Ethics for life sciences engineers

While weeks 2 and 3 focused on how people do make ethical decisions (descriptive ethics), philosophical ethics is also concerned with how people should make ethical decisions (normative ethics).  Since ethical biases are associated with intuitive (“fast”) thinking, a key idea in ethical decision making is to have a process which slows down thinking enough for people to arrive at good decisions (“slow thinking”). 

An “ethics of care” ethical decision-making processes is described: this focuses on identifying the range of actors who are involved in or impacted by an action, the perspectives and feelings of those involved, and then tries to use that to construct solutions which support those who give care and those who need care in a particular context.  The goal is to reach good judgements that are actionable. 

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