Ethics pg. 30-38 - Notes taken from the reading PDF

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Casie Harkins Ethics Pages 30-38 

By sharpening our analytical skills, we can become more independent in our thinking and less susceptible to worldviews that foster narrow-mindedness.

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The thinking process used in philosophical inquiry can be broken down into three tiers or levels: experience, interpretation, and analysis.

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All three levels overlap and interact with one another.

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Experience provides the material for interpretation and analysis; analysis, in the end, returns the experience.

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Experience is the first level of thinking. At this level of thinking, we simply describe our experiences. We do not, at least in theory, interpret or pass judgement on our experience.

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Interpretation involves trying to make sense of our experience. This level of thinking includes individual interpretations of experience as well as collective or cultural interpretations.

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The interpretations of our experiences taken together form our worldview. Our worldviews are strongly influenced by our upbringing and by cultural norms. Our experience contributes to our worldview, and our worldview also shapes how we experience the world.

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Analysis of moral issues draws on the findings of other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and the natural sciences; it involves an examination of our worldviews in light of fundamental moral intuitions, moral sentiments, and collective insights.

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The process of moving from experience to interpretation to analysis and from there back to experience again is ongoing.

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Epistemological privilege is those who do not benefit from or are harmed by conventional interpretations of reality are the least likely to buy into or defend the interpretations that oppress them.

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Sheila Mullett outlines a process for ethical analysis based on what she calls a feminist methodology. Mullet’s approach to ethical analysis involves three steps or dimensions

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Moral sensitivity grows out of a collective consciousness raising. Until we develop an awareness of the experience of violence, victimization, and pain that surrounds us, we will continue to inadvertently perpetuate it.

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Ontology is the philosophical study of “being” or the nature of being. Ontological shock is something that shakes us to the very core of our being, thus forcing us to call into question our cherished worldview or interpretations of our experiences.

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Praxis refers to the practice of a particular art or skill. In ethics, praxis requires informed social action.

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Analysis is interactive, interdisciplinary, and directed toward praxis and social action.

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Until we overcome our own narrow interpretations of the world and incorporate these changes into our personal life, it is unlikely that we will be able to sustain our involvement in praxis.

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Defense mechanisms are psychological tools, which we learn from an early age, for coping with difficult situations. They can be divided into two main types: coping and resistance.

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Coping, or healthy defense mechanisms, allows us to work through challenges to our worldview and to adjust to life in ways that maintain our integrity.

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Resistance involves the use of immature defense mechanisms that are rigid, impulsive, maladaptive, and nonanalytical.

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There are situations where we are ignorant simply because the information is not available. Sometimes we avoid learning about particular issues because we just do not want to know....