PART I: ETHICS AND MORAL CHOICES - Situational Ethics
The average person (and that includes most of us) is confronted with situations in which moral decisions have to be made: Should I tell the teacher that half the class is cheating on exams? Am I obliged to tell my friend's wife that he is having an affair? Should you tell your daughter that her new bike will have to be postponed awhile because we must contribute some money to help some people in dire need? (Honestly, I heard the mother of one of my daughter's friends say this some years ago.) What duties do you owe a parent that has neglected you for the longest time? Generally speaking, as soon as we use the terms, should, ought, obliged, obligated, duty, among others, we are involved in a moral choice. If I were to ask you why you made the choice you did, I would be asking you for your justification, your reasoning behind you moral decision. Your justification, in most instances, involves the theory that underlies your choice. Needless to say, many people have no clear inkling as to what, if any, theory underlies their decision (This is not to say that many people make such decisions on religious grounds). At the opposite pole, I have listened to philosophical discussions on ethical theory and at times wondered if anything I was listening to had any practical application or had anything to do with the world in which we live (This was particularly so, one time, just after I had finished teaching a class from my course, The Holocaust).
Borrowing some terminology from the philosopher Kant, moral choices without ethical theory is blind, and ethical theory without moral choices is empty. Without any theoretical awareness underlying our moral choices, we are apt to make all sorts of blunders (or should I say that with theoretical knowledge we would hope to make less blunders). Studying only ethical theory, we are apt to loose ourselves in a bifurcated world that is divorced from reality, left with principles that have less than real application. One of the pedagogical dangers with a course in moral choices is that we pursue analysis of some controversial subject (such as abortion) without any theoretical background. When asked for rational justification of one's position, or to display the kind of critical analysis that holds up to muster, little is offered. It is for this reason that we start this course with a chapter on theory. You, as a student, should attempt to grasp as much as you can. But do recognize that this is the hardest part of the course. Indeed, the editor of your text asks too much. The first chapter is a course in itself. I hope, as perhaps the editor does, that you will be able to utilize these theoretical aspects in your analysis of some of the most perplexing social and moral issues we face today.