Media Ethics Issues and Cases Chapter 1

An Introduction to Ethical Decision Making

"In the end, you will have tools, not answers."

In Chapter one of Media Ethics, Issues and Cases, I explored six different models of ethical decision making: Bok's Model, Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, Kant's Categorical Imperative, Utilitarianism, Communitarianism, and the Pluralist Theory of Value. Each decision-making model focused on different aspects of the deciding process. Aristotle's Virtue ethics focused on the actor, or the person facing the ethical decision, Kant's Categorical Imperative focused on the action, or the universal duty to act, and Mill's Utilitarianism focused on the outcome, or the consequences of the act similar to Communitarianism which focuses on society-wide issues of social justice. Bok's model engaged the actor to think about the action and its consequences while Ross' Theory of Value highlighted the competition between what is right and what is good.  

"The test of a moral act...is it's universality." Last semester in Theology I learned about Kant's Categorical imperative. My class studied how his thoughts about the 'individual exception to the universal imperative' were paralleled in the biblical account of Abraham and his son, Issac. So reading about the universality of a moral act naturally intrigued me. I enjoyed developing a deeper understanding of Kant's thoughts on duty through the lens of ethics and not faith.

William David Ross' Pluralist Theory of Value was also very interesting to read about because I had never quite pondered the difference between what is good and what is right. "Not all right actions will be productive of the good", they are both competing ethical claims.

Looking through the lens' provided in chapter one I now understand that to truly make an ethical decision one must take into account the different actions that can be made and their consequences. The six different ethical decision making models are the tools provided to any decision-maker, to me. I must use these tools to make ethically sound choices. there is no book with all the answer to this worlds questions, but we have tools and minds to help us along the way.

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