Professor Gaffney
Acct. 4501
February 28, 2013
Homework 2/28/2013 “A Framework for Thinking Ethically,” is an article based on the dialogue of a debate at Santa Clara University regarding what is technically makes something ethical. It starts off defining ethics, which is, “The standards of behavior, that tell us humans how we ought to act in many situations.” It then goes into to telling us what not a basis for ethical decision making is. Many people believe that ethics should be based on religion, law, or what is culturally acceptable. This article disputes what is widely believed. The article goes into detail that ethics is not the same as feelings, religion, law, culturally accepted norms, or science. For example, a law that is in place may allow unethical actions to be legal. Since ethical decision making cannot be based on those principles, philosophers have suggested five sources for ethical standards. They are the utilitarian approach, the rights approach, the fairness or justice approach, the common good approach, and the virtue approach. These approaches focus on the common good of the people, but the human race may have a different view of what is a good and what is harm. We must make decisions though when we are faced with a dilemma we need a framework. These approaches must be applied to these frameworks no matter your view on which approach is the best. This framework is broken down as 1) recognizing an ethical issue, 2) getting the