ETHICAL

PRINCIPLES AND
OTHER
APPROACHES
 a. Teleological Approach
• Telos (Greek) – goal or end

• “The right thing to do is the good thing

to do.”

• AKA: “act utilitarianism”

• Under act utilitarianism, the good resides
in the promotion of happiness or the
greatest net increase of pleasure over
pain.
 JOSEPH FLETCHER
• Proponent of “situational ethics”
• Good is agape – the general goodwill or
love for humanity
• HUMAN NEED determines what is or what
is NOT ETHICAL.
ACT THAT HELPS PEOPLE = good act

ACT THAT HURTS PEOPLE = bad act

Fletcher’s Guidelines in Making
Ethical Decisions
• 1. consideration for people as human
beings.

• 2. consideration of consequences.

• 3. proportionate good to come from the

choices.
• 4. propriety of actual needs over ideal or
potential needs.

• 5. a desire to enlarge choices and reduce

chance and

• 6. a courageous acceptance of the

consequences of the decision.
b. Deontological Approach/Duty
Oriented Theory
• Deon (Greek) – “duty”

• Basic rightness or wrongness of an act

depends on the intrinsic nature rather than
upon the situation or its consequences.
 IMMANUEL KANT
• German philosopher.
• “A person is a rational human being with
freedom and social worth.”

• A moral person acts on a sense of “duty

and reason”.
• Only through dutiful actions that people
have moral worth.

• Even when individuals do not want to fulfill

their duty, Kant believes that they are
required to do so.
 Kant’s CATEGORICAL
IMPERATIVE

“Act only on that maxim by which you can at

the same time will that it should become a
Universal law.”
 c. Virtue Ethics Approach
• AKA: aretaic ethics
• ARETE (Greek) – excellence, virtue

• FOCUS: traits and virtues of a good

person such as COURAGE,
TEMPERANCE, WISDOM and JUSTICE.
 ALSO INCLUDES:
• 1. right motivation
• 2. right disposition
• 3. right traits for being good
• 4. doing right: courage, magnanimity,
honesty, justice, beneficence.
 d. Divine Command Ethics
• Based on the theory that there is a
“Supreme or Divine Being” that sets down
the rules to provide guidance to moral
decisions.

• Religion based: Bible, Koran, Torah,

Bhagavad Gita
END
• QUIZ 1 (12/15/2018)
•
• 1. Define Ethics. How is ethics relevant to
your future goal of becoming a nurse? (10
points)
• 2. Explain Fletcher's Situational Ethics.
Provide samples. (10 points)
• 3. Explain Kant's Categorical Imperative.
(10 points)