90/100 What Is a Practical Ethic?
What I’ve Learned So Far in Applied Ethics
Ethics is an endlessly and deeply fascinating way of thinking about the world. As I see it, it is the first question that anyone should ask themselves: how is it that I should be? / In what way should I take action?
Delving into applied ethics, I find there are mainly four ways to see a question of how to be. This framework is a new idea I want to share here.
Firstly, there is the ethics of who you as your character or virtues. This is more so about what your values are at all before any specific context of a question.
Secondly, there is the ethics of duty. To whom or what are you loyal that you would make a decision? In some sense, it strikes me as an extended version of virtue ethics in that your duty to something might be determined by your values, but this is more so about what should happen given your specific role in a situation. E.G. as an older brother I ought to…
Thirdly, there is the ethics of consequence. What are the results of an action that you are charged to take or initiate? This one I see the most often. Reviewing the content we used at Harvard Business Publishing, this was the core idea of our ethics at work course. This makes sense as business seems to largely concern itself with results.
Fourthly, there is the ethics of relationship or care. As someone giving or receiving care, how is it that you should act? This one I find the most interesting. It is entirely about specific relationships and is not, immediately, ready to move towards organizational structures or plans. Whereas with Duty Ethics, it would make sense to go vote, the expression of care does not seem to offer much guidance in that same question.
What I find most fascinating about these frameworks is that it moves ethical questions from the dual absolute-relative way of thinking and brings to bear specific aspects of a question that needs decision. Questions of how to act are not only about clarifying the most correct way or seeing things as “it all depends, man.” There are actually various ways to approach a decision with ethics.
More soon,
Trevor