The slippery slope concept refers to situations where an act, decision, or allowance mightlead to unwanted consequences or events that cannot be controlled.
This reminds me of Kant's "ideal kingdom" which I recommend looking into, it's kind of interesting.
democracy is an ideology whose proponents might be called Kantians.
More often than not, the Justice version of deontology rather than Kant strictly.
Cultural relativism takes the position that moral beliefs and principles are relative to indi-vidual cultures or, in the extreme, individual persons. Thus, the rightness or wrongness ofa situation may vary from place to place (even person to person), and not all absolute oruniversal moral standards can apply to all at all times.
Not entirely true, not entirely wrong, much like the theories mentioned above.
. . . injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice(Rawls 1999c).
This is something else I think found often in the dealings of government.
It is hard to imagine that an abandoned child raised by wolves, a tribeswoman fromNew Zealand, and a youth from an affluent European family would all have the samemoral basis for action under a given circumstance, or that they would act similarly in a situation requiring acts that require consideration of the rights of other individuals.
Certainly, applied to social and cultural situations. Even economic. Someone arguing for Kant here might say that all of these would still understand the very basics of "right" and "wrong" i.e. stealing is not good
. . . actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as theytend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and theabsence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure (Mill 2001)
The most good for the most people, valuing outcomes of actions, not intent. Minimize "pain" for the "most" possible.
the selection of which prima facie duty overrides another comesfrom an individual’s intuition
I think even when applying an ethical framework to a decision, there /has/ to be an element of using your own intuition and gut to make that decision. That's probably a given, actually.
imperatives presume that the individual must know what is morally right
This is where we find problems - because different cultures might have different ideas of what is right and wrong in certain social or traditional situations.
Kant asserts that the same act, moti-vated solely by the need to comply with a law or a rule, is a morally worthless act
The right thing for the right reasons = good in Kant's eyes The right thing for the wrong reasons = hardly better than doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons
Categorical Imperative
We spent a lot of time studying Kant and his version of deontological ethical behavior. The categorical imperative, and the three main maxims of his ethics, are often seen as generally leading to the "best" decisions when applied in real life. Not always, of course. There are certain problems that are not accounted for. But these ideas are certainly thought-provoking.
Justice often sits at the intersection of the moral theory of duty to respect the rights of eachindividual and the moral theory of doing that which will make the most people happy.
When these conflict, it can be difficult to make the "right" decision.
we will see that virtue may be in conflict with duty, particularlyin business ethics
I think this is still common today. It's easy to sit in a classroom and judge decisions using these frameworks. It's a whole other ball game, to be in the thick of things and making the decision with the pressure on you.
courage, wisdom, loyalty, and fairness
I feel like these are generally accepted as being virtues of a "good person" despite the potentially not-decent origins of the concept.
company's responsi-bilities toward all of its stakeholders
I've studied corporate social responsibility! I'm taking another course on it this semester.