Thinking Ethically by Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer. Aug. 1, 2015

When reading “Thinking Ethically”, I found myself remembering times in which I was in a team environment and used some of these methods to analyze our own beliefs. Within this experience it felt very personal and like we covered a lot of moral issues. However, I found that in my opinion, a lot of the approaches on their own are not sufficient. In particular, the common good approach sounds really nice however, without clear definitions on what “the community” is as well as the social policies, systems, institutions, and environments that are considered “good for the community” there could be many ways in which this could be abused. In addition to this the Utilitarian approach which says that the most ethical action is the one that provides the greatest good for the largest number of people. I feel as if this approach increases discrimination. Minorities exist and should not be ignored when making ethical decisions. I would suggest that other methods and approaches be used in conjunction with this approach to insure the most long-term success. That is why I appreciate that the article concludes that all of these approaches should be used when analyzing a moral decision. The five key questions that are posed at the end of the article summarizes all of the approaches. The main problem that I encountered with these key five questions is the reality of where they are being asked and in what environments. I imagine these questions seem to appear within a meeting room with a set team of people. The people who are at the table get to answer these questions. But how do we decide who gets to sit at the table and answer these questions? 

Source: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/