Comparing Ethical Approaches

Y-axis:Self-awareness. The approach requires an intense inner focus plus a deep personal commitment to one's own sense of what is right &/or good. Authenticity and integrity are essential. This places the approach very high on the Y-axis.

X-axis: Benefit for Others. There is little concern for pressures and views of others, and no explicit requirement to benefit others. While others may well be considered or even targeted for benefit, the final choice can just as easily be asocial or be viewed by another as anti-social or harmful to others. This means it scores very low on the X-axis.

X-axis: Benefit for Others. The choice is concerned with acceptability through conformity to existing norms and values. The aspiration is continuity—which means choosing like everyone else, even if others are harmed or society itself is damaged. This scores it very low on the X-axis.

Y-axis: Self-awareness. Choosing what is generally accepted is almost a matter of habit and involves minimal mental or intuitive effort. There are often explicit forceful pressures from others indicating explicitly what choice is right. This places it very low on the Y-axis.

X-axis: Benefit for Others. The choice must produce a balanced or holistic result that is beneficial for oneself and for all others through an active and positive concern for them. This rates it very high on the X-axis.

Y-axis: Self-awareness. Choosing entails recognizing one's own needs and interests as well as appreciating the needs and interests of others who may be in quite different situations, with different backgrounds and values. This is highly demanding, and requires empathic identification and awareness. This places it very high on the Y-axis.

X-axis: Benefit for Others.  The approach requires the setting of impersonal rules accepted by oneself and others. The rules need to be justified as right and fair, but they are not primarily oriented to generate specific benefit for specific persons. Typically, rules aim to prevent some future harm or reduce present unfairness. But they must not be too complex, or they will be misunderstood, forgotten or ignored. This means it scores in the lower half of the X-axis but not as low as the conventionalist approach.

Y-axis: Self-awareness. Setting a rule requires knowledge of social situations, some thought about typical behaviours of people, and appreciating what constraints they are likely to tolerate. This places it in the lower half of the Y-axis, but again not so low as the conventionalist approach.

X-axis: Benefit for Others.  Self-interest seemingly conflicts with benefit for others. However, personal gain demands that self-interest be deliberately aligned with social values, power relations, and trends. Others need to benefit at least to some degree. This means it scores in the lower half of the X-axis but not as low as the transcendentalist or conventionalist approaches.

Y-axis: Self-awareness.  Self-interest requires a considerable degree of self-awareness because it is not easy to know ones own needs and interests and shape them so as to fit into a community and mesh with the interests of others. This places it in the upper half of the Y-axis, but again not so high as the transcendentalist approach.

X-axis: Benefit for Others.  Solving any social problem in a sensible worthwhile way will generate some benefit for others. However, the benefit is focused and partial, and a good solution may even affect some people adversely. This means it scores in the upper half of the X-axis but not as extreme as the communalist approach.

Y-axis: Self-awareness.  There is an orientation to objectivity, mastery of emotion, and a requirement to guard against bias, prejudice and conflicts of interest. All this demands self-awareness, which places it in the upper half of the Y-axis, but again not so high as the transcendentalist or communalist approaches.

This is a group-oriented approach, which seeks to expediently pursue the ideals of the chooser’s group(s), while generating some wider benefit.

This concern for others within recognized groups locates it on the right half of the X-Axis. However, as choices are defined by the nature and ideals of the groups, they do not require too much self-awareness. So it belongs in the lower right quadrant. 

At the upper left of this quadrant (near the centre), pragmatist choice is the better label, because the focus is on the chooser's in-group, i.e. that one group (or perhaps two) that represents the chooser’s main interests and loyalties. This means that there will be benefit for fewer others (so not so far along on the X-axis), and a need for more self-awareness in relation to the group (so higher on the Y-axis).

By contrast, at the bottom right, the better name is pluralist choice because a chooser addresses the values and interests of many relevant groups (as well as their own). A chooser must operate expediently in the light of these groups' relative power over them—so self-awareness can be very low.