February 21, 2022

Ethical Cycle (Educational Format)

The ethical cycle is a helpful tool in structuring and improving moral decisions, especially in the context of teaching practical ethics. With improving moral decision-making we aim at a situation in which the decision-maker makes at least a systematic and thorough analysis of the moral problem and is able to justify his final decisions in moral terms. Ultimately, moral problem solving is directed at finding the morally best, or at least a morally acceptable, action in a given situation in which a moral problem arises. It is, however, hard to guarantee that the ethical cycle indeed delivers such a solution, if only because people may reasonably disagree about what is the morally best, or a morally acceptable, solution.