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Ethics in real life (A181) |
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Life is full of occasions when one has to make decisions. Sometimes, these decisions matter – for example, decisions that affect your family, or decisions that have consequences for friends or even strangers. There are all kinds of things you need to take into account, and sometimes the issues get quite complicated. Let us take an example of a family trying to decide whether to keep caring for the aged parent, or to move them to a nursing home. Imagine you are the aged parent. It would be disconcerting, to say the least, if the family gathered around and tossed a coin: heads you are put in a home, tails you stay where you are. Instead, with such decisions, you would expect them to think it through, consider all the issues, balance feelings of familial loyalty with quality of care, respect your feelings on the matter, and so on and so forth. These decisions are momentous, and deserve our full consideration. This is where practical ethics comes in. This is thinking about thinking; how should we take such decisions? What weight should we give to which issues? Are there right or wrong answers here? How do we do the best by everyone? This course takes a look at these questions. It starts by looking at one way in which people in jobs make decisions like this: by consulting their company (or whatever) code of ethics. It then looks at some systems of thought that have evolved to help us make these decisions before launching in to consider ethical thought in health care, in the internet and the stealing of ideas, and in business. Although we have focussed on these areas the conclusions are supposed to be more broadly applicable. One enjoyable aspect of the course for me has been the opportunity to think through some really tricky ethical dilemmas. Is honestly always the best policy? Even if it really damages people you love? What criteria should we use in deciding who does, and who does not, get treated by our health service? Is copying someone else’s work really stealing? Is there anything wrong with out-sourcing a company’s work to India? Something else the course has been able to make use of is a series of 14 interviews, available as podcasts, with some of the best thinkers in this area. They really range around some fascinating issues including killing and war, genetic enhancement, the right to have babies, animal rights, organ transplants, sex, and climate change. You can check these out for yourselves at www.open2.net/ethicsbites/ |
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