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Summary of Notes | Lecture Reading

Phillip Quatrio

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Keywords -

• Bioethics: The study of ethical, social, and legal issues that arise in medicine and the life sciences

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Study Questions:

1. ask your team mates for two things that they think you could have done better </aside>

Explicability encompasses transparency and explainability: Explicability means to make sure explainations are available and can be understood

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Reading notes

Connection to common morality

the moral foundations of principlism are rooted in common morality - universal, shared moral precepts that bind all humans (common sense/ cultural bounds)

The nature of principles

Principles are fundamental standards of conduct, but non absolute - they can conflict and require a level of discernment.

A principle is a fundamental standard of conduct from which many other moral standards and judgments draw support for their defense and standing

Principles and related rules are always binding unless they conflict with other principles or rules

• Contrast between:
  • Absolute principles (utilitarianism, deontology) — rigid, single-supreme standards.
  • Flexible principles — adaptable to context and conflict (the principlist view).

→ Three main criticisms of single-principle systems:

1. Problem of authority: There has been no trumping philosophical theory.
2. Problem of disagreement:
3. Problem of indeterminacy

Specification and balancing

• Specification: refining a general principle for a specific context (e.g., confidentiality vs. duty to warn in Tarasoff case).
• Balancing: weighing conflicting principles against each other with justifying reasons.
• Principles act as guidelines, not fixed rules — require adaptation and contextual reasoning.

Alternatives to Principlism

Key competing approaches:

• Casuistry (case-based reasoning): moral insight from paradigm cases like Tuskegee; but still value-laden and depends on prior norms.
• Rule-based ethics (Clouser & Gert): critics of principlism argue principles lack directive power and clarity.

“If general principles can be specified and rendered more useful for particular contexts, why continue to think in terms of general principles at all? One practical reason is that principles must be the sort of thing that can be learned by everyone — not just philosophers, but health professionals, ethics committee members, and laypersons.”

• Virtue ethics: focuses on moral character (compassion, integrity) over rules or principles — but Beauchamp & DeGrazia argue for integration rather than replacement.

Problems with justification

• Relationship between principles, rules, virtues, and case judgments — none has strict priority.
• Introduction of Reflective Equilibrium (Rawls, Daniels):
  • Ethical justification arises from coherence between principles, rules, and case judgments — adjusting each to achieve moral consistency.

Principlism - how it works

• fundamental standards
• don’t have to agree on the reason for a principle
• principles can be valued for different reasons and thats okay
• principle to be stable and affirmed then MOST PEOPLE must agree on the principle
• we can achieve “overlapping consensus” - We can agree on the principles while also not agreeing on the reasons for the principles. (Rawls)

Coherence model of Ethical Justification:

• Criteria for coherence:
  • Logical consistency
  • Argumentative support
  • Intuitive plausibility
  • Compatibility with empirical evidence
  • Comprehensiveness
  • Simplicity

Further Direction

Further exploration of:

• How justification works within the reflective equilibrium model.
• The relationship between principles and virtues in moral practice. </aside>

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Intro

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Positive Organisational Scholarship Approach

Leadership courses are only useful if you are in an organisations that value risk taking decisions.

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Identity and Self

When people are scared of bringing the whole self, they overcorrect and bring none of themselves.

• being 100% authentic can be an issue. You must bring as much of yourself that is necessary.
• Self perception - belief about oneself

Socially constructed - created by society/ collective of people

• socially constructed things are made up but are very real and valued as such.

Pursuing things, actions, makes them more elusive. eg overthinking → you cannot think your way of overthinking

What type of indirect pursuit can help you achieve the goal you are actually trying to obtain?

• Telling other people what to do is not leadership.

make up ←→ design

Commitment to the cause

Feedback, especially critical feedback can be coupled with empathy

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Professionalism

The language of agency

the language of agency: the decisions made are a function belief

Avoidance of the language of agency “I’m sorry i can’t do that”

To be professional use the language of agency and be transparent about your reasons for your decision

Solutions first

Due process

Following a reasonable way to come to your decision

Conflicts of interest

Easy to deal with, just declare them at the very first moment that you can

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Being successful and professional:

Show up on time

Always do the right thing

Find ways to be useful

Check check again and recheck

be there at the end - attend projects through to the end

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