TOK Chs. 7-8, p.

237-257

Team 1: 237-241
Team 2: 242-246
Team 3: 246-251
Team 4: 251-257
Team 5: Case Study 1
Team 6: Case Study 2

Week 4: Ethical Reasoning

PP: Team 1-3: Mill
Team 4-6: Kant
AIO: Gene
Modification
 Socratic Seminar
• SS: TYFA selected ch. 1-3, 14-16
Discussion:
– What did your section reveal
about the nature of persuasion?
– How might it interact with
specific concepts of TOK? Why
is persuasion a part of knowing
and arguing?
• AIO: Discrimination Discussion
– Discuss your problems of Knowledge
– Combine your problems into an
overarching question for futher research?
– How might the AIO topic be related to
the TYFA readings?
 Where are we Going?
• Activity: Island
Rescue
– Definition of Ethics
through concept
clarification modeling
• Warrants (Toulmin)
– Presuppositions and
challenges
• 6 categories of
Ethical Knowing
• Blog: Ethical Agents
 What is Ethics? Rescue Activity
• Situation, you are stranded on
Primavera Island in the “Ring of
Fire”
• Due to volcanic activity, there is a
record tsunami that will make
landfall in 10 minutes. Causalities
are expected to be absolute.
• Mr. Morris is the pilot of the only
F77 to successfully reach land in
time to make a rescue.
• Normally, the helicopter can
carry only six passengers, but it is
thought that it could be
overloaded to the maximum of
eight. (7 passengers plus the
pilot)
 What is Ethics? Rescue Activity
• Consider the
people and make a
case for who should
be on the
helicopter.
• You must come to
agreement about 7
survivors.
 What is Ethics? Rescue Activity
Breakdown
1. Whom did you select to survive?
2. What were your reasons for the
choices?
3. How much agreement and
disagreement did you find among
your choices?
4. What values do the choices
reflect?
5. How do you feel about yourselves
in relation to this exercise?
6. Did you use rationalizations to
avoid making the decisions in this
learning activity?
7. What working definition
can we make about Ethics from this
activity?
 Why Ethical Reasoning?
1. Ethics makes clear to us why one
act is better than another
2. Ethics contributes an orderly social
life by providing humanity some
basis for agreement,
understanding some principles or
rules of procedure
3. Moral conduct and ethical
systems, both of the past and the
present, must be intelligently
appraised and criticized.
4. Ethics seeks to point out to men
the true values of life
 Warrants Towards Ethical
Reasoning
• Two basic assumptions of Ethical Reasoning:
– Man is a rational being
– Man is free to make choices
• How might the goal and method of ethics change if one or
both of these presuppositions were shown to be false?
The Objects of Ethical Reasoning
• The doer of the action
(The subject)
• The action done
– Formal Object of Ethics is
the Action, not the
subject.
• How might the
emphasis on one
object or the other
effect ethical
reasoning? What is the
functional difference
between “morality”
and “ethics”?
 The Spectrum of Ethical
Reasoning
• Consequentialist • Non-consequentialist
(Deontological) Ethics
(Teleological) Ethics
– Ethical Actions have moral,
– Ethical Actions have categorical imperatives
consequences – If everyone were to do this
– Do the consequences result action, would the resulting
in a positive outcome? world be rational? (queue
allegory)
– How many people benefit?
How many people are – Ethical Actions participate in
rational truths despite
hurt?
consequences.
– Are more benefiting than – Nay/Horray judgement on the
hurting? action itself
 External v. Internal Ethical
Reasoning
• External:
– Ethical actions are a result
of the cultural, societal,
religious, and political
evolution of group identity
– One does the “right”
action in order to belong.
– What other reasons would
one do “right” in this
category?
• Internal:
– Called “Virtue Ethics”.
– Focusing on the Subject, not the
action (i.e. “be an honest
person”)
– Philosophical roots in Socrates
and Aristotle
– Do “right” actions because one
must have “right” ethical
character.
What other reasons would one
want to do “right” in this
category?
 Practical v. Theoretical Ethics
• Practical Ethics Involves
the Application of
reasoning in a complex
society
– Often results in an
imperfect synthesis of
various theories
• Theoretical Ethics is
meant to practice
reasoning within general
frameworks.
• How might these two
categories be
associated with the
theories of truth?
Blog Activity: Other Categories?
• What might be some
other categories of
Ethical reasoning?
• Consider two ethical
characters
throughout history,
one that operates
under a category we
discussed, and one
that operates under
a category we have
not. Identify and
explain both.