Assignment & Quiz - 1

 Assignment-1:

 Quiz-1: Lecture 1 & 2

 Marks: 10
 Due Date: Next Class
 Quiz Date: Next Class

An interesting definition of Ethics by Potter Stewart

Ethics: Ethics is knowing the difference between what you
have a right to do and what is right to do.
 Profession- Professional Ethics
Profession
 A paid occupation, especially one
that involves prolonged (special)
training and a formal qualification.
Professional Ethics
 A term that encompasses the
organizational and personal
standards of behavior a
professional individual is
expected to possess.
 Most organizations have their own
internal code of practice that
defines the professional ethics of a
certain profession.
 A Case for Discussion
 A trial lawyer was asked what he would do if he discovered that his
client had committed a murder some years earlier for which another
man had been wrongly convicted and would soon be executed.
 Basic Ethical Principles
The key principles that help to think about ethical decisions which you may
come across in your work.
 Beneficence (Doing good to other / to promote good): An obligation
to bring about good in all our actions.
Beneficence – Doing good to
other
Beneficence – Doing good to
other

Courtesy: parhlo.com
 Least Harm
Non-violence or Peace
Least Harm (to do no harm, non maleficence): An obligation not to
harm others: "First, do no harm." or Do not increase the risk of harm to
others. And Where harm cannot be avoided minimize the harm.
Nonviolence is the personal practice of being harmless to self and others
under every condition. It comes from the belief that hurting people,
animals or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an
outcome and refers to a general philosophy of abstention from violence.
 Autonomy(Right or Condition of
Self Government)
Autonomy (respect for others choices): An obligation to respect the
decisions made by other people concerning their own lives. This is also
called the principle of human dignity. It gives us a negative duty not to
interfere with the decisions of competent adults, and a positive duty to
empower others for whom we’re responsible. (Is it ever important to
interfere in autonomy?)
 Justice
Justice (fairness): Treat all people equally, fairly, and
impartially.
 Truthfulness
Truthfulness (or honest): so that the client can make
autonomous decision.
Confidentiality
 A Case for Discussion

 A trial lawyer was asked what he would do if he

discovered that his client had committed a murder some years
earlier for which another man had been wrongly convicted and
would soon be executed

 The lawyer said that he had a legal obligation to keep this

information confidential and that, if he divulged it, he would
be disbarred
 Was his decision right according to professional ethics?
 Moral Development

 Moral development is the gradual development of an individuals

concept of right or wrong conscious, religious values, social attitudes
and certain behavior
 Lawrence Kohlberg

Kohlberg moral development theory: Moral maturity also matters.

Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a six-stage model of cognitive
development. According to Kohlberg’s model of cognitive moral
development (CMD), people make different decisions in similar ethical
situations because they are in different moral development stages.
Kohlberg studied cognitive development and interviewed male students of an
age bracket and analysed how they would justify their decision when
confronted with different hypothetical moral dilemmas
 Moral Development Theory

Level 1: Pre Level 2: Conventional Level 3: Post Conventional,

Conventional (Self- (Others Orientation) Autonomous, or principles
Orientational) level (Universal, Humankind
Orientation)
Stage 1: Punishment Stage 3: Good Person Stage 5: Social contract:
Avoidance: Avoid (Conformity): Acting acting “right” to reach consensus by
breaking rules. The “right” to be a “good due process and agreement. The
person has little person” and to be person is aware of relativity of
awareness of the need accepted by family and values and tolerates differing views.
of others. friends, not to fulfill any
moral ideal.

Stage 2: Reward Stage 4: Law and Order Stage 6: Universal ethical

Seeking: The person has : Acting “right” to principles: acting “right” according
the awareness of the comply with law and to universal, abstract principles of
needs of others, but not order and norms in justice and rights. The person
of right and wrong as societal institutions. reasons and uses conscience and
abstract concepts moral rules to guide actions.
Moral Development Theory Example Case
 2 x persons beating a student named tiger in
the school.
 People at different stage of
development are witnessing the fight.
moral
 Lets see what they do and how they
justify
Pretheir behavior.(Self- Orientational)
Conventional
At stage 1 you tend to judge good or bad with obedience and punishment. So a
small child Arif sees what’s happening to his friend and wants to help, but is scared
that if his teacher see him fighting she would punish him. So he does not help his
friend. So he asks himself, how can I avoid punishment?
Stage 2: Motivated by self interest, Sara decide to help her friend knowing well that
she may get punished, but she realizes that some day she may also require the help
of her friend and decided to help. Who may help her in future. So she is asking
herself what is in it for me?
At the stage 1 Arif is driven by fear and Sara by self interest, both judge right or
wrong from the direct consequences they expect for themselves and not by
social norms. This form of reasoning is common in children.
Moral Development Theory Example Case

Conventional (Others Orientation)

Stage 3: Interpersonal accord and conformity drives our acts: AD sees the
fight, and wants to help, but he realizes that there are other people also watching
the fight and not helping, so he did not intervene and wants other to see that he is a
good person who is conforming with the ethics of the community. He asks himself
what do others think of me?
Stage 4: Value authority and wants to maintain social order: when the teacher
sees the group fighting, he shouts to stop them saying fighting at school is
forbidden, he feels that above all it is important to follow the rules otherwise chaos
breaks out. He feels it is his responsibility to uphold the rules to sustain a functional
society. He asks himself, how can I maintain law and order?
At the conventional level AD response to the peer pressure and the teacher follows
the rules, their morality is centered around society what it regards as right. At
this level the fairness of rules is seldom questioned. It is common to think like
this in adolescence and adult hood.
Moral Development Theory Example Case
Post Conventional (Universal, Humankind Orientation)

Stage 5: Social contract and individual rights: Follow rules till the time it benefits
the rights of a person, else disobey. Understand rules as social contract as opposed
to a strict order, so Sana seeing the fight is not sure how she feels about it, to her rules
make sense only if they serve the right purpose. Although the school rules prohibits
fighting but may be tiger deserves a few punches because Sara saw him beating a girl
of her class yesterday for no reason. she asks herself, does a rule fully serves the purpose
of all the members of the society? You can break a rule if you do not consider it
right.

Stage 6: Guided by the universal ethical principles: All those who were involved
now has to face the headmaster: he first explains the school rules and why they exist he
then clarifies that rules are only valid if they are grounded in justice, the commitment
to justice carries with an obligation to disobey unjust rules. The head masters highest
moral principle is compassion. He believes that all people should learn to understand
each other’s view point and that they do not feel alone with their feelings. He asks,
what are the abstract ethical principles that serves my understanding of justice?
At this stage Sana knows that things are complicated because
individuals may disobey rules inconsistent with their own morality. The
head master follows a universal ethical idea and completely
disconnects with what the society or the rules say to him everything is
solved through compassion and see how agreement can be the most
just.
 Moral Development Theory
Example Case 2
 Heinz’s wife was dying from a particular type of cancer. Doctors
said a new drug might save her. The drug had been discovered
by a local chemist, and Heinz tried desperately to buy some, but
the chemist was charging ten times the money it cost to make the
drug, and this was much more than what Heinz could afford
 Heinz could only raise half the money, even after help from family and
friends. He explained to the chemist that his wife was dying and asked
if he could have the drug cheaper or pay the rest of the money later
 The chemist refused, saying that he had discovered the drug and
was going to make money from it. The husband was desperate to
save his wife, so later that night he broke into the chemist’s and stole
the drug
 Moral Development Theory

 1. Should Heinz have stolen the drug?

 2. Would it change anything if Heinz did not love his wife?
 3. What if the person dying was a stranger, would it make any difference?
 4. Should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman
died?

 By studying the answers from children of different ages to these questions,

Kohlberg hoped to discover how moral reasoning changed as people
grew older. The sample comprised 72 Chicago boys aged 10–16 years,
58 of whom were followed up at three-yearly intervals for 20 years
(Kohlberg, 1984)
Moral Development Theory
Level 1: Pre-conventional Morality
A person is concerned with his or her own immediate interests and with
external rewards and punishments
Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation
 The child assumes that powerful authorities hand down a fixed set of
rules which he or she must unquestioningly obey.
 When asked to elaborate, the child usually responds in terms of the
consequences involved, explaining that stealing is bad "because you'll
get punished“.

Stage 2. Self Interest and Individualism

 At stage 1 punishment is tied up in the child's mind
with wrongness; punishment "proves" that disobedience is wrong
 At stage 2, in contrast, punishment is simply a risk that one
naturally wants to avoid.
Level 2: Conventional Morality
An individual equates right with conformity to the expectations of good behavior
of the larger society or some other significant reference group

Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships

 At this stage children who are by now usually entering their teens see
morality as more than simple deals. They believe that people should live up
to the expectations of the family and community and behave in "good" ways.
Good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such
as love, empathy, trust, and concern for others.
Stage 4: Maintaining the Social Order
 Stage 3 reasoning works best in two person relationships with family members
or close friends, where one can make a real effort to get to know the other's
feelings & needs & try to help.
 At stage 4 , in contrast, the respondent becomes more broadly concerned
with society as a whole. Now the emphasis is on obeying laws,
respecting authority, and performing one's duties so that the social order is
maintained
Level 3: Post-conventional Morality
At the third or “principled,” level, an individual sees beyond the norms,
laws, and authority of groups or individuals.

Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights

 At stage 5 people begin to ask, "What makes for a good society?" They begin to
think about society in a very theoretical way, stepping back from their own
society and considering the rights and values that a society ought to uphold.
They then evaluate existing societies in terms of these prior considerations
 Stage 5 subjects, then, talk about "morality" and "rights" that take
some priority over particular laws.
Stage 6: Universal Principles
 The principles of justice require us to treat the claims of all parties in an
impartial manner, respecting the basic dignity, of all people as individuals. The
principles of justice are therefore universal; they apply to all. Thus, for example,
we would not vote for a law that aids some people but hurts others. The
principles of justice guide us toward decisions based on an equal respect for all.
Moral Development Theory
 Moral Development Theory

 At stage 1 Children think of what is right. Doing the right thing

is obeying authority and avoiding punishment
 At stage 2, Children are no longer so impressed by any single authority;
they see that there are different sides to any issue. Since everything is
relative, one is free to pursue one's own interests, although it is
often useful to make deals and exchange favors with others
 At stages 3 and 4, Young people think as members of the
conventional society with its values, norms, and
expectations. At stage 3, they emphasize being a good person,
which basically means having helpful motives toward people
close to. At stage 4, the concern shifts toward obeying laws to
maintain society as a whole
 Moral Development Theory

 At stages 5 and 6 People are less concerned with maintaining society for it own
sake, and more concerned with the principles and values that make for a good
society. At stage 5 they emphasize basic rights and the democratic processes that
give everyone a say, and at stage 6 they define the principles by which
agreement will be most just