Dana Isabelle A.

Alfaro
1BSA-7
ETHICS

1. The role of feelings in moral decisions:

 Daily life is peppered with moral decisions. Some are so automatic that they fail to register—like
holding the door for a mother struggling with a stroller, or resisting a passing urge to elbow the guy who
cut you in line at Starbucks. Others chafe a little more, like deciding whether or not to give money to a
figure rattling a cup of coins on a darkening evening commute. A desire to help, a fear of danger, and a
cost-benefit analysis of the contents of my wallet; these gut reactions and reasoned arguments all swirl
beneath conscious awareness.

While society urges people towards morally commendable choices with laws and police, and religious
traditions stipulate good and bad through divine commands, scriptures, and sermons, the final say lies
within each of our heads. Rational thinking, of course, plays a role in how we make moral decisions. But
our moral compasses are also powerfully influenced by the fleeting forces of disgust, fondness, or fear.

Should subjective feelings matter when deciding right and wrong? Philosophers have debated this
question for thousands of years. Some say absolutely: Emotions, like our love for our friends and family,
are a crucial part of what give life meaning, and ought to play a guiding role in morality. Some say
absolutely not: Cold, impartial, rational thinking is the only proper way to make a decision. Emotion
versus reason—it’s one of the oldest and most epic standoffs we know.
Could using modern scientific tools to separate the soup of moral decision-making—peeking into the
brain to see how emotion and reason really operate—shed light on these philosophical questions? The
field of moral cognition, an interdisciplinary effort between researchers in social and cognitive
psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience, has tried to do just that. Since the early 2000s,
moral psychologists have been using experimental designs to assess people’s behavior and performance
on certain tasks, along with fMRI scans to glimpse the brain’s hidden activity, to illuminate the structure
of moral thinking.

One pioneer in this field, the philosopher and Harvard University psychology professor Joshua Greene,
combined an iconic and thorny ethical thought experiment—the “trolley problem,” when you must
decide whether or not you’d flip a switch, or push a man off a footbridge, to cause one person to die
instead of five—with brain imaging back in 2001. Those experiments, and subsequent ones, have helped
to demystify the role that intuition plays in how we make ethical tradeoffs—and ultimately showed that
moral decisions are subject to the same biases as any other type of decision

 Moral Emotions - Emotions – that is to say feelings and intuitions – play a major role in most of the
ethical decisions people make. Most people do not realize how much their emotions direct their moral
choices. But experts think it is impossible to make any important moral judgments without emotions.
Inner-directed negative emotions like guilt, embarrassment, and shame often motivate people to act
ethically. Outer-directed negative emotions, on the other hand, aim to discipline or punish. For example,
people often direct anger, disgust, or contempt at those who have acted unethically. This discourages
others from behaving the same way. Positive emotions like gratitude and admiration, which people may
feel when they see another acting with compassion or kindness, can prompt people to help others.
 Emotions evoked by suffering, such as sympathy and empathy, often lead people to act ethically toward
others. Indeed, empathy is the central moral emotion that most commonly motivates prosocial activity
such as altruism, cooperation, and generosity. So, while we may believe that our moral decisions are
influenced most by our philosophy or religious values, in truth our emotions play a significant role in
our ethical decision-making.

 The role of emotion in ethical decisions: emotion can be used to form an initial opinion on a
situation it allows the knower to connect with the subject on a person level.

2. Reason and Impartiality (Moral reasoning models)

 Reason

- A form of personal justification which changes from person to person based on their own
ethical and moral code, as well as prior experience. Reason is a suitable way of knowing for
ethical decisions when one does not wish to question their perception of an issue. It proves useful
when consequences are considered while understanding an issue. Reason lacks the attachment
that emotion carries, it has the ability to remain detached from a situation. Therefore, it is
through reason that ethical decisions can be made without attachment to the problem at hand.
Reason, when removed from emotion, allows a person to make conscious decisions based on
fact, with no reference to personal involvement. The use of reason as a way of knowing, allows
for the knower to see the consequences of their actions throughout the decision-making process
there are limitations to decisions made based on reason alone, perception of situations is not
questioned as it may be with an emotional decision.
- The role of reason in ethical decisions: reason can be used to justify the initial opinion
it allows the knower to understand the consequences of this opinion or other actions taken with
regards to the ethical issue.

 Impartiality

- Impartiality (also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness) is a principle

of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis
of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.

- Impartiality is a more complex concept than is generally recognized. Judging a person to

be impartial is not as straightforward as judging a person to have some moral virtue such as
kindness or trustworthiness. People do not even understand what it means to claim that one is
impartial unless they know both the group toward which that person is impartial and the respect
in which one is impartial with regard to that group. The impartiality required by morality also
requires a specification of the group toward which morality requires impartiality and the respect
in which it requires impartiality with regard to that group.
The most common characterization of general impartiality is that it requires that like cases be treated
alike. Almost all philosophers take this characterization as trivially true, but it is mistaken. Consider
a baseball umpire who is upset because he believes that umpires are not appreciated. While staying
within the accepted interpretations of the rule, he changes the strike zone every three innings; he
starts with a widest zone, goes to the narrowest one, and then returns to a widest one. If he changes
without regard to which team benefits or is harmed by this change, then he is impartial with regard
to the two teams in calling balls and strikes. Because he does not treat like cases alike—that is, he
calls balls and strikes differently in the first and fifth innings—he is a bad umpire, but he is still
completely impartial with regard to the two teams with respect to calling balls and strikes. He is
inconsistent, but inconsistency should not be confused with impartiality. A good umpire must be
consistent as well as impartial.
An inconsistent umpire will be suspected of not being impartial, but when the disgruntled umpire is
not influenced at all by who is benefited or harmed, he remains impartial with respect to calling balls
and strikes with regard to the two teams. A person is impartial with regard to a group in a specified
respect insofar as that person acts impartially in that respect with regard to that group. The basic
concept of impartiality is defined as follows: A is impartial in respect R with regard to group G if
and only if A's actions in respect R are not influenced at all by which member(s) of G are benefited
or harmed by these actions.
A teacher can be impartial with regard to a group G—for example, the students in her class in
respect R; or, for example, grading their exams—but not impartial in a different respect, such as
calling on them in class, for she may favor boys over girls in this respect. Two umpires, both
consistent and impartial with regard to two teams, need not be impartial with regard to pitchers and
batters. If one prefers a higher scoring game and the other a lower scoring one, they may, within the
accepted interpretations, call some pitches differently. Both show partiality toward pitchers or
toward batters, but both are still impartial with regard to the two teams.
Some contemporary consequentialists claim that morality requires impartiality whenever any
sentient being's interests are involved. However, not only is there disagreement about whether all
sentient beings are included in the group toward which morality requires impartiality, it is generally
recognized that even with agreement about the group, morality does not require impartiality with
respect to all actions affecting people's interests. It is generally agreed that morality does not even
require impartiality when following moral ideals—for example, relieving or preventing pain, or
helping the needy. Unless one does not act on these ideals at all, it is impossible to act on them
impartially even with regard to all moral agents; no one can relieve or prevent pain impartially with
regard to all moral agents.
 The only respect in which morality requires impartiality is with respect to violating moral rules—for
example, those rules prohibiting killing, causing pain, deceiving, and breaking promises. It is only
with regard to these kinds of moral rules—those that can be formulated as prohibitions—that it is
humanly possible to act impartially with regard to a group large enough to be an appropriate group.
The examples of the teacher and umpire show that the group with regard toward which impartiality
is usually required is often small and usually does not include the agent. The impartiality required by
morality differs from this kind of impartiality in that it requires impartiality with respect to violating
a moral rule toward a group composed of at least all moral agents, including the person violating the
rule. Morality requires impartiality with regard to those moral agents affected by a violation of a
moral rule—for example, being partial toward friends is not morally allowed.

It also requires impartiality with respect to whether one can violate a moral rule; that is, it is not
morally allowed to violate a rule in circumstances if it would be irrational to be willing for everyone
to know that they are allowed to violate the rule in those same circumstances.
Sometimes all impartial rational persons favor violating a moral rule—for example, deceiving a
hired killer in order to save an innocent person's life. Because morality always requires impartiality
with respect to violating moral rules, it must be possible to violate a moral rule and still be acting
impartially in this respect. This kind of impartiality can be achieved by violating a moral rule only
when one would be willing for everyone to know that they are allowed to break the rule in the same
circumstances. This achieves Kant's point about morality not allowing a person to make special
exceptions for herself without creating the kinds of problems caused by the claim that morality
requires acting on the categorical imperative.
Kant claims that morality requires that the group with regard to which one must be impartial with
respect to violating a moral rule include only moral agents, that is, those persons who are required to
act morally.

 Reasoning within an argument gives the rationale behind why one choice, for example should be
selected over another.
Types of reasoning include:
- Abduction: the process of creating explanatory hypotheses.
- Backwards Reasoning: Start from what you want and work back.
- Butterfly Logic: How people often argue.
- Analogical Reasoning: relating things to novel other situations.
- Cause-and-Effect Reasoning: showing causes and resulting effect.
o Cause-to-Effects Reasoning: starting from the cause and going forward.
o Effects-to-Cause Reasoning: starting from the effect and working backward.
o The Bradford Hill Criteria: for cause and effect in medical diagnosis.
- Comparative Reasoning: comparing one thing against another.
 - Conditional Reasoning: using if...then...
- Criteria Reasoning: comparing against established criteria.
- Decompositional Reasoning: understand the parts to understand the whole.
- Deductive Reasoning: starting from the general rule and moving to specifics.
- Exemplar Reasoning: using an example.
- Gut-Feel: Deciding by how we feel.
- Inductive Reasoning: starting from specifics and deriving a general rule.
- Modal Logic: arguing about necessity and possibility.
- Pros-vs-cons Reasoning: using arguments both for and against a case.
- Residue Reasoning: Removing first what is not logical.
- Set-based Reasoning: based on categories and membership relationships.
- Systemic Reasoning: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Syllogistic Reasoning: drawing conclusions from premises.
- Traditional Logic: assuming premises are correct.

Note that these are not all mutually exclusive methods and several give different lenses onto overlapping areas.
In classical argument, for example, all arguments are framed as either inductive or deductive.
3. Moral Courage

 Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse
consequences. Courage is required to take action when one has doubts or fears about the
consequences. Moral courage therefore involves deliberation or careful thought. Reflex action or
dogmatic fanaticism do not involve moral courage because such impulsive actions are not based
upon moral reasoning. Moral courage may also require physical courage when the consequences
are punishment or other bodily peril. Moral courage has been seen as the exemplary modernist form
of courage.

- Parenting Approach
Parenting with the incorporation of moral courage can have an effect on the gender roles and
self-expression of young adolescents. For example, young girls who conform to society's
interpretation of women being passive. Both the parents and children engage in moral courage from
different standpoints. The development of moral courage within parenting looks at not only on the
parent's passed down moral values but the children's autonomy on how to perceive and practice
their moral values. Those who incorporate the practice of their morals values into their everyday
lives engage in moral courage to protect those values as well.[6] Therefore, this parenting approach
with practice of moral courage demonstrates a relationship between how parents morally raise their
children and how the children choose to act based on their learned moral values.

- Workplace allies
In a workplace, LGBT employees can experience behaviors or actions of discriminating nature
as well as violent hate crimes. As sexual and gender identity minorities, the LGBT employees
express a need for straight or heterosexual allies in the workplace to go to as a resource. A research
study was performed using qualitative research methods to analyze the process of how and
individuals become LGBT allies. The study mentions how human resources development play a
 role in this matter. Human resources development professionals have the responsibility and the
power to incorporate what LGBT employees desire in a workplace: inclusion, safety, and equal
treatment with heterosexual employees.
 Moral courage distinguishes the abilities of a heterosexual LGBT ally and a human resources
development professional. While heterosexual LGBT allies, acting on their moral values provide
support and stand up for their LGBT colleagues, human resource development professionals and
their positions in the workplace translates their values into action which translates into movement for
change regarding LGBT discrimination.

4. Virtue

 According to Aristotle:

- Virtue, according to Aristotle, is a disposition to act in a particular manner, but it is not a

subconscious or a "natural" disposition. Rather, it is a carefully, consciously, and rationally
inculcated habit that is done for its own sake. For example, an honest person is one who
inculcated the habit of honesty because he prizes honesty for its own sake, since honesty is an
excellence of the human soul. The "careful, conscious, and rational" aspect is especially important
because some people may naturally be generous, for example, but that is not virtue since they are
not acting rationally but are acting according to their natural impulse. This is a problem for Aristotle
because virtuous action cannot be done unreflectively. One can only classify an action as virtuous if
it is done so consciously, rationally, and voluntarily. 

Aristotle also defines virtue in a manner different from what we are generally taught in schools,
but it is much closer to how we think on an everyday basis. We are taught that courage is the
opposite of cowardice, and generosity the opposite of miserliness, etc. However, Aristotle defines
virtue as the mean between two extremes that need to be avoided. For example, cowardice is
having too much fear while foolhardiness is the complete absence of fear. Courage is having the
right amount of fear which tempers our actions even as we stand up against an obstacle. A coward
may run away from battle while a foolhardy person may rush headlong into battle. A courageous
person will stand and fight along with his comrades, and will press forward or take cover as the
situation demands. Similarly, lying is one extreme while being blunt is the other extreme. Being
honest is the mean, where one is generally truthful, but knows when to be tactful or diplomatic, and
when to say white lies. Another virtue is being witty, which lies between the extremes of being a
boor, who takes offence at everything and fouls everybody's mood, and being a buffoon, who takes
everything lightly and cannot spare anyone and anything from ridicule. A witty person, however,
knows how to be humorous without going over the top, but at the same time is grounded enough to
know that jokes are just jokes and are not to be taken too seriously. One can see how
commonsensical Aristotle's conception of virtue is. We have always said things like "She's too nice
to a fault" or "He's works too hard". But such statements make no sense when we see virtues and
vices as binary oppositions. 

Thus, for Aristotle, virtue is the Golden Mean between two extremes. However, the mean is not a
strict arithmetic mean. Virtue falls between the extremes, but where it exactly falls is dependent on
the particular circumstance to a very large extent. It is only in particular contexts do we decide how
much generosity to show, or how honest one can be, or how much courage to show, etc. And
obviously, we are quite bad at applying general rules in particular situations when we are kids. 
 According to St. Thomas Aquinas:

- For Aquinas, virtue is the perfection of human activity — that is to say, virtue is human activity
at its best. Virtue describes the best traits of human action. The word itself comes from the Latin
word for strength or power, vis. As with any human strength, it is built up through repetition. Do
something good repeatedly and it becomes a good habit; do it long enough and it becomes a virtue.  

Virtue is developed by positive action, so merely avoiding evil or sin is not virtuous. Virtue
consists in acting in a positive way to bring about good things such as justice, mercy or charity. The
choices we make every day determine the habits we build up, whether good or evil, and virtue
consists in developing habits that lead us to the perfection of the gifts God has given us. 

St. Thomas taught that the human person is created by God with both an intellect and a will, as
well as a soul. As a result, there are three corresponding kinds of virtue: intellectual, moral and
theological. Let’s take a look at these three broad categories of virtue, then at some of the singular
virtues that fall within them. 
 5. The Theories of Rights according to Immanuel Kant:

Kant’s Theory of Right

1. The Categorical Imperative - Morality, Ethics and Right

Categorical Imperative (general)

Morality

Ethics Right

Categorical Imperative of Virtue Categorical Imperative of law

Formula of the Universal Law Universal Principle of Right

“Act only on that maxim through “Every action which by itself

which you can at the same time or by its maxim enables the
will that it should become a freedom of each to co-exist
universal law.” AA 421 (Paton with the freedom of everyone
tr. p.60) else in accordance with a
universal law is right. (Nisbet tr. p.133)

2. Right and Freedom

Ethics applies to Internal Freedom i.e. to actions, and their motivations not their consequences. Politics applies only
to external freedom i.e. to actions and their consequences and not to their motivations.
a) Internal Freedom:-

Free Will [Wille].

Groundwork III, “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same”. (AA 447 & 550, Paton
tr. p 98 & 104)

Free Choice [Willkür] = spontaneity of decision making (or maxim adoption)

 b) External Freedom:-

“Right is applied to external freedom alone i.e. to actions which can directly or indirectly influence the actions of
other free beings, hence right concerns “external and practical” relationships between free subjects (MM Intro §B
Nisbet, tr. p.133). So, by restricting right to external freedom Kant makes it clear that that Politics and the State have
nothing to say regarding the goals or ends pursued by the members of the state - including the goals of happiness.
(See 5 below and Theory and Practice II, p. 74-5.)

N.B. Don’t confuse external and internal freedom with freedom from and freedom to.

External freedom is negative

i) involves the absence of obstacles to my freedom of action

ii) belongs to individuals and

iii) implies no claims about what it is good for me to do.

Internal Freedom is positive

i) concerns the question of autarchy “who governs my actions”

ii) implies some claims about what it is good for me to do, though

iii) unusually for positive freedom applies to individuals not groups.

3. The Concept of Right

Right [Recht] = both law [Gesetz] & justice [Gerechtigkeit]

Right implies i) systematicity and ii) lawlikeness i.e. universality and necessity.

4. Right and Coercion

The legitimacy of coercion follows a priori from the principle of Right.

Appendix to “On Perpetual Peace” Kant claims that;

“As hard as it may sound, the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils (so long as they
possess understanding.)” So a successful political state does not require a moral community; it requires only that
citizens can calculate their own self-interest.

5. The Right and the Good

Right, the system of state laws, does not advance or promote any substantial goals. It is not based on and does not
aim at the happiness of the citizen body.

“No generally valid principle of legislation can be based on happiness” (TP Nisbet p.80)

In the state of right, “each remains free to seek happiness in whatever way he thinks best, so long as he does not
violate the lawful freedom and rights of his fellow subjects at large.” (ibid.)
 6. The Social Contract

idea of an original social contract= not an historical fact, but only a thought experiment, serving as a criterion of
legitimacy or a “test of the rightfulness of every public law” (TP 79) “For if the law is such that a whole people could
not possible agree to it...it is unjust; but if it is at least possible that a people could agree to it, it is our duty to
consider it as just...”

Agreement compossibility of the actions of a community of externally free agents, each of whom wills only those
restrictions to his freedom which are compatible with the freedom of everyone else. Hence an “Enlightened Despot”
such as Frederick II, can make just laws. Not true that a democratic process of legislation, can come up with laws
which are valid according to the principle of Right. Kant says that the sovereign stands under an obligation to “to
make the mode of government conform to the original idea, and thus to alter the mode of government by a gradual
and continuous process ...until it accords in its effects with the only rightful constitution, that of a pure republic.”

However, it is not clear what sort of an obligation this is. It is not a political obligation, for then the citizens would
have the right to a republican constitution, and they would then be able to use force to attain this end. But Kant,
notoriously denies any right to rebellion or to sedition (Political Writings 144-5) even where the head of state fails his
obligation to make just laws.

6. Types of Rights

 Natural rights are rights which are "natural" in the sense of "not artificial, not man-made", as in
rights deriving from human nature or from the edicts of a god. They are universal; that is, they apply
to all people, and do not derive from the laws of any specific society. They exist necessarily, inhere
in every individual, and can't be taken away. For example, it has been argued that humans have a
natural right to life. These are sometimes called moral rights or inalienable rights.
 Legal rights, in contrast, are based on a society's customs, laws, statutes or actions by legislatures.
An example of a legal right is the right to vote of citizens. Citizenship, itself, is often considered as
the basis for having legal rights, and has been defined as the "right to have rights". Legal rights are
sometimes called civil rights or statutory rights and are culturally and politically relative since they
depend on a specific societal context to have meaning.
 A claim right is a right which entails that another person has a duty to the right-holder. Somebody
else must do or refrain from doing something to or for the claim holder, such as perform a service or
supply a product for him or her; that is, he or she has a claim to that service or product (another term
is thing in action)

 A liberty right or privilege, in contrast, is simply a freedom or permission for the right-holder to do

something, and there are no obligations on other parties to do or not do anything. This can be
expressed in logic as: "Person A has a privilege to do something if and only if A has no duty not to
do that something." For example, if a person has a legal liberty right to free speech, that merely
means that it is not legally forbidden for them to speak freely: it does not mean that anyone has to
help enable their speech, or to listen to their speech; or even, per se, refrain from stopping them from
speaking, though other rights, such as the claim right to be free from assault, may severely limit
what others can do to stop them.
 Positive rights are permissions to do things, or entitlements to be done unto. One example of a
positive right is the purported "right to welfare."
 Negative rights are permissions not to do things, or entitlements to be left alone. Often the
distinction is invoked by libertarians who think of a negative right as an entitlement to non-
interference such as a right against being assaulted.
  Individual rights are rights held by individual people regardless of their group membership or lack
thereof.
 Group rights have been argued to exist when a group is seen as more than a mere composite or
assembly of separate individuals but an entity in its own right. In other words, it's possible to see a
group as a distinct being in and of itself; it's akin to an enlarged individual, a corporate body, which
has a distinct will and power of action and can be thought of as having rights.
 Human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behaviour and
are regularly protected as natural and legal rights in municipal and international law. They are
commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled
simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless
of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status.

7. Utilitarianism
 Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on
outcomes. It is a form of consequentialism.
Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest
good for the greatest number. It is the only moral framework that can be used to justify military
force or war. It is also the most common approach to moral reasoning used in business because
of the way in which it accounts for costs and benefits.
However, because we cannot predict the future, it’s difficult to know with certainty whether the
consequences of our actions will be good or bad. This is one of the limitations of utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism also has trouble accounting for values such as justice and individual rights. 
For example, assume a hospital has four people whose lives depend upon receiving organ
transplants: a heart, lungs, a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy person wanders into the hospital, his
organs could be harvested to save four lives at the expense of one life. This would arguably
produce the greatest good for the greatest number. But few would consider it an acceptable
course of action, let alone the most ethical one.

So, although utilitarianism is arguably the most reason-based approach to determining

right and wrong, it has obvious limitations.

 The History of Utilitarianism- Utilitarianism is one of the most powerful and persuasive
approaches to normative ethics in the history of philosophy. Though not fully articulated
until the 19th century, proto-utilitarian positions can be discerned throughout the history of
ethical theory.
Though there are many varieties of the view discussed, utilitarianism is generally held
to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the most good. There
are many ways to spell out this general claim. One thing to note is that the theory is a form of
consequentialism: the right action is understood entirely in terms of consequences produced.
What distinguishes utilitarianism from egoism has to do with the scope of the relevant
consequences. On the utilitarian view one ought to maximize the overall good — that is,
consider the good of others as well as one's own good. The Classical Utilitarians, Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill, identified the good with pleasure, so, like Epicurus, were
hedonists about value. They also held that we ought to maximize the good, that is, bring
about ‘the greatest amount of good for the greatest number’. Utilitarianism is also
distinguished by impartiality and agent-neutrality. Everyone's happiness counts the same.
When one maximizes the good, it is the good impartially considered. My good counts for no
 more than anyone else's good. Further, the reason I have to promote the overall good is the
same reason anyone else has to so promote the good. It is not peculiar to me.
All of these features of this approach to moral evaluation and/or moral decision-making
have proven to be somewhat controversial and subsequent controversies have led to changes
in the Classical version of the theory.

8. Justice and Fairness

 Justice, for many people, refers to fairness. But while justice is important to almost everyone,
it means different things to different groups.
For instance, social justice is the notion that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and
social opportunities irrespective of race, gender, or religion. Distributive justice refers to the equitable
allocation of assets in society. Environmental justice is the fair treatment of all people with regard to
environmental burdens and benefits.Restorative or corrective justice seeks to make whole those who
have suffered unfairly. Retributive justice seeks to punish wrongdoers objectively and proportionately.
And procedural justice refers to implementing legal decisions in accordance with fair and unbiased
processes.

Justice is one of the most important moral values in the spheres of law and politics. Legal and political
systems that maintain law and order are desirable, but they cannot accomplish either unless they also
achieve justice.

 In the English language the definitions of “fairness” and “justice” are very similar but are not
identical – something like fraternal (non-identical) twins.

Justice is often about overriding principles and fairness is more commonly about how
those principles are applied to a specific set of circumstances or a particular situation. Just as
philosophy is about overriding principles and ethics is about how those principles are
applied.
When it comes to how we expect to be treated and how others expect us to treat them, there
is broad agreement that “fairness” should be the standard for addressing those situations. The
fairness question is often raised when people differ over how they believe a situation should
be addressed/resolved, or when decisions are being made regarding the distribution of
benefits and burdens. 
In the world of organizations those in the ethics field who do not have legal training more
often lean towards “fairness” as a dominant organizational value. For many with a legal
background “justice” is often the term of choice. In this paper we will focus on “fairness” but
do not be surprised when some of what is presented could apply to “justice” as well. Like a
Venn diagram, the overlap can be significant even though the two concepts are “non-
identical”.

 Defining Fairness

In an organizational context, fairness usually comes down to applying the same rules,
standards and criteria in similar situations. The purpose is to reduce the role of bias in one’s
decision making, thus “leveling the playing field”.
 Consider the example of selecting a supplier or vendor. Typically, when there is an
“open” bid, where we are soliciting products or services from several potential suppliers, we
tell those potential suppliers what we need, what criteria we will apply to evaluating their
bids and any other pertinent details they might need to know when calculating their offers,
(e.g., timing, quantities, locations(s)…). We may have an “impartial” party evaluate the bids
and make recommendations regarding the top two or three bidders. To further increase the
“fairness” some organizations employ a “blind” process, where any identifiers regarding who
is submitting which bid is redacted before the bids are reviewed, evaluated and the
recommendation(s) submitted – typical a ranking of the most preferred two or three bidders.

The final step is for the “decision maker” (very often the person responsible for using the
product/service being solicited) to offer an opinion regarding the top bids and/or make the
final recommendation/decision,
 Distributive Justice- concerns the nature of a socially just allocation of goods. A society in
which inequalities in outcome do not arise would be considered a society guided by the
principles of distributive justice. The concept includes the available quantities of goods, the
process by which goods are to be distributed, and the resulting allocation of the goods to the
members of the society.
Often contrasted with just process, which is concerned with the administration of law,
distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considerable
attention in philosophy and the social sciences.
social psychology, distributive justice is defined as perceived fairness of how rewards and
costs are shared by (distributed across) group members. For example, when workers of the
same job are paid different salaries, group members may feel that distributive justice has not
occurred.
 In the form of:
- Socialist: Social justice (Distribution Based on Needs and Abilities) is a concept of fair
and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit
terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges.
In Western as well as in older Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the
process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive what was their due from
society. economic justice.
Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive
the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include taxation, social
insurance, public health, public school, public services, labor law and regulation of markets, to
ensure fair distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity.
- Egalitarian: Egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy. An egalitarian favors
equality of some sort: People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in
some respect. An alternative view expands on this last-mentioned option: People should be treated
as equals, should treat one another as equals, should relate as equals, or enjoy an equality of social
status of some sort. Egalitarian doctrines tend to rest on a background idea that all human persons
are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. So far as the Western European and Anglo-
American philosophical tradition is concerned, one significant source of this thought is the Christian
notion that God loves all human souls equally. Egalitarianism is a protean doctrine, because there
are several different types of equality, or ways in which people might be treated the same, or might
relate as equals, that might be thought desirable. In modern democratic societies, the term
“egalitarian” is often used to refer to a position that favors, for any of a wide array of reasons, a
greater degree of equality of income and wealth across persons than currently exists.
 - Capitalist: Capitalism an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital
goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the
distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
 
Capitalism in better thought of as a system of distribution rather than a theory of distribution.  I
mean by that that Capitalism is a system where burdens and benefits are distributed more or less according
to market forces.  When individuals argue in favor of capitalism as the best or the preferred system of
distribution they usually do so on the basis of other moral theories of distributive justice.
 
Three Arguments for Capitalism:
 
1.     Capitalism is a system that insures that individuals are rewarded in proportion to their productive effort.
Therefore, this is the system that most nearly approximates the Protestant Work Ethic ideal distribution.
2.     Capitalism is a system built on a foundation of respect for individuals' rights to private property and free
exchange.  Therefore, this is the system that most nearly approximates the Libertarian ideal distribution.
3.     Capitalism has been seen to be the most beneficial system of distribution, motivating the most talented
and creative to complete and innovate and to provide better goods at lower prices and thereby secure larger
market shares.