Evaluate the ethical positions arrived at by using a key moral theory (such as Kantian ethics) relative to the long-standing debate surrounding the death penalty, cloning, or some other key topic of moral controversy

While we have never said so directly to this point, ethics operates through our relationships with other people and the environment where those relationships occur – our families, our communities, our businesses, our nations, the whole of civilization, and the physical environment of the earth. It would be nonsense to speak of ethics in isolation from our contacts with each other.
Relationships beyond ourselves immediately return the discussion to our duties. It also revisits and adds to the concept of the scope of our responsibilities as limited to our immediate contacts, or beyond, to the community or even the whole world.
In this university, where we prepare for our professional and occupational days to come, how can we attach the ethics we learn to the professional societies and communities where we will apply them? Everything that happens involves our relationships.
We need to evaluate ethical positions involving key moral controversies. Such controversies involve conflicting duties between self and society, profession and family, person and nation. Such conflicts require us to use ethical theories, moral values, and logical reasoning. An example of two such ethical theories we can use in these cases are Ethical Egoism and Social Contract Theory.
Outcomes
4
Select the best course of action based on moral theories, values, and logical reasoning given conflicting moral duties (loyalty to community or to self, professional or familial duties, national or personal obligations) and a situation in which a choice has to be made.
6
Evaluate the ethical positions arrived at by using a key moral theory (such as Kantian ethics) relative to the long-standing debate surrounding the death penalty, cloning, or some other key topic of moral controversy.
Week 3 Lesson: Self and Society
Table of Contents
Ethical Egoism
Our many relationships are where the applied ethics of our lives are acted out, and conflict commonly occurs at every level of life. This week, we will look at and practice using ethics when resolving conflicts. This is partly about the concern about the boundaries of our duties and obligations.
Ethical egoism says that what is morally right is whatever is in one’s own best interests. That does not mean anything that makes us happy is moral. Addictive drugs might make us happy, but they are not in our rational interests. The most famous advocate of Ethical Egoism was Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand lived during the twentieth century (1905-1982). She left the Soviet Union to come to the United States. There, she wrote novels, essays, and philosophical works. Her version of Ethical Egoism is called Objectivism.

Rand begins by asserting that all human behavior is self-interested. This is an objective and empirical claim based on observation of people, a claim of behavioral science. Notice her use of the descriptive word is. To bring that claim to ethics involves a shift of language into prescriptive form. Rand is claiming that all honest and ethical behavior is and should be self-interested and only self-interested. Again, notice the shift to the prescriptive words should be. But if every action is motivated solely by self-interest what does one make of altruism? Is it unrealistic – or even impossible – that people behave altruistically toward each other without a selfish motivation for doing so?
If that is true, then it seems as if ethics and morality are impossible. The idea continues that acting unselfishly has a benefit to the actor in a feel-good payoff of personal satisfaction; therefore, all altruistic acts are sabotaged in their moral value by the satisfaction that the actor enjoys. Especially for heroic acts, the public acclaim undermines the value of the true altruism, which would be an act benefiting others without pay-off as an actor. The objectivist position claims that people do altruistic, noble, and even heroic acts for what is in their own interest, and acting in self-interest undermines all value attached to those altruistic actions.
Having shifted from “is self-interested” to “should be only self-interested,” Rand’s position also denies that people have any duty or obligation to others. If each person should pursue his or her self-interest exclusively, it follows that one’s only duty is to their own self-interest and not to other people or the community at all. Rand would say that we can help others if it benefits us, but should avoid it if it means going against what is good for us. Rand’s conclusion is that any decision becomes right by virtue of one’s own advantage – and nothing else. Rand is ultimately about loyalty to self over loyalty to community, to a family, to a profession, or nation.
Professional, Familial, and National Obligations
Professional Obligations
Professional communities, formed as professional societies, serve several functions. These societies also have their own codes of ethic. The American Nurses Association for example has a code of ethics you can review here: https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/ethics/code-of-ethics-for-nurses/ (Links to an external site.)

Among the functions of such associations is to define the boundaries of the profession both as work to be accomplished and membership within the profession, to educate potential members of the professions through graduate education and accreditation of the graduate schools, to examine and certify graduates in order to determine whether they meet standards for practicing the profession, and to credential them for practicing the profession. Within that system is the need to guarantee that accredited members practice according to defined ethical standards. These societies–examples including the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association, among many others–all publish, educate for, and examine codes of ethics. When it becomes necessary to discipline a member, it is the Code of Ethics that provides the professional standard for behavior and quality of practice.
Professional education aimed toward entrance into the professions will endeavor to instill the values and ethos of the profession – ethos being a word with a common root as ethics. An ethics course within the professional curriculum will teach to instill the values of the professional community with a larger goal of protecting the integrity of the professional community’s status and acknowledged role in the community. Within such a curriculum is an intention that new members of the profession will make their decisions and practical applications in continuity with the community’s history and vision of the future.
One’s professional duties dictate what one is permitted and forbidden in that field. For example, a lawyer knows what it is right or wrong to do with a client because the ABA has laid out key ethical principles. But, what if violating the ABA code could benefit the lawyer personally? Should the lawyer do so? Rand would advise the lawyer to violate the code.
Communal Obligations
The American Medical Association dictates what a doctor should do when it comes to patients. But, what if injuring a patient might benefit the community overall? For example, experimenting on a patient without consent might lead to a cure for many. Should the doctor put the interests of the community above a professional duty to receive informed consent or authorization from boards of review? These are the types of questions we will continue to consider as we move through the course.
Familial Obligations
Every human is part of a family. We have mothers, fathers, siblings, relatives, etc. We are called on to serve them and do for them. Our children call for attention. Most feel obligated to care for their children and care for them well. One way we care for them is by providing for their basic needs such as safe shelter and food to eat. However, to do that requires money which requires a job, which comes with its own obligations. A senior engineer might have a professional duty to ensure that the project he is working is safe for all. However, she/he also has to get home in time to pick their children up from school. Perhaps, a junior engineer is on the project. The senior engineer then would have to decide whether or not to leave the project in the hands of the junior engineer to attend to a familial duty. They would have to test whether they are allowing their professional obligation to be neglected in favor of another pressing matter. This is just one example from day to day life where we see an interplay of ethics.
National Obligations
War is a time when some of the greatest personal ethical tests occur. War is a time when one’s personal ethics are often required to be put aside in pursuit of national objectives. This requirement often tempts people to find ways to be excused from armed service. Is a young woman who feigns a medical condition to avoid being drafted into a national army acting unethically by seeking to pursue her own interests rather national ones? What if she is morally opposed to the violence of war? Then is she justified in dodging the draft?