APPLIED AESTHETHICS

v    14^th  October, 2011

F    What is Ethics?

The word ‘ethics’, comes from the Greek word ‘ethos’, meaning ‘character.’ it is also called moral philosophy. What ethics is and ought to be has always been variously conceived by different thinkers. Ethics is a branch of philosophy which deals with the morality of human actions. It is the discourse about the way of life and rules of conduct. It can also be defined as the philosophical investigation and explanation of moral facts. What ethics seeks to do is to establish principles of right behaviour that may serve as action guide for individuals and society at large. It investigates which values and virtues that are important to the worthwhile life of the individual and society. Ethics acts as a moderator of man’s actions. It guides that human person in ordering his/her life.

The central question of ethics includes the following:

·                     What do we mean by good or bad?

·                     What are the standards for judging things to be good or bad?

·                     What is the nature of morality?

·                     What is the basis for morality?

·                     How do we justify moral beliefs?

·                     Why do we need morality?

·                     Are moral principles absolute or are they simply relative to social groups or individuals?

In answering these and other related question, ethics employs different philosophical methods to clarify them. The goal of ethics is not that we should simply know what goodness is, but what should become good. This implies that ethics does not set out to describe the way men do behave in practice, but to state the way men ought to behave. Ethics is broadly classified into two aspects namely; normative and meta-ethics.

Normative ethics attempts to establish the general principles for determining right or wrong, good or bad actions. A normative moral thinker tries to show how certain fundamental normative ethical statements are rationally supported. In an attempt to do this, such questions like “what is right or wrong’ is raised. Meta-ethics on the other hand deals with meaning and the use of moral terms. It is called critical ethics. It tries to analyse ethical terms and statement.

Morality is defined as principles concerning right and wrong, good or bad. It is a code of conduct for differentiating right or wrong acts. In this sense, moral laws are codes created by individuals or society to determining right or wrong actions. These codes might change depending on time and orientation of such actions. Morality is the core subject of ethics. Ethics is a philosophical discourse that probes the nooks and crannies of morality. It questions the outcomes of an action and how moral values should be determined. For instance, a typical question of ethics about morality may be whether a lie told for the sake of protecting someone from danger is morally justified or whether it is morally justified to take someone’s life with the intention of reducing the pains and agonies of such person. Note that moral precepts are concerned with norms. They are concerned not with what is, but with ought to be.

F    Applied Ethics

The term ‘applied ethics’ and ‘practical ethics’ came in vogue in 1970’s when philosophical ethics began to address issues in professional ethics as well as social problems such a capital punishment, abortion, environmental responsibility and so forth. Philosophers interested in applying their training to such problems share with persons from numerous other fields the conviction that decision-making in these areas are fundamentally moral and of the highest social importance. It is worthy of mention that philosophers working in these areas not only teach and publish articles about applications of ethical theories, they also serve as consultants to government agencies, hospitals, law firms, group physicians, business cooperation and engineering firms.

Occasionally they draft public policy documents (such as the UN), some with the force of law. There have been controversies whether philosophers have an ethical expertise suited to such works and whether the work is philosophical. Some thinks, ethics is being reduced to engineering, that is, a mere device for problem solving.

v    21/10/2011

F    Towards a Definition

As with other disciplines, applied ethics is difficult to define but we have to make do with the following definitions:

1.                  Applied ethics is the application of general ethical theories to moral problems with the objective of solving them. Applied ethics is also used more broadly to refer to any use of philosophical methods critically to examine practical moral decisions and to treat moral problems, practices and policies in the professions, technology, government and the like.

Applied ethic is distinguished commonly as that part of ethics that gives particular and direct attention to practical issues and controversies. This broader and comprehensive definition explains a range of philosophical methods such as:

·                     Conceptual analysis

·                     Reflective equilibrium

·                     Criticality etc, and does not insist on problem solving as the objective. Note that Bio-medical ethics, political ethics, journalistic ethics, legal ethics, and environmental ethics and business ethics are fatal areas for philosophical investigation. It is important to state that applied ethics is not synonymous with professional ethics; a category from which business ethics is often excluded. Issues such as the allocation of scarce social resources, just wars, abortion, conflict or interest in surrogate decision, research on animals, research on human beings and confidentiality of tax information goes beyond professional conduct but all are in the domain of applied ethics.

In the same way, professional ethics should not be viewed as a part of the wider domain of applied ethics. Professional ethics is within the province of philosophy while applied ethics goes beyond philosophy into the professions itself.

Basically, two features are necessary for any issue to be considered an applied ethical issue. First, the issue needs to be controversial in the sense that there are significant groups of people both for and against the issue at hand. For example, the issue of drive-by-shooting is not an applied ethical issue since everyone aggress that this practice is grossly immoral. By contrast, the issue of gun control would be an applied ethical issue since there are significant group of people both for and against gun control. Secondly, for any issue to be an applied ethical issue, it must be a distinctive moral issue. For instance, on any given day, the media presents us with an array of sensitive issues such as affirmative action policies, gays in the military, involuntary commitment of the mentally impaired, capitalistic versus socialistic business practices, public versus private health-care system, energy conservation.

Although all of these issues are controversial and have an important impact on society, they are not all moral issues. Some are only issues of social policies; for instance, the aim of social policy is to help make any given society run efficiently by devising conventions such as traffic laws, tax laws and zoning codes.

Moral issues by contrast concerns more universally obligatory practices, such as our duty to avoid lie and not confined to individual society. Sometimes or frequently, issues of social policy and morality over-lap as with murder which is both socially prohibited and immoral. However, the two groups of issues are often distinct. For example, many people will argue that sexual promiscuity is immoral but may not feel that there should be social policies regulating sexual conduct laws punishing us for promiscuity. Thus, to qualify as an applied ethical issue, the issue must be one of more than mere social issue. It must be one of morally relevant as well.

In theory, resolving particular applied ethical issue should be easy. With the issue of abortion for example, we would simply determine their morality by consulting our normative principle of choice such as utilitarianism. If a given abortion produces greater benefit than dis-benefit, then, according to utilitarianism, it would be morally acceptable to have the abortion. Unfortunately, there are perhaps hundreds of rival normative principles from which to choose, many of which yields opposite conclusion. Thus, the stalemate in normative ethics between conflicting theories prevents us from using a single decisive procedure for determining the morality of a specific issue. The usual solution today to this stalemate is to consult several respective normative principles on a given issue and see where the evidence lies.

v    28/10/2011

F    Abortion – see handout

Abortion is one of those issues discussed in moral ethics. Abortion can be defined as the expulsion of the foetus or embryo from its mother’s womb before it is viable. Abortion can be understood from two dimensions namely; direct and indirect abortion. Direct abortion occurs when the foetus is voluntarily removed by the mother. Indirect abortion occurs when the foetus goes out by itself – miscarriage.

People have different reasons for seeking for abortion. There is the argument based on poverty and on freedom of choice of the mother. From the perspective of poverty (the inability to carter for the children), it is difficult to see how poverty could be the reason(s) why people should be eager to engage in abortion. For instance, European countries and the United States of America are highly developed and yet people in these parts of the world still engage in abortion. Furthermore, there is the moral responsibility towards parents to take care of their children otherwise they should not have engaged in sexual activities that will lead to eventual pregnancy.

The feminist movements on the other hand argue that the woman has the right to her body and could do anything she wants with it. They claim that pregnant can be a source of disturbance and hindrance for their plans in life and so the woman has the right to abort. Another argument is that the foetus is really not a human being. They also argue that the foetus is an extension of the mother and the mother has the right to do what she wants with her body.

On the argument based on rape, they argue that the woman did not in the first place intend to be pregnant. The argument here is whether the foetus should suffer because of what happened to the mother? Another argument is that based on eugenics. This occurs when it is discovered that the foetus is deformed. It is argued that the mother has the right to abort such a deformed foetus because the parent would spend more money and time taking care of the child if it eventually given birth to.

Applying Kant’s Categorical imperative principles to this argument, are we then to legalize the killing of infants? The foetus has a separate existence from that of its mother, so it cannot be argued that it is an extension of the mother. Medical science has been able to show that the foetus has its own DNA and so it is distinct from its mother.

Based on scientific findings, a baby already has its own finger prints etc from the 5^th week of conception. This implies that the foetus is distinct from its mother. To kill such a being therefore is to commit murder. The foetus is not an aggressor. In other words, the embryo does not plan to attack the life of the mother. The embryo is an innocent being coming into life. It did not ask that the parents bring it to life but once it comes, they have the responsibility of protecting and taking care of it.

Cases of rape certainly pose a problem to the mother yet the murder of the innocent remains a crime. Deformity in the case of eugenics does not constitute enough reason or grounds for killing an innocent baby.

See handout for discussions on

·                     Abortion – page 21

·                     Euthanasia – page 2

·                     Suicide – page 25

v    November 25, 2011

F    Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research

Basically every cell in the human body can be traced back to fertilized egg that came into existence from the union of egg and sperm. But it is worthy of note that the human body is made up of over 200 different types of cells. All of these cell types came from a pull of stem cells in the early embryo. During development, as well as latter in life, various types of cells give rise to the specialized or differentiated cells that carry out the specific function of the body, such as the skin, blood, muscles and nerve cells. Over the past two decades, scientists have been gradually deciphering the processes by which unspecialized stem cells becomes the very specialized stem cells in the human body.

F    What are stem cells?

Stem cells are said to be cells that are capable of self-regeneration and produces specialized cell type. Stem cells are non-specialized cells that have the capacity to divide indefinitely in culture and to differentiate into more mature cells with more specialized functions. The implication of the above definition is that stem cells are the origin of other cells in the human body. They are the core cells from which other cells are derived. They are the bearers and givers of being to the cells of the human species.

Because of these properties of stem cells, scientists are beginning to conduct research on how these cells can serve as therapy for curing some of terminal and non-terminal illnesses. For instance, scientists are of the opinion that since stem cells have the capacity to regenerate themselves into specialized cells, such cells can be used in medical treatment to replace lost or damaged cells.

Stem cells are found in all of us from early stages of human development to the end of life. All stem cells may prove useful for medical research, but each of the different types has both promise and limitations. For example, human embryonic stem cells can be derived from a very early stage in human development, have the potential to produce all of the body’s cells types.

F    Types of Stem Cells

Scientific study has revealed that there are various stem cells and they include the following:

1.                  Spermatogenic stem cell

2.                  Embryonic stem cell

3.                  Adult stem cells

4.                  Fertile stem cell

5.                  Umbilical stem cell

6.                  Embryonic germ cell

But for the purpose of this study, we shall attempt to focus on just two – embryonic and adult stem cells respectively.

F    Embryonic stem cells

Embryonic stem cells are cells derived from the human embryo. A blastocyst is a pre-implantation embryo that develops 5 days after the fertilization of an egg by a sperm. It contains all the materials necessary for the development of a complete human being. The blastocyst is a mostly hollow-sphere of cells that is smaller than the period of this sentence – it is smaller than a dot. In its interior, it is the inner cell mass which is composed of 30 to 34 cells that are referred to by scientists as pluripotent because they can differentiate into all of the cell types of the body.

In the layman’s language, embryo can refer to all stages of development from fertilization until a somewhat ill-defined stage when it is called a foetus. When the blastocyst is used for stem cell research, scientists remove the inner cell mass and then place this cell in a culture dish with a nutrient rich liquid where they give rise to embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have the following advantages:

1.                  They seem to be more flexible than stem cells found in adults because they have the potential to produce every cell types in the human body.

2.                  They are also generally easier to collect, purify and maintain in the laboratory than adult stem cells.

F    Adult Stem Cells

Adult stem cells are hidden deep within organs surrounded by millions of ordinary cells and they help replenish some of the body’s cells when needed. Research has shown that some adult stem cells are currently being used in therapies. They have been found in several organs that need a constant supply of cells, such as the blood, skin, and lining of the gut, and have also been found in surprising places like the brain, which is not known to readily replenish its cells.

Unlike embryonic stem cells, adult cells are already somewhat specialized. For example, blood stem cells normally only give rise to the many types of blood cells and verve stem cells can only make the various types of brain cell. It has been discovered recently that some adult stem cells might be more flexible than previously thought and may be made to produce a wider variety of cell types.

F    Moral Issues in Stem Cell Research

Presently only a few diseases are treated with stem cell therapy because scientists can only regenerate a few types of tissues. These few successes recorded so far, are from adult stem cells and not human embryonic stem cells. However, scientists were of the opinion that stem cell research is capable of curing the following kinds of illnesses of diseases:

1.                  Parkinson diseases

2.                  Diabetes

3.                  Spinal cord injury

4.                  Eczema

5.                  Leukemia

6.                  Cardiac arrest, and to mention but few

In recent times, stem cell research has raised a lot of moral questions and the question is: Is it morally acceptable to se human embryonic stem cells for research? The debate on whether we can conduct research using human embryo can be divided into two schools of thought. And there are the basic questions or controversies. The possibility of destructive embryo research, particularly embryonic stem cell research presents us with a moral problem because it appears to bring into tension two fundamental moral principles that we esteem very highly.

1.                  One principle enjoins the prevention or alienation of suffering, and the other,

2.                  Enjoins us to respect the value of human life.

As earlier mentioned, the harvesting and culturing of embryonic stem cells has considerable potential benefits in the way of alleviating, debilitating medical conditions. On the other hands, there is a case to be made that the harvesting of the human embryonic stem cells violate the second principle in that it results in a destruction of human life with value (human embryo). Accordingly, both principles apparently cannot simultaneously be respected in the case of embryonic stem cell research. The question then is which principle ought to be given precedence in this conflicting situation?

The basis of this ethical problem is traceable to the Pro-life school and the pro-choice schools of thought. Most of the pro-choice thinkers including Peter Singer, Mary Warnock, Michael Tooley, Katherine Devolder and others even Joseph Fletcher are of the view that the human embryo should be used for research because the end product of the research will benefit a larger percentage of humanity. This argument is utilitarian.

Besides, they premised their argument on the fact that the human embryo does not have any value and therefore should not be respected. The embryo is a cloth of cell which apparently shows that it is not a human being or a person. Personhood is defined for these scholars in relation to other human beings. The human person can be understood when we consider the following features:

1.                  Rationality

2.                  Communication

3.                  Ability to relate

4.                  Ability to re-create

5.                  Ability to wine and dine, and to mention but few. Since the human embryo does not process these qualities, it can be used for research.

On the other hand, the pro-life scholars or thinkers are of the opinion that life begins at conception and since the embryo is the result of human fertilization, it is not only a potential human being or a person but a person with possibilities. They premised their argument on the following:

1.                  That research using the human embryo violates the dignity of the embryo, since the embryo is the foundation and beginning of human life, including those scientists who are bent on using human embryo for research.

2.                  Again, it is argued that the human embryo should not be destroyed because of the potential therapies that we are not even sure of.

There are other moral problems associated with stem cell research especially with human embryonic stem research and that include:

1.                  Therapeutic cloning

2.                  The problem of consent and donors

3.                  The problem of commercialization of human embryo

4.                  The problem of funding

5.                  The problem of elongation of human life.

v    20/1/2012

F    In vitro Fertilisation (IVF) – See handout

In vitro fertilization is an assisted reproductive technology in which one or more eggs are fertilized by a sperm from another man in a laboratory outside a female's body. In human reproduction the process involves stimulation of the growth of multiple eggs by the daily injection of hormone medications.  The eggs are recovered by one of two methods: sonographic egg recovery, or oocytes; or laparoscopic egg recovery, in which retrieval is made through a small incision in the abdomen. Once the eggs are retrieved, they are placed in a special fluid medium, and then semen that has been washed and incubated is placed with the eggs and left for approximately 18 hours. The eggs are removed, passed into a special growth medium, and then examined about 40 hours later. If the eggs have been fertilized and developed normally, the embryos are transferred to the woman's (or a surrogate's) uterus.

·                     Surrogate motherhood

Surrogate motherhood has become one of the most difficult problems in modern family law. The term surrogate mother was first used in connection with in vitro fertilization in the late 1970s. the newest use refers to the introduction, by artificial insemination, of the sperm of a man whose wife is infertile into a woman who has agrees, often by contract, to bear the child conceived as a result of the insemination and then relinquish it to the couple after birth. One argument against surrogacy is that it is little more than fertilized baby selling. The counter-argument is that surrogacy is not baby selling because the husband of the couple receiving the child is that child’s biological father.

-          Commercial venture. The human person is commercialized through this practice.

F    Environmental Ethics – see handout.

F    Capital Punishment – see handout page 46

Capital punishment is the legal infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law. Throughout history people have been put to death for various forms of wrongdoing. Methods of execution have included such practices as crucifixion, stoning, drowning, burning at the stake, impaling, and beheading. Today capital punishment is typically accomplished by lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging, or shooting.

F    Purpose of punishment

Some people believe in capital punishment for two reasons:

1.                  Protection of the society from wrongdoers. Imprison wrongdoers to prevent them repeating such a crime. Punishment is also used as a threat to prevent would-be-offender from committing crimes. It is argued that punishment will deter people from carrying out criminal acts.

2.                  Retribution – this is the notion or argument which implies that as a foundational matter of justice, criminals deserve punishment because of the crime they have committed. It is argued that through their crime, the natural order of things is unbalanced therefore they deserved to be punished to balance nature. This becomes immoral however, when the punishment is out of proportion with regards to the crime committed. Theorists distinguish between two types of distributive punishment:

(a)               Lex Talionis – which implies an eye for an eye – this is vengeance centred.

(b)               Lex Salica – this is punishment through atonement

Lex Salica cannot be uniformly applied to every crime committed. For instance, if a terrorist kills 10 people, and he or she is eventually killed, it is not punishment as such because the ratio cannot be equaled – 10 persons to a person. In most cases, Talionis is vengeance centered. Critiques however, argue that this emotion could be controlled. Laws about punishment should not be grounded in extreme feelings. Kant for instance suggested alternative treatment to capital punishment. He argued that since we are rational beings, murderers should be treated with respect since they too are worthy of respect.

Some arguments are neither utilitarian nor retributive. Locke for instance opines that one loses his right by committing a crime. For him, criminals deserve to be punished. Punishment is needed to deter would-be- criminals in the society and this may include forfeiting one’s right to life. Critiques of John Locke however, say that alternative measures could be employed in punishing criminals instead of taking their life.

Another defense for capital punishment is based on an analogy that capital punishment is to the political body just as self-defense is to the individual. The rationality behind this is that in dangerous circumstance, self-defense is allowed. Since society is like a large person, society too is justified in using deadly force through capital punishment. For this analogy to be successful, it must parallel the accepted principle that self-defense with deadly force is justified only when there is no alternative, that is, we must see whether there is any alternative to capital punishment such as life imprisonment.

F    Attacks

Attackers of capital punishment argue that capital punishment is undignified to the human person. For instance, public burning at the stake is no longer acceptable because it degrades the human person.

Capital punishment does not necessarily deter criminals otherwise the level of crime in the society would have been minimised.  However, what we notice is the contrary. Life imprisonment seems to be more profitable than capital punishment. Furthermore, criminals if given the opportunity might become better persons but if they are just executed, this opportunity would not there. And as a matter of fact, a wrong cannot right another.