AET581 RESEARCH METH.IN APP.ETHICS
| Course Code: |
8360581 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): |
3(3-0) |
| ECTS Credit: |
8.0 |
| Department: |
Applied Ethics |
| Language of Instruction: |
English |
| Level of Study: |
Graduate |
| Course Coordinator: |
|
| Offered Semester: |
Fall or Spring Semesters. |
Course Content
This course starts with an assumption, Research Method in Applied Ethics is qualitative and is based upon rules perspective. The reason for this assumption is that in ethics, both descriptive and prescriptive (normative) methods are inadequate. The former reduces ideas to law like generalizations of behaviour, while the latter gives a fixed catalogue of recipe like collection of norms. As a third alternative, rules approach assumes that at the rule governed level of ethical conduct, rules provide form for the ethical behaviour, while reducing neither ideas nor action to secondary status. Any and every field of applied ethics may be considered as a field of consensus over some rules. A code of ethics, in this sense carries properties unique to rules, and not to law-like generalizations. A code of ethics as a rule first of all, has normative power, i.e., it tells us how to correct our behavior once we deviate from it. A rule in this sense is a criterion of making a choice. Secondly, a rule must have generality. It must be simple enough to apply to a wide range of cases. Thirdly, a rule must have necessity, i.e., must invoke, in the parties involved, a sense of obligation. The subject s feeling of obligation or of normative necessity plus his performative act of obedience to rules is nothing but the closure of the structure called a code of ethics. Collection of a particular group of such structures for a particular field (such as media, business, environment, etc.) will constitute a part of the grammar of applied ethics. The first part of this course examines the concept of rule and related concepts such as rule governed behavior, normative power, constitutive-regulative rules and answers to such questions as What are the analytic (a priori) and empirical aspects of a rule? What is the logical make up of a rule What are the relationships between rules and performative actions etc.
