Diffusion of Responsibility
A situation in which the responsibility of an organization becomes fragmented throughout a group, with no single individual feeling responsible for what happens to the organization, leading employees to have a diluted or diminished sense of their own personal moral responsibilities.
Divine Command Theory
A theory recommended by some theologians that if something is wrong (such as killing an innocent person), then the only reason it is wrong is because God commands us not to do it.
Ethical Relativism
The theory that what is right & wrong is determined by what one's culture or society says is right & wrong.
Ethics
The individual character & the moral rules that govern & limit our conduct; the investigation of questions of right & wrong, duty & obligation, & moral responsibility.
Etiquette
The set of norms for correct & approved conduct in polite society; more generally, the specialized codes & rules of social behavior or courtesy.
Groupthink
An extreme case of conformity within a highly cohesive group, when pressure for unanimity within the group overwhelms its members' desire or ability to appraise the situation realistically & consider alternative courses of action.
In-valid Argument
An argument whose premises do not entail its conclusion.
Moral Arguments
Arguments whose conclusions are moral judgments.
Moral Standards
Ethical concerns for behaviors that are of serious consequence to human welfare, & for actions that can profoundly injure or profoundly benefit people. They provide the basic guidelines for cooperative social existence & allow conflicts to be resolved by appeal to shared principles of justification.
Morality in the Broad Sense
Not only the principles of conduct that we embrace, but also the values, ideals, beliefs, & aspirations that shape the lives that we create for ourselves, along w/ the way we understand those lives.
Morality in the Narrow Sense
The principles that act as internal monitors to guide human behavior, those that do or should regulate people's conduct & relations w/ others; the basic moral code of an individual or society.
Organizational norms
The shared conscious or unconscious acceptance of a company's rules by its members; includes the individual commitment to those rules in order to further the organization's goals, often at the expense of some personal freedom.
Paradox of Hedonism
Also called the paradox of selfishness, the theory that individuals who care only about their own happiness will generally be less happy than those who care about others.
Premises
In an argument, the group of statements, which, if held to be true, entail that the conclusion of that argument also be true.
Professional Codes of Ethics
The rules that are supposed to govern the conduct of members of a given profession.
Self-Interest
The actions that best satisfy one's own beliefs, desires, & choices.
Sound Arguments
Arguments that have true premises & valid reasoning.
Statutes
The laws enacted by legislative bodies, such as Congress, state legislatures, etc.
Unsound Arguments
Arguments that have at least 1 false premise or that use in-valid reasoning.
Valid Arguments
An argument whose premises logically entail its conclusion.
Act Utilitarianism
The most basic type of utilitarianism, which states that we must ask ourselves what the consequences will be for all those who may be affected by a particular act in a particular situation. If its consequences bring more total good than those of any alternative course of action, then this action is the right one & the one we should perform.
Business Egoism
The view that it is morally acceptable for individuals to pursue their economic interests when engaged in business. This view is defended on utilitarian grounds.
Categorical Imperative
Kant's moral concept that an action is morally right if & only if we can will that the maxim represented by our action be a universal law. (Ex. a person making a promise with no intention of keeping it cannot universalize the maxim governing his action, bc if everyone followed this principle, promising would make no sense.) Kant believed this concept to be binding on all rational creatures, regardless of their goals or desires & regardless of the consequences. It takes the form of "Do this" or "Don't do that"—no ifs, &s, or buts.
Consequentialist Theories
Theories that argue that the moral rightness of an action is determined solely by its results. If its consequences are good, then the act is right; if they are bad, the act is wrong.
Egoism
The view that equates morality w/ self-interest; an egoist contends that an act is morally right if & only if it best promotes an agent's interests.
Eminent Domain
The gov'ts right to appropriate private property for public use, usually w/ compensation to the owner. (Thus, the gov't may legally purchase your house from you to widen a highway—even if you don't want to sell the house or if you want more $ than the gov't is willing to pay.)
Good-Will
Accordin to Kant, the only thing that is good in itself. By "will," Kant meant the uniquely human capacity to act from principle. This does not mean that intelligence, courage, self-control, health, happiness, & other things aren't good & desirable, but that their goodness depends on the motivation that makes use of them (ex: intelligence is not good when used by an evil person).
Hedonism
The view that pleasure (or happiness) is the only thing that is good in itself, is the ultimate good, & is the 1 thing in life worth pursuing for its own sake.
Human Rights
The moral rights that are not the result of particular roles, special relationships, or specific circumstances. They have 4 important characteristics — they are universal, equal, not transferable or able to be relinquished; & natural, not in the sense that they are derived from a study of human nature, but that they do not depend on human institutions the way legal rights do.
Hypothetical Imperative
A concept that tells us what we must do on the assumption that we have some particular goal (ex: if that is what you want, then this is what you must do, so if you want to go to medical school, you must 1st take a course in biology).
Ideal
A morally important goal, virtue, or notion of excellence worth striving for & largely impacting our actions. Clearly, different ethical systems & cultures impart different ideals &, equally important, different ways of pursuing them.
Legal Rights
Broadly defined, entitlements to act or have others act in certain ways. They are derived from a society's specific justice system & can be renounced or transferred, as when 1 party sells another a house or a business.
Maxim
Kantian term referring to the subjective principle of an action, the principle (or rule) that people in effect formulate in determining their conduct.
Moral Rights
The rights that may be derived from special relationships, roles, or circumstances in which we happen to find ourselves. Unlike legal rights, they are not derived from some specific system of justice.
Moral Worth
Kantian notion tied to the concepts of good will & duty, stating that our actions can only have moral worth when we respond from a sense of duty. When we act only out of feeling, inclination, or self-interest, our actions—although they may be otherwise identical with ones that spring from the sense of duty—have no true moral worth.
Negative Rights
1 of 2 broad categories of human rights (the other category being positive rights), they reflect the vital interests that human beings have in being free from outside interference. Those rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights—freedom of speech, assembly, religion, & so on—fall within this category, as do the rights to freedom from injury & to privacy.
Non-consequentialist Theories
1 of 2 types of normative theories, they contrast w/ consequentialist theories, contending that right & wrong are determined by more than the likely consequences of an action. Also called deontological theories.
Normative Theories
In ethics, those that propose some principle or principles for distinguishing right actions from wrong actions. They can be divided into 2 kinds: consequentialist & non-consequentialist.
Optimal Moral Code
Not merely the set of rules that would do the most good if everyone conformed to them all the time, but the more complex concept incorporating those rules that can reasonably be taught & obeyed, as well as the costs of inculcating those rules in people. If a principle or rule is part of a person's moral code, then it will influence the person's behavior. An optimal moral code takes into account the difficulty of getting people to follow a given set of rules.
Positive Rights
1 of 2 broad categories of human rights (the other category being negative rights), those that reflect the vital interests of human beings in receiving certain benefits, goods, services, or opportunities. Today, the term often refers to the rights to education, medical care, a decent neighborhood, equal job opportunity, comparable pay...
Prima Facie Obligations
Those obligations that can be overridden by a more important obligation. Ross & many contemporary philosophers believe that all (or at least most) of our moral obligations fall into this category.
Psychological Egoism
A doctrine that asserts that all actions are selfishly motivated & that truly unselfish actions are therefore impossible. Proponents of the ethical theory of egoism generally attempt to derive their basic moral principle from the alleged fact that human beings are by nature selfish creatures.
Rule Utilitarianism
The theory that maintains that the utilitarian standard should be applied not to individual actions, but to moral codes as a whole. The rule utilitarian asks what moral code (that is, what set of moral rules) a society should adopt to maximize happiness.
Supererogatory Actions
Charitable actions that would be good to do but not immoral not to do. Many moral philosophers draw a related distinction between morally required actions as opposed to supererogatory actions.
Universal Acceptability
A means of determining whether a rule or principle is a moral law, one that must be considered when judging what all rational beings should do. 1 can embrace something as a moral law only if all other rational beings can also embrace it; thus it has universal acceptability.
Utilitarianism
The moral doctrine that we should always act to produce the greatest possible balance of good over bad for everyone affected by our actions. Ex:"good ->happiness or pleasure. Thus, the greatest happiness of all constitutes the standard that determines whether an action is right or wrong. 2 philosophers with a strong interest in legal & social reform, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) & John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), were the 1st to develop the theory explicitly & in detail.
Basic Structure
The fundamental social institutions & their arrangement into 1 scheme; according to Rawls, the primary subject of justice. Rawls's argument is contrary to the entitlement theory advocated by Nozick, that the primary subject of justice involves transactions between individuals.
Declining Marginal Utility of Money
A phrase meaning that successive additions to one's income produce, on avg., less happiness or welfare than did earlier additions.
Difference Principle
The distinctive core of Rawls's theory of justice, which states that inequalities are justified only if they work to the benefit of the least-advantaged group in society. By "least-advantaged," Rawls simply means those who are least well-off.
Distributive Justice
The proper distribution of social benefits & burdens (in particular, economic benefits & burdens).
Entitlement Theory
Nozick's theory of economic justice, which maintains that people are entitled to their holdings (ex: goods, money, & property) as long as they have acquired them fairly.
Free Market
An economic market that is w/o gov't intervention & regulation, besides the minimal function of maintaining the legal system & protecting property rights.
Justice
A concept that is fundamental to any discussion of how society ought to be organized, involving questions of fairness, equality, desert, or rights. It has been of philosophical concern since at least ancient Greece. For Plato & his contemporaries, it seems to have been the paramount virtue or, more precisely, the sum of virtue with regard to our relations with others.
Libertarianism
As opposed to justice defined by social utility, this concept defines justice through the ideal of liberty, permitting each person to live as he or she pleases, free from the interference of others. Accordingly, 1 libertarian asserts, "We are concerned w/ the condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society." Another maintains that libertarianism is "a philosophy of personal liberty.
Lockean Rights
Nozick's term for the basic moral rights that all people have. Alluding to the political philosophy of John Locke (1632-1704), Nozick stresses that these rights are both negative & natural. They are negative b/c they require only that people refrain from acting in certain ways or interfering w/ others, not that they do any specific thing. They are natural b/c people possess them independently of any social or political institutions.
Maximin Rule
The direction that people in the original position would actually take in making decisions, according to Rawls. This game strategist rule says that you should select the alternative under which the worst that could happen to you is better than the worst that could happen to you under any other alternative—that is, you should try to maximize the minimum that you will receive.
Original Position
A fundamental component of Rawls's theory of justice in which he asks what principles people would choose as the fundamental codes to govern society—if, hypothetically, we were to meet for this purpose in what he calls the "original position," under the "veil of ignorance," & unaware as to what specific situations our lives would possess.
Primary Social Goods
Rawls's term for not only income & wealth but also rights, liberties, opportunities, status, & self-respect.
Property Rights
From the perspective of libertarianism, these grow out of one's basic moral rights, reflecting one's initial creation or appropriation of the product, some sort of exchange or transfer between consenting persons, or a combination of these. They exist prior to any social arrangements & are morally antecedent to any legislative decisions that a society might make. For libertarians, they are a primary value, so "what you have legitimately acquired is yours to do with as you will.
State of Nature
Locke's phrase referring to the early conditions & resources of the natural earth, prior to the formation of government.
Veil of Ignorance
people in the orig. position know nothing about themselves personally or about what their individual situation will be once the rules are chosen & the veil is lifted.
Worker Participation
The amount, or lack, of personal engagement, decision making, & impact within the management of factories, companies, corporations, & other enterprises by the people who work there; Mill argued that it would enable people to work w/ or for 1 another w/o dependence, & would break down the hostile division between the producers (workers) & capitalists (owners).