Martin J O'Malley (2013) Value Ethics: A Meta-Ethical Framework for Emerging Sciences in Pluralistic Contexts. (original) (raw)

Value ethics is an applied ethics method that incorporates the structural elements of the Mutual Gains Approach (MGA) for negotiation. The proposal is pragmatic and modest in the sense that it does not require or even primarily seek significant philosophical commitments. It focuses rather on addressing “applied ethics” questions with the goal of achieving the most possible value in concrete situations. This paper reflects upon various philosophical approaches to ethics in the hope of achieving an understanding of the concept “value”, and also to argue that a pragmatic value-ethics approach has the potential to achieve the most acceptable solutions to tough ethical questions while tolerating a fair degree of philosophical pluralism. It is intended to be potentially compatible with many theoretical ethical schools, including Kantian approaches, natural law theories, utilitarianism, principle-based ethics and others. The value-ethics approach is presented here as a practical way to respect the context of pluralism that describes much contemporary ethical discourse, and also to manage the inevitable conflicts that emerge within such pluralistic contexts.