1. There are two main ethical viewpoints that policy analysts view cases through. One is utilitarianism, which believes an action is morally right if it creates the greatest net happiness. It seeks to favor the majority over the minority and focuses on the consequences (“Utilitarian”). The second viewpoint is deontology, which believes an action is morally right if it follows preset rules/laws. It oftens goes hand and hand with religion and doesn’t care about the consequences (Shakil).
Two cases that can be seen through both viewpoints include the Spotted Owl Case and the Love Canal Case. In the case of the Spotted Owls, logging was destroying the habitats of the Spotted Owl on the West Coast. A struggle between environmentalists and the
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However two cases, the Spotted Owl case and the fracking case, have excellent examples of them. In the Spotted Owl case, the case applies to both conservation and preservation. Originally the environmentalists bent on saving the Spotted Owls’ habitat followed the preservation ethic. They wanted to stop the logging around the Spotted Owl habitat overall. They wanted to keep the nature there intact. As the case progressed, it unfortunately became obvious that the logging companies wouldn’t settle for that when they kept pressing for policy in their favor. The environmentalists then settled on conservation by naming the Spotted Owl an endangered species in 1990. They settled for a radius around Spotted Owl nests, which diminished logging but didn’t completely stop it. They allowed laws like the Northwest Forest Plan, which made sure that companies planted new trees when they cut one down, to be enacted, which leaned towards conservation(Layzer). In the fracking case, opponents of fracking use land ethics to stand against it. They want to prevent the pollution that fracking causes and prefer to do that rather than use fracking to gather oil, which is better than oil drilling but it’s still not good
The Logging Industry vs. The Old Growth Forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Spotted Owl.
They have very different perspectives and can determine various types of challenges in cases such like the Quinlan case. The ethical position that is most agreeable is utilitarianism. Deontological is the moral decision. Utilitarianism is the moral outcomes from a decision. The Quinlan case a tragic event of a 21year old woman in a coma and the debate of her end of life management. The deontological point of view sided with the hospital and utilitarian point of view sided with the family. From personal experience, I believe utilitarianism is the best the ethical principal for this case because it is focused on the relief of the family and Karen Quinlan. Ethics is basis of making moral decisions and outcome
The first model to the judicial decision making is the attitudinal model. This model of judicial decision making speculates that a judge’s behavior can be predicted mostly by his or her policy attitudes. It perceives judges of the court as motivated by policy goals and unconstrained by the law. Therefore, they decide cases according to moral preference rather than by the meaning or intention of legal texts. One review of the attitudinal model is the fact it relied heavily on unreliable evidence. Also, the attitudinal model of decision making does not always interpret from explaining justice’s decisions at the Supreme Court. Most legal practitioners such as lawyers and judges are likely to think that a very simple attitudinal model is missing
John's position regarding the propriety of logging in old growth forests doesn't just affect owls, of course; it also affects loggers like Mary. Mary, like John, must come to grips with the issues raised by the destruction of old growth forests.
Normative ethics is a central part of the philosophical exploration of ethical theories and is the study of what is right and wrong (Encyclopedia Britannica). Its study is a powerful tool in determining the basis and course of moral actions as it explores moral choices rather than the language or origins of morality; for this reason it falls under the category of applied ethics. While normative ethics is a broad term that encompasses many schools of thought, it is generally thought to be broken down into three categories: the school of virtue ethics, deontology and teleology (or consequentialism). Virtue ethics is exemplified by Aristotle’s view of ethics and can be briefly summarized as pointing to moral character and virtuous living as the right thing to do. This delineates it from the deontological schools (e.g.; Kant’s Categorical Imperative) which emphasize certain rules or obligations which are necessarily moral for reasons separated from people and consequences. Consequentialism focuses on the consequences of the actions to judge moral value; utilitarianism is an example of this school and states that the right thing to do is what maximizes overall utility (Hursthouse, Rosalind, Stanford Encylopedia). These different branches are often philosophically challenged in discourse and also in real life examples of moral dilemmas. Their distinct approaches to judging morality in our world make them mutually exclusive theories. However, in application, our world presents us with moral situations that are often so convoluted that strictly adhering to one of these theories can create serious moral dilemmas. An important case is how humans should approach the problem of global climate change. Evidence points to the majority ...
Although environmentalism and conservationism both promoted responsible human management of nature, the movements vary in their core ideologies. Specifically, conservation has its roots in the economic value of nature whereas environmentalism seeks to protect the environment from humans. Conservation arose in the early 20th century amidst the Progressive Era and the Second Industrial Revolution and although it encouraged the sustainable use of resources, many of its efforts and practices were actually implemented for human benefit. Conservationists called for the control of certain wildlife for recreational and economic uses such as hunting and food and were not concerned with the ecological consequences of their efforts. Gaining popularity in the 1960s, environmentalism pushed for ecological sensibility and protection of the environment rather than its exploitation for economic advantage. Environmentalism sought the governmental regulation of wildlife in the late 1960s and 1970s to limit human manipulation of nature. Environmentalism also led to the growth of environmental protection groups which advocated for a symbiotic relationship between humans and the environment. Even though environmentalism and conservationism bot...
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that approaches moral questions of right and wrong by considering the actual consequences of a variety of possible actions. These consequences are generally those that either positively or negatively affect other living beings. If there are both good and bad actual consequences of a particular action, the moral individual must weigh the good against the bad and go with the action that will produce the most good for the most amount of people. If the individual finds that there are only bad consequences, then she must go with the behavior that causes the least amount of bad consequences to the least amount of people. There are many different methods for calculating the utility of each moral decision and coming up with the best
My presentation is about the snowy owl the biome it lives in and the plant I chose to present.
Two ideologies that exist in ethics and apply to decision-making are utilitarian and deontological viewpoints. Ethical theories provide a systematic approach to decision-making toward the applications of standard principles. “In utilitarian ethics, outcomes justify the means or ways to achieve it” (Mandal, Ponnambath, & Parija, 2016, p. 5). Decisions made considering utility are based benefitting the greatest number of people. In utilitarianism, outcomes determine the moral nature of interventions. Some people are to experience harm, but the overall outcome is good for most individuals. Applying utilitarianism personally or professionally seems relevant when considering its ideology maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering. Utilitarianism
Having considered both sides of the argument surrounding the Endangered Species Act, it seems logical to conclude that, despite the fact that they Endangered Species Act could stand some improvement in terms of the speed of the bureaucracy that governs it, the Act itself is quite sufficient as is as long as it is administered to the full extent of its power. There is a growing tendency in government, however, to undermine the strength of the Endangered Species Act by making decisions on when and where to apply it a political matter rather than an ecological matter (Munro, 2010). To do this is to insure that ultimately it will not just be the environment and the wile organisms that live in it that will lose, it will be mankind as well.
A utilitarian approach to moral reasoning is also one where different options are weighed, although utilitarians are interested in minimising harm and maximising benefit. Importantly, utilitarians hold a universal perspective when reasoning, where they consider the impact upon all those who may be affected, who have interests of their own (Grace & Cohen 2013: 14-15).
These professionals need to know how unethical and ethical policy-making decisions differ in how it affects those ...
Utilitarianism can be described as an ethical theory that states if the consequences of an action
* Shirk, Evelyn. “New Dimensions in Ethics: Ethics and the Environment.” Ethics and the Environment. Proc. of Conf. on Ethics and the Environment, April 1985, Long Island University. Ed. Richard E. Hart. Lanham: University Press of America, 1992. 1-10.
To summarise, this essay has shown that the concept of impartiality is a relationship between a moral agent and a particular group. It requires that one be not influenced by which member of the group is benefited or harmed by his or her actions. Moreover, it has also shown that impartiality is a necessary condition for the ethical theories of utilitarianism and deontology. Such theories, however, cannot account for human intuition that suggests that it is acceptable to be partial in some circumstances. Finally, this essay has shown that the conflict between partiality and impartiality has not been resolved. As such, the request to be impartial with regard to morality does demand too much.