How Should I Decide?

Often times, we wind up in sticky situations where there is no clear answer as to what the right thing to do is. When this happens, it is helpful if you are familiar with various avenues of reaching a moral decision. In this article, I will discuss three of the traditional theories of ethical decision-making. First, I will talk about virtue ethics. Then, I will talk about duty and moral obligation. Finally, I will talk about utilitarianism. While there are many avenues to take when making moral judgments, and justifying your every-day ethical actions, these three can be simply stated.

Before jumping into a discussion of these three main branches of ethics, I will first briefly touch on ethical egoism. This is the idea that you always do what benefits you. We all know an ethical egoist or two (think of that woman who broke up with you by email, or the man who plagiarized your ideas at the last company sales meeting.) Whatever the case may be, the ethical egoist will always choose to do the action that benefits him or herself.

Virtue ethics stretch back into the time of Aristotle. The thrust behind virtue ethics is that a person knows the right action to take in the right situation. Virtue ethics requires some sort of ethical training - usually occurring in a person's youth. For example, if I am trying to decide whether to ride my bike at next year's AIDS/LifeCycle, I might consult the virtue of kindness to determine whether my action will fall under this heading. William J. Bennett edited a book titled The Book of Virtues to give examples of how virtue can help us today. Virtue ethics is the most adaptable of the three major branches of ethics - and it allows for special relationships like friendship (In fact, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethicsdevotes several passages to the virtue of friendship).

Duty-based ethics (deontology) is based upon commandments or laws. For example, the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" requires an obligation on the part of the actor: Namely, not killing. While religious doctrine and laws provide grounds for duties, there is another sort of duty. Immanuel Kant, an 18^th century German philosopher came up with the Categorical Imperative as a determinant in moral action. The assumption here is that you ought to perform only those actions that you would will to be an eternal, unchangeable law. Kant uses the example of a false promise (or lie) to show how the Categorical Imperative functions. If I fail to pay Liz back on Friday as promised, then I am saying that I would wish it to be the case that everyone would fail to pay back the people they promise. This would lead to a contradiction - if everyone made false promises, and then we could not trust anyone's word. If we could no longer trust anyone's word, then society would begin to fall apart. This is more than just saying, "Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself" (another deontological claim). It calls for going a step further and reasoning through possible outcomes to see whether a contradiction between values exists.

Utilitarian or consequntialist ethics look at the outcome. You may have heard of the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number." This is a phrase related to the utilitarian world-view but keep in mind in mind that consequentialism is a bit more than that. You can credit Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill for founding this branch of ethics. According to Mill, there are greater and lesser pleasures. A greater pleasure might be the ability to pursue artistic ventures or the ability to read for entertainment. Lesser pleasures would include physical pleasures such as eating or sex. The greater pleasures carry more moral weight than the lesser pleasures. For example, someone debating whether to have an affair may weigh the immediate lesser pleasure of sexual gratification against the greater pleasure of unconditional love. It would seem that unconditional love ought to win out.

All of the branches of ethics have objections to them (no one system is perfect). Many ethicists and philosophers have used these systems in order to puzzle out greater questions including:

Is cloning morally permissible?

When is it okay to take someone off life support?

Is it okay to mine in the rain forest?

Should a doctor ever lie to a patient?

Etc.

Now that you have become familiar with these different branches, you can begin to look at decisions that carry moral weight in a different perspective. You may find that while reading this you have one ethical system you agree with more than the others. While no system is perfect, they are all useful in guiding the way we think about our important decisions.