Ethical

Key questions

Is it right or wrong to treat others this way? Is it right to do this knowing the effect it will have on others?

Used for

Resolving disputes of moral choice
Almost exclusively concerned with how what we do affects someone else's wellbeing

World Vision child slavery ad 2

Makes use of

Criteria match reasoning:
- Define criteria for an ethical decision
- Demonstrate relevant properties of the subject
- Show how they match the criteria
Ethical reasoning can be based on:
- Principles ("X is bad because it violates an agreed sacred value.")
- Consequences ("X is bad because it will cause Y, which violates an agreed sacred value.")

Universities have a special obligation to protect free speech, open discourse and the value of protest. The collision of views and ideologies is in the DNA of the academic enterprise. No collision avoidance technology is needed here. The noise from this discord may cause others to criticize the legitimacy of the academic enterprise, but how can knowledge advance without the questions that overturn misconceptions, push further into previously impenetrable areas of inquiry and assure us stunning breakthroughs in human knowledge? If there is anything that colleges must encourage and protect it is the persistent questioning of the status quo. Our health as a nation, our health as women, our health as an industry requires it.

Smith College Commencement Address 2014

Other notes

Ethical arguments can be tricky to pin down in a Frankenstories context
- Easy to get mixed up with valuational or proposal arguments
- But ethical arguments must include some kind of us/them dichotomy
Like a valuational argument, an ethical argument is about adjectives:
- Right/wrong
- Ethical/unethical
- Moral/immoral
Ethical issues tend to emerge around medicine, environment, economy, war—issues of life, death, fairness, equity, power

Because these are big issues about how we treat other people, you want to be careful in an improvisational, often slapstick Frankenstories context. You don't want prompts that will steer students into making heinous moral arguments.
One way to do this is to choose prompts about why something is unethical—that direction can tilt the argument towards protecting an impacted party.

Stabilo Highlight lise-meitner

Context ideas

Speaker roles: Advocate, doctor, military officer
Situations: Social controversy, war, medical emergency, medical research, environmental or economic policy, criminal justice

Example: Also, he really puts a lot of effort into it

Example: Handfuls of Lizardy Goodness

Teaching Argument Writing with Frankenstories