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Ethical Dilemma
In philosophy, an ethical dilemma, also called an ethical paradox or moral dilemma, is a situation in which two or more conflicting moral imperatives, none of which overrides the other, confront an agent. A closely related definition characterizes an ethical dilemma as a situation in which every available choice is wrong. The term is also used in a ''wider sense'' in everyday language to refer to ethical conflicts that may be resolvable, to psychologically difficult choices or to other types of difficult ethical problems. This article concerns ethical dilemmas in the ''strict philosophical sense'', often referred to as ''genuine ethical dilemmas''. Various examples have been proposed but there is disagreement as to whether these constitute ''genuine'' or ''merely apparent'' ethical dilemmas. The central debate around ethical dilemmas concerns the question of whether there are any. Defenders often point to apparent examples while their opponents usually aim to show their existence co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral Imperative
A moral imperative is a strongly-felt principle that compels a person "in question" to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be self-defeating and thus contrary to reason. Later thinkers took the imperative to originate in conscience, as the divine voice speaking through the human spirit. The dictates of conscience are simply right and often resist further justification. Looked at another way, the experience of conscience is the basic experience of encountering the right. An example of following a moral imperative is breaking into someone's house in order to save a baby in a burning crib. An example of not following a moral imperative is making a promise, that you do not intend to keep, in order to get something. See also * Moral obligation * Deontological ethics * Teleology Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ought Implies Can
"Ought implies can" is an ethical formula ascribed to Immanuel Kant that claims an agent, if morally obliged to perform a certain action, must logically be able to perform it: Kant believed this principle was a categorical freedom, bound only by the free will as opposed to the Humean hypothetical freedom ("Free to do otherwise if I had so chosen"). There are several ways of deriving the formula—for example, the argument that it is wrong to blame people for things that they cannot control (essentially phrasing the formula as the contrapositive "'cannot' implies 'has no duty to'"). This ethical formula can be expressed in deontic logic with the multimodal axiom: OA \to \Diamond A , where the deontic operator O means "It's obligatory that..." and the alethic operator \Diamond means "It's possible that...". However, in practical situations, obligations are usually assigned in anticipation of future events, in which case alethic possibilities can be hard to judge; Therefore, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Value Theory
Value theory, also called ''axiology'', studies the nature, sources, and types of Value (ethics and social sciences), values. It is a branch of philosophy and an interdisciplinary field closely associated with social sciences such as economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Value is the worth of something, usually understood as covering both positive and negative degrees corresponding to the terms ''good'' and ''bad''. Values influence many human endeavors related to emotion, decision-making, and Action (philosophy), action. Value theorists distinguish various types of values, like the contrast between Instrumental and intrinsic value, intrinsic and instrumental value. An entity has Intrinsic value (ethics), intrinsic value if it is good in itself, independent of external factors. An entity has instrumental value if it is useful as a means leading to other good things. Other classifications focus on the type of benefit, including economic, moral, political, aesthetic, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trolley Problem
The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics, psychology, and artificial intelligence involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number. The series usually begins with a Scenario (vehicular automation), scenario in which a runaway train, runaway tram, trolley or train is on course to collide with and kill a number of people (traditionally five) down the railway track, track, but a driver or bystander can intervene and divert the vehicle to kill just one person on a different track. Then other variations of the runaway vehicle, and analogous life-and-death dilemmas (medical, judicial, etc.) are posed, each containing the option to either do nothing, in which case several people will be killed, or intervene and sacrifice one initially "safe" person to save the others. Opinions on the ethics of each scenario turn out to be sensitive to details of the story that may seem immaterial to the abstract dilemma. The questi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Right And The Good
''The Right and the Good'' is a 1930 book by the Scottish philosopher David Ross. In it, Ross develops a deontological pluralism based on prima facie duties. Ross defends a realist position about morality and an intuitionist position about moral knowledge. ''The Right and the Good'' has been praised as one of the most important works of ethical theory in the twentieth century. Summary As the title suggests, ''The Right and the Good'' is about rightness, goodness and their relation to each other. Rightness is a property of acts while goodness concerns various kinds of things. According to Ross, there are certain features that both have in common: they are real properties, they are indefinable, pluralistic and knowable through intuition. Central to rightness are ''prima facie'' duties, for example, the duty to keep one's promises or to refrain from harming others. Of special interest for understanding goodness is intrinsic value: what is good in itself. Ross ascribes intrinsi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or academic difficulties), relationship problems (such as breakups or divorces), or harassment and bullying. Those who have previously attempted suicide are at a higher risk for future attempts. Effective suicide prevention efforts include limiting access to methods of suicide such as firearms, drugs, and poisons; treating mental disorders and substance abuse; careful media reporting about suicide; improving economic conditions; and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). Although crisis hotlines, like 988 in North America and 13 11 14 in Australia, are common resources, their effectiveness has not been well studied. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for approximately 1.5% of total deaths. In a given year, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Situational Ethics
Situational ethics or situation ethics takes into account ''only'' the particular context of an act when evaluating it ethically, rather than judging it only according to absolute moral standards. With the intent to have a fair basis for judgments or action, one looks to personal ideals of what is appropriate to guide them, rather than an unchanging universal code of conduct, such as Biblical law under divine command theory or the Kantian categorical imperative. Proponents of situational approaches to ethics include existentialist philosophers such as Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Jaspers, and Heidegger. Specifically Christian forms of situational ethics placing love above all particular principles or rules were proposed in the first half of the twentieth century by liberal theologians Rudolf Bultmann, John A. T. Robinson, and Joseph Fletcher. These theologians point specifically to '' agapē'', or unconditional love, as the highest end. Other theologians who advocated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samaritan's Dilemma
The Samaritan's dilemma is a dilemma in the act of charity. It hinges on the idea that when presented with charity, in some locations such as a soup kitchen, a person will act in one of two ways: using the charity to improve their situation, or coming to rely on charity as a means of survival. The term ''Samaritan's dilemma'' was coined by economist James M. Buchanan as a moral hazard. The dilemma's name is a reference to the biblical Parable of the Good Samaritan. Background In 1970 Buchanan said that the phrase "Samaritan's dilemma" was used by economists to describe how a benevolent individual or institution transfers what was intended to be short-term charity to those in need, only to find that those on the receiving end are not using the assistance to improve themselves but instead became dependent on the relief. As a result both suffer. This was part of a paper entitled, "The 'Social' Efficiency of Education", at the September 1970 meeting in Munich of the Mont Pelerin Socie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graded Absolutism
Graded absolutism is a theory of moral absolutism (in Christian ethics) which resolves the objection to absolutism (i.e., in moral conflicts, we are obligated to opposites). Moral absolutism is the Ethics, ethical view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong regardless of other contexts such as their consequences or the intentions behind them. Graded absolutism is moral absolutism but qualifies that a moral absolute, like "Do not kill," can be greater or lesser than another moral absolute, like "Do not lie". Although 'which' absolutes are in conflict depends on the context, the determination of which 'absolute' is greater is based on objective criteria rather than on the context, which distinguishes graded absolutism from situational ethics. For example, in Christianity, the greater absolute is judged by how 'much greater' it aligns with the Great Commandments. Also called contextual absolutism or the greater good view, it is an alternative to the third alternative v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Execution
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term ''capital'' (, derived via the Latin ' from ', "head") refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods, including hanging, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, electrocution, and gassing. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against a person, such as murder, assassination, mass murder, ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euthanasia
Euthanasia (from : + ) is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different Legality of euthanasia, euthanasia laws. The British House of Lords Select committee (United Kingdom), select committee on medical ethics defines euthanasia as "a deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life to relieve intractable suffering". In the Netherlands and Belgium, euthanasia is understood as "termination of life by a doctor at the request of a patient". The Dutch law, however, does not use the term 'euthanasia' but includes the concept under the broader definition of "assisted suicide and termination of life on request". Euthanasia is categorised in different ways, which include Voluntary euthanasia, voluntary, Non-voluntary euthanasia, non-voluntary, and Involuntary euthanasia, involuntary. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adultery
Adultery is extramarital sex that is considered objectionable on social, religious, moral, or legal grounds. Although the sexual activities that constitute adultery vary, as well as the social, religious, and legal consequences, the concept exists in many cultures and shares some similarities in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Adultery is viewed by many jurisdictions as offensive to public morals, undermining the marriage relationship. Historically, many cultures considered adultery a very serious crime, some subject to severe punishment, usually for the woman and sometimes for the man, with penalties including capital punishment, mutilation, or torture. Such punishments have gradually fallen into disfavor, especially in Western countries from the 19th century. In countries where adultery is still a criminal offense, punishments range from fines to caning and even capital punishment. Since the 20th century, criminal laws against adultery have become controversial, with m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
