LAW 122 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Sexual Assault, Civil Disobedience

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Law and Business
• Course: LAW 122
• Professor: Theresa Miedema

Document Summary

Ethics: the critical, structured examination of how individuals and institutions should behave when their actions affect others. (more than just describing behaviour patterns and gut feelings but providing reasoned arguments) Ethical judgement involves weighing competing values or principles. Value: something good that we ought to promote. Principle: a rule that tells you what you should do. Consequences: promote good consequences and avoid bad ones, for all concerned in the long run. Fairness/justice: make sure that good/bad consequences are distributed fairly. Pay our debts and treat like cases alike. Rights and duties: protect the rights and perform duties. Character/virtue: consider what kind of people we want to be, and what example we want to set. We need to do our best to balance competing principles and values, to figure out which reasons are most weighty. Principles and values can point in the same direction (rich person promises poor person money) or in tension (police offices beats suspect but violates their rights)