My work this semester focuses on domestic violence, specifically, domestic violence in rural areas. As part of my analysis, I am to analyze this issue using utilitarianism, deontology and distributive justice.
Now I can debate potential solutions from all sides utilizing each of the above, but analyzing root causes with each framework is more challenging.
This is my understanding of the ethical frameworks:
-
Deontology (first principles)
o
First order principles that can guide society
(beneficence, justice)
o
What is best solution
o
Is it the right thing to do
o
Does it follow general moral rules of what we
should be doing
o
There are a number of principles we should
follow
§
Do good for others
§
Cause no harm
§
Justice
§
Autonomy
o
Look at policy to see if it is following these
principles
o
Conflict between different principles
o
The principles are found in spiritual traditions,
philosophical documents
-
Rawls:
distributive justice
o
The original position: rational, impartial people will establish
a mutually beneficial principle of
justice as the foundation for regulating all rights, duties, power and wealth
o
It is about those decisions that are about the
collective, not individual
o
Levels the playing field by giving greatest
benefit to the least advantaged
o
What would rational and impartial people do?
o
Focus on civil liberty and fair distribution of
primary goods
o
Veil of ignorance – about who we are and how
policy might influence us, remove from the equation gender, economic level,
profession. Be totally ignorant to our
own lives, we would make the decision that would best benefit the majority
-
Utilitarianism
o
Purpose is to make the world a better place
o
Greatest good for greatest number
o
Making a decision that is in best interest of
greatest number
o
Do whatever will bring the most benefit to all
of humanity
o
About the consequences, weighing what is going
to have the greatest net gain at the end
o
In policy, programs have merit if they have
positive outcomes with low cost to benefit ratio
o
Morality is about producing good consequences,
not having good inte4ntions
o
Requires tremendous calculations
If you can provide any input on how each of these frameworks can be used to analyze the problem of domestic violence, I would greatly appreciate it!
