I felt that the class was a success.