There are many ethical approaches that can be used in decision making. The Mountain Terrorist Exercise is based on an artificial scenario designed to separate these theoretical approaches along the lines of the different "horns" of a dilemma. Utilitarian’s tend to choose to shoot a villager "in order to save 19." In other words they focus their analysis on the consequences of an action alternative and choose the one that produces the least harm. Deontologists generally elect to walk away from the situation. This is because they judge an action on the basis of its formal characteristics. A deontologist might argue that killing the villager violates natural law or cannot be made into a law or rule that consistently applies to everybody. A deontologist might say something like, "What right do I have to take another person's life?" A virtue ethicists might try to imagine how a person with the virtue of courage or integrity would act in this situation. (Williams claims that choosing to kill the villager, a duty under utilitarianism, would undermine the integrity of a person who abhorred killing.)
Table Connecting Theory to Domain
- Row 1: Utilitarianism concerns itself with the domain of consequences which tells us that the moral value of an action is "colored" by its results. The harm/beneficence test, which asks us to choose the least harmful alternative, encapsulates or summarizes this theoretical approach. The basic principle of utilitarianism is the principle of utility: choose that action that produces the greatest good for the greatest number. Cost/beneftsanalysis,theParetocriterion,theKalder/Hickscriterion,risk/benefits analysis all represent different frameworks for balancing positive and negative consequences under utilitarianism or consequentialism.
- Row 2: Deontology helps us to identify and justify rights and their correlative duties The reversibility test summarizes deontology by asking the question, "Does your action still work if you switch (=reverse) roles with those on the receiving end? "Treat others always as ends, never merely as means," the Formula of End, represents deontology's basic principle. The rights that represent special cases of treating people as ends and not merely as means include (a) informed consent, (b) privacy, (c) due process, (d) property, (e) free speech, and (f) conscientious objection.
- Row 3: Virtue ethics turns away from the action and focuses on the agent, the person performing the action. The word, "Virtue," refers to different sets of skills and habits cultivated by agents. These skills and habits, consistently and widely performed, support, sustain, and advance different occupational, social, and professional practices. (See Macintyre, After Virtue, and Solomon, Ethics and Excellence, for more on the relation of virtues to practices.) The public identification test summarizes this ap proach: an action is morally acceptable if it is one with which I would willingly be publicly associated given my moral convictions. Individual virtues that we will use this semester include integrity, justice, responsibility, reasonableness, honesty, trustworthiness, and loyalty.
| Covering All the Bases | ||||
| Ethical Dimension | Covering Ethical Approach | Encapsulating Ethical Test | Basic Principles | Application or Bridging Tools |
| Consequences | Utilitarianism |
Harm/Beneficence (weigh harms against benefits) |
Principle of Utility: greatest good for greatest number |
Benefit & cost Comparison Utility Maximization |
| Formal Characteristics of Act | Deontology (Duty-based, rights-based, natural law, social contract) |
Reversibility (test by reversing roles between agent and object of action) |
Categorical Imperative Formula of End Autonomy | Free & Informed Consent, Privacy, Property, Due Process, Free Speech, Conscientious objection |
| Skills and habits cultivated by agent | Virtue Ethics | Public Identification (impute moral import of action to person of agent) | Virtues are means between extremes with regard to agent and action-Virtues are cultivated dispositions that promote central community values | Integrity, justice, responsibility, reasonableness, honesty, trustworthiness, loyalty |
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