BIOSAFETY & ETHICS

Lecture # 05: Ethical Considerations

Introduction

• Ethics is defined as follows:

• “The philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of

the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophy”
(Collins online dictionary; http://www.collinsdictionary.com) or

• “the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles” (Oxford

online dictionary; http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/).
Introduction (contd.)
• Ethics is concerned with what we should and shouldn’t do.

• Should we clone human beings?

• Should we pursue immortality?

• Should we produce genetically modified crops or ‘engineer’ our genes

or those of animals?

• All these decisions are ethical decisions.

Levels of Moral Discourse
Level of The Case

• Often in bioethics, the discussion begins with a case problem.

• Someone faces a concrete moral dilemma or two people disagree

about what in a specific situation is the morally appropriate response.

• Fortunately, in almost all situations the ethically correct course is

obvious.
Level of The Case (contd.)

• Occasionally, however, the choice does not come as easily.

• One kind of advice may come in the form of mentioning other cases
that seem similar, cases that have been resolved in the past.

• They may be in the form of a Biblical story or a legal case about which
the culture has reached agreement.
Level of The Case (contd.)

• These agreed- upon cases are sometimes referred to as “paradigm

cases.”

• One of the identifying characteristics of an ethical judgment (as

opposed to a matter of mere taste or preference) is this awareness
that if the relevant features are similar, then cases should be treated
alike.
Level of The Case (contd.)

• This approach relying on paradigm cases is sometimes called

casuistry.

• This is the lowest or most specific level of what can be considered the
four major levels of moral discourse.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics)

• In some instances, the basic ethics learned throughout life might not
settle the problem.

• Alternatively, an agreement on a specific paradigm case can’t be

reached or a disagreement exists regarding the relevance of present
problem to the paradigm case in all respects.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• We may, at that point, move to a second level of moral discourse, the

level of moral rules and rights.

• Sometimes rules and rights tell us what is legal, but they may also
describe what is ethical.

• Since not everything that is legal is also ethical and vice versa, it will
be important to note the difference.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• If a rule or a right is considered ethical, it will be seen as grounded in

a moral system, an ultimate system of beliefs and norms about the
rightness or wrongness of human conduct and character.

• Groups of rules or rights claims are sometimes called codes of ethics.

• Sometimes the parties to an ethical dispute may cite a rule-like

maxim.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)
• “Always get consent before non- emergent surgery” or

• “a patient’s medical information must be kept confidential” etc.

• These rule-like statements are usually quite specific.

• A large number of them would be needed to cover all medical ethical

situations.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• If there is agreement on the rule that applies, then the case problem
might be resolved at this second level.

• Sometimes these maxims are stated not as rules but as rights claims.

• “a patient has a right to consent before non- emergent surgery”

• “a patient has a right to have his or her medical information kept confidential”
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• Rules are expressed from the perspective of the one who has a duty
to act.

• Rights are claims from the viewpoint of the one acted upon.

• Often rules and rights express the same moral duty from two
different perspectives.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• They are then said to be “reciprocal.”

• Medical professional, religious, cultural, and political organizations

sometimes gather together collections of rules or rights claims.

• When they do, they “codify” them or produce a code of ethics.

Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• When the statements are made up of rights claims, they are often
called

• bills of rights as in the American Hospital Association’s “Patient’s Bill of

Rights” or

• declarations as in the UNESCO “Universal Declaration on Bioethics and

Human Rights.”
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• One of the controversies in ethics is how seriously these rules and

rights must be taken.

• At one extreme an ethical theory could include the view that there
are no exceptions to the rules or rights.

• This view, which almost no one actually holds, is sometimes called

legalism.
Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• At the other extreme, someone might hold that every case is so

unique that no rules or rights can ever be relevant in deciding what
one ought to do in a specific situation.

• This view, which is as implausible as legalism, is called antinomianism.

• Two intermediate positions are more plausible.

Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• Situationism holds that moral rules are merely “guidelines” or “rules

of thumb” that must be evaluated in each situation.

• The rules of practice view holds that rules specify practices that are
morally obligatory.

• In this view, the rules are stringently binding on conduct.

Rules & Rights (Codes of Ethics) (contd.)

• Exceptions are made only in very extraordinary circumstances—

much less easily than in the situationist position.
Normative Ethics

• People in an ethics dispute may not be able to determine which rule

or rights claim applies or how it should be applied.

• The parties may have to move to a third level of moral discourse,

what can be called the level of normative ethics.

• It is at this level that the broad, basic norms of behavior, character,

and moral relations are discussed.
Normative Ethics (contd.)

• It is from these basic norms that rules and rights claims will be
derived or defended.

• It is also at this level that the norms of good moral character and
moral relations are articulated.

• The key feature of these norms is that they are general: They apply to
a wide range of conduct and character.
Normative Ethics (contd.)

• If “always get consent before non-emergent surgery” is a moral rule,

it might be associated with some broader ethical norm, such as
respect for autonomy.

• Since these norms are very broad, only a few norms will be expected
or needed in a “normative ethical theory.”
Normative Ethics (contd.)

• Normative ethical theory thus refers to very broad approaches that

have been used in organizing ethical analysis.

• These include:

• action theory, often expressed in a list of principles of right action;

• virtue theory, which focuses on the moral character of actors; and

• value theory, which identifies those things considered intrinsically valuable.

Normative Ethics (contd.)

• An ethical theory at the normative level, therefore, must address

three separate issues.
Normative Ethics (contd.)

• Examples of principles making action morally right (action theory):

• beneficence,

• non-maleficence,

• respect for autonomy,

• justice etc.
Normative Ethics (contd.)

• Examples of good character traits (virtue theory):

• compassion,

• benevolence,

• faithfulness etc.

• The virtues refer not to the character of actions, but to the character
of the people who engage in the actions.
Normative Ethics (contd.)
• Distinction between good action and virtue

• Benevolence is a virtue, the virtue of willing to do good.

• Beneficence is a principle of actions, the principle of actually acting in

such a way that good consequences result.

• One can, of course, will the good (show the virtue of benevolence)
but end up not doing the good (being beneficent).
Normative Ethics (contd.)

• Examples of things considered intrinsically valuable (value theory):

• happiness,

• beauty,

• knowledge, and

• — importantly for bioethics— health.

Normative Ethics (contd.)

• Some kinds of things, like money, seem to be valuable, but only

extrinsically—because it will buy something else of value.

• Other kinds of things are valuable in themselves – that is, intrinsically

valuable.
Metaethics

• The parties to a dispute may not be able to determine which

principles should prevail.

• One person, for example, might give priority to the principle of

beneficence while another might believe that autonomy should take
precedence (even if respecting autonomy will lead to less good
consequences; that is, be less beneficent).
Metaethics (contd.)

• Or they may not agree on whether right action or virtuous character

is more important.

• When disputes of this sort linger, the discourse must move to a fourth
and final level, the level of metaethics.

• Metaethics deals with the most basic questions of ethics:

Metaethics (contd.)
• the meaning and justification of ethical terms,

• how people know which principles or virtues or moral relations are the
correct ones, and

• the ultimate grounding of ethics.

• Here we are no longer interested in the substantive questions of

which actions are morally right or which traits of character are
morally praiseworthy.
Metaethics (contd.)

• Rather we are dealing with even more basic issues of

• where to look to get answers to these questions and

• how we can know when we have the right answer.

• Religious ethics has, by now, fairly standard answers to these

metaethical questions.
Metaethics (contd.)

• To the religious person, claiming an action is right means it would be

approved by the deity or is in accord with laws created by the deity.

• On this view, to say that a character trait is virtuous is to say that it

would be approved morally by God.

• Religious people also have well- worked- out notions of how humans
can know something is ethical:
Metaethics (contd.)
• by revelation and reason,

• by reading the scriptures, and

• by religious authorities such as the pope, church councils, Islamic fatwas etc.

• Secular people are not satisfied with these positions, but have
analogous answers of their own.
Metaethics (contd.)
• The grounding of ethics may be in natural law or practical reason or in
some contract (actual or hypothetical) among people.

• Traditional secular ethics have shared with monotheistic religions the

notion that ethics is universal.

• That is, for a specific moral case at a specific time and place, all
people ought to reach the same ethical judgment about whether the
behavior involved is morally right or wrong.
Metaethics (contd.)

• This view is sometimes called universalism.

• Of course, universalists recognize that not all people actually will

agree on such judgments, but they believe that there is some
universal standard (such as the divine will or reason or social
contract) against which people’s judgments can be tested.
Metaethics (contd.)

• If two people disagree, say, about whether a particular abortion in a

particular set of circumstances is immoral, then at least one of them
must be mistaken.

• Other secular theories share with polytheistic religion the notion that
there is more than one standard of reference for moral matters.
Metaethics (contd.)

• These metaethical positions are called relativist because they hold

that moral judgments are relative to the multiple standards or
authorities that exist.

• For example, for believers in polytheistic religion, different cultures

may have different deities.
Metaethics (contd.)

• One culture’s god might approve of a merciful killing of a suffering

patient while another culture’s, considering exactly the same case,
might disapprove.

• Likewise, a secular ethic might be relativist if it holds that the ultimate

standard of reference for moral judgments was the norms agreed
upon in a particular culture.