Fundamental Approaches to Analyzing Ethics & Moral Actions

A very important aspect of a career in education is adherence to ethical expectations of the community in which you teach. While most ethical dilemmas may not seem difficult to navigate, each community has unique nuances  which may be difficult for the unfamiliar educator to navigate.
To begin understanding and evaluating ethical situations, you’ll need to be familiar with a few basic ethical orientations. With knowledge of these, a teacher can begin to develop an effective solution for the dilemmas presented.
The ethical orientations to understand include:

  • Egoism
  • Utilitarianism
  • Kantian
  • Divine Command Theory
  • Virtue Ethics

Each orientation is discussed further below.


Egoism

This is a link to a article on Egoism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This is a link to an article on Egoism from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This is a link to a video describing Ethical Egoism.

Utilitarianism

This is a link to an article on Act and Rule Utilitarianism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This is a link of a video about What Is Utilitarian Ethics.

Kantian

This is a link to an article about Immanuel Kant and his theories, specific attention should be paid to his “Moral Theory.”
This is a link to an article about Kant’s Moral Philosophy from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Divine Command Theory

This is a link to an article about Divine Command Theory from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
This is a link to a video about Ethics: Divine Command Theory

Virtue

This is a link to an article about Virtue Ethics from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This is a link to an article about Virtue Ethics from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
This is a link to a video about What Is Virtue Ethics

Kohlberg’s Ethical Dilemmas

This is a link to a series of dilemmas as presented by Kohlberg.