Ethical Reasoning: Two Examples
Focus Seminar (Shuler)
The table below shows the considerations that would go into making an ethical decision on a
controversial issue and rationally explaining your decision—from two different starting points. Note: The
explanation of each principle & its internal logic is highly compressed; don’t worry too much about it.
Catholicism
Question
Principle
Application
Counterarguments &
Conflicting
Principles
Facts & Data
(research)
Conclusion
(Synthesis)
Utilitarianism
 Is it ethical in modern America to still use the death penalty as a punishment for the most
severe crimes like aggravated murder?
 Right to Life (natural rights): governments
and individuals must preserve life if
possible
 Life is fundamental to most other rights
 Human Dignity (principle of full human
potential): each individual life must be
treated with respect and judged in light of
full human potential
 Based on ontological reasoning: goodness
and God’s essence are identified together;
each person is created in God’s image;
goodness involves fulfilling and actualizing
that true human essence as God’s image
 The death penalty seems to be wrong since
you are taking a human life that could be
preserved
 Utility: moral actions are those that maximize
total happiness—the greatest happiness for the
greatest number of people
 If happiness is the goal of life, then seeking it is
good; since one person’s happiness can conflict
with another’s, we must seek the total good
even if an individual is made unhappy
 Human dignity and natural rights are not real,
but just shorthand for things that might make
someone unhappy
 The death penalty seems to be right since it
increases the happiness of the victim’s family
and may deter other crimes that would have
reduced social happiness
 If a murderer is killed, we prevent him from  The criminal being killed is unhappy… but he’s
murdering others—thus protecting the
just one person
dignity of their lives
 Justice demands appropriate punishment
for crimes (God is just) and promotes virtue
 Life in prison without parole has proven effective in keeping killers locked up
 While evidence exists for and against the death penalty being an effective deterrent, the
majority of evidence suggests that it does NOT reduce violent crime
 The psychological effects on the victim’s family are unclear, but we need more research on
whether seeing an execution years later increases happiness or their ability to cope
 The death penalty (with its appeals process) is often more expensive than life in prison
(potentially increasing the unhappiness of taxpayers)
 Innocent people have been accidentally sentenced to death (by definition, unjustly)
 Some methods of execution are painful (unnecessarily increasing unhappiness)
 So long as an alternate method exists to
stop a murderer from killing again, the
death penalty is unethical
 While justice is an incommensurable good,
in this case it can be satisfied with another
punishment while preserving life, so
therefore the right to life is more
fundamental in this case
 Life imprisonment is also more just since it
allows us to correct mistaken convictions of
the innocent
 The death penalty can provisionally be
accepted as ethical since even if one innocent
man is accidentally killed but a family receives
closure, total happiness has increased
 However, we have a moral obligation to try to
use the least painful method of execution
 Further research is needed to confirm that
deterrence and justice/revenge for families
does in fact increase happiness… even current
data might make a utilitarian decide that it is
unethical