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Are you a deontologist or a utilitarian?
- Would you walk away from Omelas?
- Ursula LeGuin wrote a fascinating short story entitled, “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas.” It describes a city in which almost everything is perfect. Almost all the inhabitants are happy and prosperous. Everything seems perfect until the visitor to the city discovers that all the happiness and prosperity of the city are purchased by inflicting unimaginable suffering on one innocent young girl. She is kept alone in a dark room, denied kindness and human interaction, and forced to live in appalling material conditions. At the end of her story, LeGuin poses for us a choice: Would you choose to live in a city where the happiness of the many (including you) is purchased by channeling all unhappiness onto one unfortunate innocent victim?
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Would a Deontologist walk away from Omelas? Why or why not?
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Would a Utilitarian walk away from Omelas? Why or why not?
Virtue ethics
- Virtue ethics differs from deontology and consequentialism.
- First, rather than focusing on the action it focuses on the agent. The action eminates from the character of the agent; hence, evaluate the action in terms of what it says about the agent.
- Second, it raises the bar in moral analysis. Instead of focusing on harm minimalization or on the moral minimum, virtue ethics is really about moral excellence. Virtue translates the Greek word, "arete" which can also be translated by excellence. Thus, virtues are excellences and moral virtues are moral excellences.
- Finally, virtues point, not just to the individual, but to the community. They represent habits of action performed by individuals that bring about the goods that sustain the social surroundings. Professional virtues are patterns of action performed by professionals that keep the profession healthy and vibrant.
Aristotle's definitions of virtue or arete
- "a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determikned by a rational principle and by that principle by which [a person] of practical wisdom would determine it." (Ross's translation in Nicomachean Ethics, 1106b, 36.
- Virtues are excellences of character. Aristotle finds them in the mean lying betweentwo extremes which are termed "vices." Invices of excess, we have too much of a good thing. So recklessness is too much courage. In vices of defect, we have too little of a good thing. So cowardice is the vice of too little courage.
- Cardinal Virtues: temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice. The last represents the ordering of temperance and courage under wisdom and insight into the nature of good.
Macintyre's definition of virtue (macintyre 2007)
- "A virtue is an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods.
- Goods internal to engineering would include such things as (1) the health, safety, and welfare of the public which is served by the virtue of holding this good paramount in engineering design, (2) remaining loyal to the legitimate interests of the client which is displayed by the virtue of avoiding conflicts of interest, keeping client concerns confidential and exercising due care in engineering design, (3) upholding the honor and integrity of the profession which is upheld in displaying excellences in expert witnessing, superising the preparation of engineering plans, and upholding and advancing standards of excellent engineering practice, and (4) collegiality which is advanced through the excellence of treating peers respectfully, giving them credit, and working with them to advance engineering knowledge and practice.
Source:
OpenStax, Engineering ethics modules for ethics across the curriculum. OpenStax CNX. Oct 08, 2012 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10552/1.3
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