Moral Decision-Making
This domain tests ethical theories, conscience, moral development and their application to concrete dilemmas. Marks depend on accurate theory and reasoned application, not on listing names.
Core concepts
- Deontology: Kant's categorical imperative (universalisability; treat humanity as an end); duty over consequences.
- Utilitarianism: Bentham's hedonic calculus; Mill's quality and harm principle; greatest happiness, with justice objections.
- Natural law: Aquinas; synderesis, primary precepts (preserve life, reproduce, educate, live in society, worship), secondary precepts; reason discerns goods.
- Situation ethics: Fletcher; agape love as norm; pragmatism, relativism, positivism, personalism.
- Virtue ethics: Aristotle; eudaimonia, phronesis, character and habituation.
- Catholic social teaching: human dignity, common good, subsidiarity, solidarity, option for the poor.
- Conscience and development: synderesis and conscientia; Newman; Kohlberg's pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional levels; Gilligan's ethics of care.
Worked example
Should a doctor disclose a terminal diagnosis? Deontology stresses truth-telling and respect for autonomy. Utilitarianism weighs distress against informed consent and family trust. Natural law upholds preserving life but also veracity and dignity. Virtue ethics asks what a compassionate, prudent doctor would do. CST emphasises dignity and the common good. Conclusion: disclose truthfully and sensitively; the theories converge but for different reasons.
Traps
Equating situation ethics with 'anything goes'; reducing natural law to biology; calling utilitarianism selfish; treating conscience as mere feeling; ignoring intention and circumstances; applying a theory without showing its reasoning.