"How do I think about ethics?"
Questions of this kind often reflect a student's desire for a framework in which to address and evaluate ethical questions.
Making clear to students the following two foundational ideas should help them more easily gain a sense of context for thinking about and working through ethical reasoning.
I. The Descriptive/Normative Distinction
There are two kinds of claims that one regularly makes:
- descriptive or empirical (claims about the world)
e.g. Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global climate change. - normative or prescriptive or evaluative (claims about how the world should be)
e.g Greenhouse gas emissions should be minimized.
II. Frameworks for Identifying Values
It helps when framing ethical discussions to identify the competing values at stake. Different ethical theories highlight different values. Some ethical theories, for instance, value things like personal autonomy and rational agency while others value overall happiness and general welfare. In helping students to effectively frame and analyze situations with ethical import, it is a good idea to create a framework or "thinking frame" which identifies for students those value assumptions that motivate and may ultimately inform our ethical deliberations and analyses.
Descriptive claims are about the world. Descriptive claims start with information from the world, and from that information we form beliefs and ideas. In making descriptive judgments we attempt to state what is the case or report on how the world is.
Ethical claims are not simply descriptive claims about the world. Ethical claims are evaluative or normative. When we make evaluative judgments we attempt to state not what is the case (as we do with descriptive claims), but rather, what should be the case and how the world can be better.
Descriptive claims generally state facts about the world. Whether the claim is true or false is an empirical question. Ethical claims on the other hand, make an evaluative statement.
Though it is the case that the truth of empirical statements bears on ethical statements (e.g. it is only the case that greenhouse gas emissions should be minimized if it is indeed true that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global climate change), descriptive claims must be distinguished from normative claims. Merely making a descriptive claim does not, in itself, lead to any ethical conclusions.
When making an ethical argument, we use both descriptive and normative claims. Here's an example of an ethical argument:
Legally, spouses can make decisions in a time of medical crisis. Spouses can file a wrongful death claim on behalf of the other spouse. These are important rights provided by marriage. Unmarried couples are denied these rights. It should not matter if a couple is heterosexual or homosexual when important decisions about medical care need to be made. Therefore, it is not ethical to give some people the right to marry--with all of these included rights--while not allowing others this right.
Let's look more closely at this argument. The argument has five premises and a conclusion. Making the premises and conclusion explicit, the argument looks like this:
P1. Spouses can make decisions in a time of medical crisis.
P2. Spouses can file a wrongful death claim on behalf of the other spouse.
P3. These are important rights provided by marriage.
P4. Unmarried couples are denied these rights.
P5. It should not matter if a couple is heterosexual or homosexual when important decisions about medical care need to be made.
C. Therefore, it is not ethical to give some people the right to marry--with all of these included rights--while not allowing others this right.
Note that premises 1, 2, and 4 are descriptive claims. Each of these premises states what is the case. Premises 3 and 5 make normative claims. They make claims about value judgments (P3) or about how the world should be (P5). Thus, both descriptive and normative premises support the normative conclusion.