Emerging ethical theories Flashcards
Three emerging ethical theories
Care Ethics
Feminist Ethics
Relational Ethics
Three stages of Kohlberg’s moral development
Pre-conventional stage: “moral decision-making is guided by the fear of punishment and the desire to satisfy one’s own desires” (58)
Conventional stage: “moral decision-making is guided by the desire to please others, deference to authority, and a slavish obedience to the moral conventions dominant in one’s social environment” (58)
Post-conventional stage: “moral decision-making is guided by the independent use of reason, and such moral principles as reason suggests to be universally valid for all people” (58)
What are kohlbergs stage similar to
Kohlberg’s stages are similar to Thomas and Waluchow’s levels of moral judgment: expressive, pre-reflective, and reflective.
How did Gilligan critiques Kohlbergs stage
Kohlberg did not use women in his studies of providing hypothetical situations and getting moral responses. Gilligan performed similar experiments with women and found they scored lower on the hierarchy. She disagreed this had anything to do with moral inferiority, but instead that women have a care focus.
How is care ethics exemplified in the case of jake and amy
In this example. Jake can be seen to approach the issue coldly, like a mathematics problem: something to be calculated, and weighed out. The issue is ahistorical for him. (Edwards, 2009, p. 150)
In contrast, Amy “considers the relationships of the people involved in the problem, and the effects on these relationships of Heinz stealing the drug. In contrast to Jake, Amy manifests some emotional response to the problem, and shows sensitivity to the emotional registers of it” (ibid.)
Key concepts suggested by care theory
The Care Ethic promotes the ideas that moral issues
Are not ahistorical
Arise within the a web of relationships
And that emotion is important to moral analysis, and not lesser than reason as a way of sorting out moral issues.
What did the care ethic stand in opposition to?
What does it specifically reject?
justice ethic. same as tradition ethical theories (not really virtue theory)
Morality based on rules (i.e categorical imperative) morality has historical and situational aspects
How is a feminist likely to approach a moral situation
A feminist ethics approach asks: who has the power? Who is most vulnerable? How are cultural and institutional prejudices active and affecting the vulnerable?
Is feminism restricted to women
Feminist ethics recognizes that the power dynamics active in a patriarchal society may extend to other groups as well.
Thus a feminist ethics analysis is sensitive to sexism, but also racism, elitism, ableism, speciesism, and so on.
These are similar “cultural and institutional prejudices” by the majority against a minority.
What is the relevance of feminism to health care
Health care is full of power imbalances. Patients need health care workers, and are therefore vulnerable to coercion. This is particularly significant for groups who are historically marginalized.
What is a potential weakness of feminist theory
It is a strength, but also a weakness, of FE that it is political: this risks dismissal and alienation from those who do not share the politics.
FE can be very applicable to situations where there is a clear power imbalance, like between a patient and a healthcare provider, but is less applicable in other moral dilemmas that do not express these power dynamics.
What is the focus of relational ethics
RE is an ethical theory “…that is grounded in our commitments to each other” (66)
RE begins with the idea that everyone is always and everywhere embedded in a series of overlapping and inter-related relationships.
Describe a contractual model of the nurse-patient relationship
Contractual Model: Nurses and patients are related as client to healthcare provider. Each has relatively clearly defined roles and responsibilities that are determined as much as possible in advance of treatment. (18-19)
Describe the patient advocate model
Patient Advocate Model: Nurses protect patients’ interests from being usurped.
“Patient advocacy is seeing that the patient knows what to expect and what is his right to have, and then displaying the willingness and courage to see that the system does not prevent his getting it” (19).
Ethical question RE might ask vs utilitarianism and virtue theory
For RE, the main ethical question is not:
“what should I do?” or
“what kind of person should I be?” but
“what relationships and commitments already inform the person that I am in this particular situation?”
