Ethical Dilemma Two Individuals, Both

Ethical Dilemma

Two individuals, both married and addicted to drugs, are unable to care for their infant daughter. Because of their addiction, the child was taken from them by Court order and placed in foster care. As time passes, the child regards her foster parents as her real parents and they, too, love her as their own. When she is 9 years old, the natural parents, now rehabilitated from drugs, begin legal action to regain custody. The case is decided in their favor as the birth parents, and against her will, she is returned to them. We will use two ethical models to analyze this case and the Court's decision, virtue ethics and ends-based ethics.

Virtue Ethics -- Virtue ethics is an approach to moral issues that emphasizes the character of the moral agent as opposed to the rules in an ethical dilemma. We can view it as contrasting consequentialism, which posits that the final action (in this case, the Court's decision), supports the moral value of that decision. Instead, virtue ethics considers the reality of the decision and what that says about the organization that made the decision.

Virtue theory holds, too, that right actions follow from being moral about a situation, moral as an individual, and that by being moral, we as humans will know what the right and wrong decisions are in a given situation. The ancient Greeks saw virtue ethics in contrast to duties (deontology) because virtues are admirable human characteristics that helps us decide how to live in society (Deverett, 2002).

In our situation there were clear moral issues at stake: the parents of the child were unable to care for her, or for themselves, and likely would continue to make poor decisions because of their drug addiction. The child's life was clearly in danger, or the legal and social welfare system would not have interfered. In contrast to a family that simply acts as a warehouse for foster children for money, these foster parents clearly loved the child, and spent 7-8 years as the sole caregivers, showering attention, love, and above all, parenting, upon the child. This was so much in evidence that the child clearly bonded with the foster parents. Virtue ethics would hold that it was the action of the foster parents to become parents that would hold the right decision. The birth-parents gave up their rights to this child by acting in an immoral and irresponsible manner that could have harmed the child. They may be "clean" now, but they made their decision to opt for drugs instead of parenting, showing their moral character. The foster parents showed their own moral character as well, by raising the child in a loving and safe environment.

End-Based Ethics- Also known as utilitarianism, end-based ethics has one deciding to do whatever provides the greatest good for the greatest number by predicting the consequences of different actions. If utilitarianism holds that the most ethical thing that can happen is the action that maximizes the happiness or good for society then actions have quantitative outcomes and the decisions that go into "the greatest good for the greatest number" are appropriate, even if that means reducing the rights or happiness of some (Troyer, 2003).

Using the utilitarian principle, who benefits from giving the child back to the original parents? We are not even sure that they benefit, not knowing the specifics, but we do know that the foster parents and the child are traumatized, and that the good works done over the past years and the protections offered by society have been devalued by the outmoded idea that birth parents are what parenting is about. Instead, the Court should have looked in detail about how the foster parents loved the child, how happy the child was, and what would be the greatest good for society -- based on the emotional facts of the case.