When one considers how to make ethical decisions one can be hard pressed to move beyond the morality of good and bad choices. However ethics deals with issues that are complicated enough to be good for some and bad for others, creating a direct relation that where morality is perfectly fine for an individual in most situations, ethics becomes necessary when making decisions that directly affect others. For this reason I feel it important to provide a reasonable explanation of my own ethical model for decision making.
This model works in some ways both as the growth of ethical decision making within the individual but also relates to the individual decision. This Model originates at the self and continues in an outward spiral to the edge of the paper. It travels through three areas with each revolution: Consequences, Duty, and Kant’s Categorical Imperative.
In society we generally refer to people that we trust as “straight as an arrow” meaning that they will in fact provide you with their best information and decision making, leading to a fair opinion. Likewise, I feel that the path to ethical decision is straight forward, however that presupposes not having a self. Like most people I still have an ego and desires and judgements, it is for this reason that when one looks at the model you will notice that like a planet or other gravity well that this straight path is actually curved. The self constantly and with each decision continues to nag at the decision making process tempting the person making the decision to allow that ego, desire and judgement to be a part of the decision. When this occurs the person like a rocket with no fuel falls back into self with a host of concurrent issues. “How dare you question me?” “Haven’t I earned it?” “Well I have better information.” “You are against (progress, our way of doing things, virtually everything)” These questions and complaints serve as a defense of self that seeks to externalize blame when one realizes the actuality of self-serving decisions.
So in the model, the path from self begins in consequences, as I think most will agree that one’s first consideration, as a youth or generally, is what does this mean for me. Am I willing to accept the consequences as I understand them for making a decision or taking an action? From there the line proceeds to Duty. Duty is generally considered to be those actions or motives you have taken responsibility for as a part of the role you are playing at any given time. Parents, children, soldiers, doctors, mayors, teachers, clergy all have duty incumbent in that role to which they are in. From the realm of Duty the line continues to Kant’s Categorical Imperative. Emmanuel Kant was an 18th century thinker that took issue with the individual moralistic judgements and proposed a metaphysical approach. Metaphysical meaning more than just materially based. He proposed a maxim of action, that if a thing is okay for one person to do than it must be okay for any person to do, in paraphrase. To say in a slightly differently way, if an action is right (objectively), and not just good (self-enriching), than one must allow for any person to be able to perform that action. In this way an ethical decision no longer delineates simply from the ones awareness of self and reward or punishment but includes a consideration of would I allow anyone else to do this exact same thing. In universalizing the solution to an ethical dilemma one can eliminate decisions that flow from revealed information or from a preference for one group or another.
This process continues on with each round of consideration moving farther from the self towards a state of selflessness or ultimate societal concern indicated by the edge of the page. The decisions made at the point of selflessness seem odd to those whom are operating at levels closer to the self, as they often appear to be hurting the decision maker from that point of view. But at this point the decision maker is more concerned with modelling an improved level of behavior and guidance for others rather than a concern for self-aggrandizement or immediate results.