Ethical reasoning begins when “I like it” and “I dislike it” are no longer enough. A difficult decision may be efficient but unfair, legal but unethical, compassionate but imprudent, or well-intentioned yet harmful. Secondary 3 students need vocabulary for these distinctions.
This guide complements the Top 100 Vocabulary List Secondary 3 Grade A1, especially words such as integrity, equity, ethical, impartial, conscientious, prudent, dignity and altruistic.
Fairness
Fairness can mean equal treatment, equitable support, consistent rules or proportionate consequences. These ideas overlap but are not identical. Ethical reasoning begins by stating which form of fairness matters.
Equality and equity
Equality gives the same thing; equity asks whether people have fair access given different needs or starting points. Neither concept automatically settles every case.
Impartiality
To be impartial is to avoid favouring one side unfairly. Impartiality is valuable in judging disputes, but ethical decisions may still consider relevant differences between people.
Duty
Duty asks what a person is obliged to do because of a role, promise or principle. A teacher, doctor, friend and citizen may carry different responsibilities.
Consequences
Consequential reasoning asks what actions are likely to produce. Good intentions do not erase foreseeable harm, and beneficial outcomes do not automatically justify every method used to achieve them.
Integrity
Integrity concerns consistency between principles and conduct, especially when honesty or responsibility carries a cost. It is easiest to praise integrity in situations where nobody is tempted to act otherwise; the concept becomes meaningful when there is pressure.
Dignity
Dignity concerns treating people as worthy of respect rather than merely as instruments, statistics or obstacles. Efficiency can conflict with dignity when systems ignore privacy, voice or individual circumstances.
Autonomy and consent
Autonomy concerns meaningful choice. Consent matters when another person’s body, privacy, data or significant interests are affected. A choice is less meaningful when information is hidden or pressure is extreme.
Altruism
An altruistic act prioritises others’ welfare, but ethical reasoning can still ask whether the help is effective, wanted and sustainable. Good intentions benefit from good judgement.
Prudence
Prudence is thoughtful attention to consequences and future risk. It can support ethical action by preventing reckless good intentions.
Conflicting duties
Ethical problems are difficult because duties can collide: loyalty versus honesty, privacy versus safety, fairness versus compassion. Naming the conflict accurately is better than pretending one value does not exist.
Rights and responsibilities
Rights protect important freedoms or interests. Responsibilities concern what people owe others. Mature reasoning considers both rather than using one as a slogan.
Ethical versus legal
Law establishes formal rules. Ethics asks what should be done. The two often overlap, but legality does not automatically prove moral correctness.
Ethical versus pragmatic
A pragmatic solution may work efficiently under constraints while distributing costs unfairly. A good evaluation can recognise practical value and ethical limitation at the same time.
The stakeholder test
Who is affected, including people who have little power to influence the decision? Ethical reasoning improves when invisible stakeholders become visible.
The reversibility test
Would you judge the decision the same way if you occupied another affected person’s position? This does not solve every problem, but it reveals convenient double standards.
The consequence test
What benefits, harms and unintended consequences are reasonably foreseeable? Consider short- and long-term effects.
The principle test
Would you accept the rule if it were applied consistently in similar cases? Principles become weak when they change only to favour the speaker.
Worked dilemma: cheating for a friend
Loyalty may encourage helping a friend, but giving answers undermines integrity and fairness to others. A better form of support is to help the friend prepare rather than corrupt the assessment.
Worked dilemma: privacy and safety
Monitoring can improve safety while reducing privacy. Ethical reasoning asks whether surveillance is proportionate, transparent and limited to a legitimate purpose.
Worked dilemma: unequal support
Providing additional resources to students with greater needs may appear unequal but can be equitable when the aim is fair access to learning.
Avoid moral vocabulary as decoration
Words such as ethical, integrity and dignity require criteria. Do not use them simply to make a preferred position sound noble.
Practice routine
- Choose one dilemma.
- List stakeholders.
- Name two competing values.
- Identify likely consequences.
- State one relevant duty or principle.
- Reach a conclusion and explain its limitation.
Return to the hero
Revisit the ethical vocabulary in the Secondary 3 Grade A1 hero. Instead of learning each word as a virtue label, build a dilemma that tests its meaning.
Checkpoint
- Can you distinguish equality, equity and impartiality?
- Can you identify duties and consequences?
- Can you discuss dignity, autonomy and consent?
- Can you recognise conflicting values?
- Can you separate ethical from legal or pragmatic judgement?
- Can you justify a conclusion without pretending the trade-off disappears?
If so, ethical vocabulary becomes a way of reasoning about difficult choices rather than a collection of admirable words.
Deep Ethics Lab: Stakeholders, Values, Duties and Consequences
Ethical reasoning becomes clearer when students stop asking only “Is this right?” and instead map the structure of the dilemma. Different values can point in different directions, and a responsible conclusion should show what is being protected, sacrificed or balanced.
The Ethical Decision Matrix
| Lens | Question |
|---|---|
| Stakeholders | Who is affected, including people with little power? |
| Duties | What obligations arise from roles, promises or principles? |
| Consequences | What benefits, harms and unintended effects are foreseeable? |
| Equity | How are benefits and burdens distributed? |
| Dignity/autonomy | Are people respected as decision-makers rather than treated merely as means? |
Worked Dilemma: Data for Safety
A school proposes collecting detailed student-location data to improve emergency response. Safety is a legitimate benefit. Privacy and autonomy are legitimate concerns. A higher-resolution answer asks whether collection is proportionate, whether less intrusive data would work, who can access the information, how long it is retained, and whether students and families understand the system.
Use Reversibility and Universalisability
Two useful tests are: “Would I accept this rule if I were in the least powerful affected group?” and “Would I accept the same principle in similar cases?” These do not solve every dilemma, but they expose convenient double standards.
The Residual-Cost Rule
A good ethical conclusion does not pretend the losing value disappears. If safety is prioritised over privacy, state what privacy cost remains and how it should be mitigated. Trade-offs become more credible when their residual costs remain visible.
Deep Practice Set
- Choose one dilemma and list all stakeholders.
- Name two values in genuine tension.
- Apply the duty, consequence, equity and dignity lenses.
- Use the reversibility test.
- Reach a conclusion while naming the remaining ethical cost.
- Use ethical vocabulary from the Secondary 3 Grade A1 hero only after the relevant criterion is explicit.
Ethical vocabulary becomes meaningful when it reveals the structure of a difficult choice rather than simply making one side sound virtuous.