What is Ethics The branch of philosophy concerned

What is Ethics? The branch of philosophy concerned with systematizing, defending, and proposing concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ethikos, which derives from the word ethos (habit, or custom).

- Investigates various moral questions, such as “What is the best way for people to live? ” or “What actions are right or wrong” or “What’s the proper course of action in particular circumstances? ” - Ethicists are philosophers who specialize in ethics.

The three major areas of study within ethics are: 1. Meta-ethics. 2. Normative ethics. 3. Applied ethics. Meta-ethics: (Descriptive) What does "right" even mean? Normative (prescriptive) ethics: How should people act? Applied ethics: How do we take moral knowledge and put it into practice?

META-ETHICS Asks how we understand, know about, and what we mean when we talk about right and wrong. A question such as, "Should I get an abortion? " or “Is it ever right to kill? ” are not meta-ethical questions. A meta-ethical question is more general and more abstract: "Is it possible to acquire knowledge of right and wrong? " or “Are certain actions objectively right or wrong” “If certain actions are objectively wrong or right, what makes them so? ”

Meta-ethicists have different approaches: cognitivism and non-cognitivism: Cognitivism: ethical sentences express actual propositions that can be true or false, which noncognitivists deny. Cognitivism embodies many views: e. g. moral realism: ethical sentences express propositions about mind-independent facts. moral subjectivism: ethical sentences express propositions about peoples' attitudes or opinions. error theory: ethical sentences express propositions, but they are all false.

Non-cognitivism: when we judge something as right or wrong, this is neither true nor false. We express our emotional feelings about these things. Cognitivism: when we talk about right and wrong, we are talking about matters of fact. Moral ontology is about the kind of things we refer to by ethical propositions. Non-descriptivists and non-cognitivists say morality does not need a specific ontology, since ethical propositions do not refer to anything. This is known as an anti-realism. Realists on the other hand claim morality to have a paradigm.

• Moral Nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism): metaethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral. killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong. Moral nihilists consider morality to be human construction. . • Moral nihilism is distinct from moral relativism, which does allow for actions to be right or wrong relative to a particular culture or individual. • Moral nihilism implies moral skepticism. • Moral nihilism = "nothing is morally wrong. " There are several forms of moral nihilism: error theory and expressivism.

• Expressivism: when someone says something is immoral he is not saying it is right or wrong. He express his feelings, emotions. Torture, is disgusting, not morally wrong. • Expressivism: a form of non-cognitivism: the view that moral statements lack truthvalue. • non-cognitivism implies that moral knowledge is impossible.

• Not all forms of non-cognitivism are forms of moral nihilism: universal prescriptivism is a non-cognitivist form of moral universalism: judgments about morality may be correct or not in a consistent, universal way, but do not attempt to describe features of reality.

• Error theory: • There are no moral features in the world; nothing is right or wrong. • No moral judgments are true; however, • Our sincere moral judgments try, but always fail, to describe the moral features of things. • Thus, we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken—hence the error.

NORMATIVE ETHICS Is the study of ethical action. It is the area of ethics concerned with the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics because it examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts. Normative ethics because deals with norms or moral systems, which we’ll consider later on.

• APPLIED ETHICS • Examination of particular moral issues in private and public life. Use of philosophical methods to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life. • Bioethics. • Environmental ethics • Business ethics. • Spots ethics.

PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND MORAL AGENCY People make many different moral choices without knowing that they are. Take something simple as buying a pair of shoes or a perfume: leather, animal suffering, testing. In any event, we take it for granted that we are autonomous. But what does it mean? Autonomous: one is able to make free choices as a selfdetermining individual. Are we all autonomous? Certainly not. To be fully autonomous, one must satisfy 3 conditions: 1. Independent condition. 2. Competency condition. 3. Authenticity condition.

Infants, comatose people, senile, and so on lack autonomy because lack independence. Also, to be autonomous one must make free choices without the control of anyone or the control of something from within the subject. If you are under threat, under age, you lack autonomy. If you have OCD, suffer from kleptomania, addictions, etc. you are not autonomous.

Competency. One must also be rational and rationally capable of deliberating his or her moral choices. (a)know what our choices are. (b)able to understand consequences for those choices. (c)able to evaluate the best choices for us. (d)must make decisions that are true most of the time. (e) and we need to be able to reason correctly.

Last conditions to be fully autonomous is authenticity. The idea is that one may be independent, competent, but not individualistic. Think about how many “fully functional” adults you know who nonetheless make decisions based upon their upbringing, faith, peer pressure. EG: refuse medical treatment based on one’s interpretation of religious doctrines. Individuals who lack autonomy, for whatever reasons, are morally incompetent. When one is morally incompetent and the state for example overrules his choices and actions for his own good, and this is called paternalism. Whether or not one is able to make independent, competent, or authentic choices, he or she is referred to as a moral agent.

MORAL RELATIVISM challenge to ethics: the concept that morality is relative. This can be relativism or subjectivism. Objectivism says that all people are under the same moral principles. Moral principles are objective. Subjectivism: each individual has his/her own moral principles. Relativism says that societies decide what is moral. Who are we to judge? Many people are attracted by this ethical view. The Callatians, an Indian people, ate their dead people, while ancient Greeks cremated theirs. The story goes that they viewed each other’s practice as immoral. So moral relativism concludes that morality is a matter of what peoples take it to be.

However, it is not always clear that people’s moral principles differ. People’s beliefs differ. Callatians believed that their dead would continue living if ingested. Greeks believed flesh could be corrupted and so cremated the dead. Also Greeks believed fire to purify the body. Often, two peoples’ differences are not moral but cultural. Abortion? People are divided over abortion. Why? People who are pro and people who are against both agree that murder is wrong. But they disagree over whether a fetus is a person. If relativism were true then we could never say with certainty that some practice or principle is immoral or wrong. If you are a relativist, the implication is that you must admit there was nothing wrong about Nazi morality and slavery!

M. L. K, Jr. and William Garrison who fought against segregation and slavery. They were moral reformers. If you are a moral relativist, you cannot praise King or Garrison. In fact, you should condemn them. Moral progress is impossible if relativism is true. If one tries to better the living conditions and moral principles of a society he is making progress. Moral progress implies moving toward an ideal, objective, moral standard. But this is what relativism denies! Also, relativism says that moral standard of a particular society is determined by what that society practices and deems moral. But a society cannot make moral progress because progress requires changing the practices that give that society their moral standards! Also, relativism says that the social group you belong to determines morality. But ask yourself, to which social group do I belong? Answer, you belong to many groups. Finally, some might say that relativism is valid because we should have tolerance and respect other people’s practices and beliefs. But, if we apply the principle of tolerance as a universal principle, then tolerance is ruled out by relativism! In other words, if you use the argument from tolerance, you are not a relativist but an objectivist.

Assessing ethical theories The Important aspect of ethics is to determine what makes things right or wrong. So we want an ethical theory to be able to simplify morality. A theory’s principles must provide a compelling explanation of why certain things are good or right while others are bad or wrong. Therefore, any adequate ethical theory needs to satisfy certain criteria. The more fully theory satisfies all these criteria the better theory.

1. Completeness: we want our theory to be able to address and make sense of certain moral concepts. If theory leaves something out that must be included, then that theory is faulty. Hedonistic theories, don’t account for justice. 2. Explanatory Power: The theory must give us insight into what makes something moral or immoral. It must help us understand the difference between right and wrong, and illuminate the nature of morality, that is, where morality comes from.

3. Practicability: how useful is a theory? - Clear and precise moral claims. If theory’s principles are vague, then it isn’t a practical theory: “don’t hurt people unless they deserve it. ” Vague. Moral guidance to ordinary people. Principles should not create conflict. Imagine a friend lives in the US illegally. Should you turn him in? A practicable theory must be able to resolve your dilemma. 4. Moral confirmation: obviously ethical theory gives the correct answers to our moral questions. Does it work? A theory is morally confirmed if we have good reasons to consider it true. This criterion resembles the scientific method. In science we begin testing a theory’s hypotheses by experiment and observation.

• SOME WAYS NOT TO ANSWER MORAL QUESTIONS, AND THE IDEAL MORAL JUDGMENT • Moral judgments and personal preferences. Some people like classical music; others do not. This is disagreement in preferences. Moral disagreements, disagreements over right or wrong, are not the same. If I say abortion is always wrong and you say abortion is never wrong, then you are denying what I affirm. The point: right or wrong require reasons. Cannot be determined just by finding out about the personal preferences of people.

• Moral judgments and feelings. Some philosophers think words like right and wrong are just labels. This position suggests it doesn’t matter one way or the other. But morality matters. So, one must not use personal feelings to determine what’s right and wrong. • Thinking it is so does not make it so. This should be obvious: upon reflection you might be surprised. You might think same-sex marriage is immoral, but when you reason logically, you might arrive at the opposite conclusion.

• Irrelevance of statistics. Some people think that the more people believe something, the truer something is. Religious people may say that God exists because the majority of the world’s population believes in a god. Clearly this is not true. If the majority holds that capital punishment is wrong, that doesn’t make it wrong. • The appeal to a moral authority. Many people think that there is a moral authority, and that is God. However, appealing to such an authority creates problems because the existence of God is controversial.

THE IDEAL MORAL JUDGMENT There at least different concepts that an ideal moral judgment must satisfy: • Conceptual clarity: if someone tells us that euthanasia is always wrong we could not determine whether that statement is true before we understand what euthanasia is. Concepts need clarity. In the case of abortion, for example, many think the question turns on whether the fetus is a person. In other words, the ideal moral judgment must be clear. • Information: We must answer moral questions by having knowledge of the world. For example, in order to know why eating meet is morally wrong, we must know the facts, that is, animals feel pain and like us do not want to feel pain. They are killed, Chopped up, packaged, and sold. Many people ignore, or want to ignore, these facts.

• Rationality: it is required to have the ability to recognize the connection between different ideas. The only way to be rational in morality is to use logic. Sally thinks all abortions are morally wrong, but she recently has had an abortion. Sally is not being rational or logical. • Impartiality: when we try to reach the correct answer to moral questions, we must strive to guard against extreme unquestioned partiality. Impartiality is related to the principle of justice: the principle that justice is the similar, and injustice the dissimilar, treatment of similar individuals. If causing suffering to humans is wrong, but it is not wrong in the case of animals, this is not impartial. • we should not consider irrelevant characteristics such as the color of the skin, the color of hair, nationality, height, age, species, and so on.

• Coolness: the idea is that the more emotionally charged we are, the more likely we are to reach a mistaken moral conclusion come while the cooler or calm or we are, greater the chances that we will avoid mistakes. • Valid moral principles: In an ideal moral judgment, it is not enough that the judgment be based on completing information complete impartiality, complete conceptual clarity, And so on. It is also essential that the judgment be based on valid or correct moral principles. Ideally, one wants not only to make the correct moral judgment but also to make it for the correct reasons.

Criteria for evaluating moral principles: • Consistency: principles should be consistent. Take the example of Sally: whatever principle let her to believe that all abortions are morally wrong and yet her abortion is morally right, must be an inconsistent principle. • Adequacy of scope: A successful principle is one that provides guidance to different circumstances. So, the wider the principle’s scope, the greater its potential uses, the narrower its scope, the narrower its range of applications. • Precision: What we want from an ethical principle is not to be vague. For example if we are told we should love our neighbors and we should do no harm we must also be told in a clear way what love, harm, and a neighbor are supposed to mean.

Moral Theories • Consequentialism: • Utilitarianism – right actions maximize happiness/pleasure. • everything we do is motivated by a desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. – the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of beings. • Why pleasure/happiness? Because that’s the only thing that matter. • What beings? All sentient beings.

• Only intrinsic good is pleasure. It is good in itself. • No God or moral authority or moral paradigm. • Humans are not divine or special, and as individuals have no intrinsic value. • The happiness of the majority is what counts. • Why consequentialism? Something is right based on consequences. • I should not make a decision based on principles or duty. I must consider the consequences of my actions. • Right action is one that produces consequences that maximize happiness for the greatest number of beings.

• Act utilitarianism: must decide by calculating consequences case by case. • Rule utilitarianism: based on experiences of consequences, apply certain rules that maximize utility. • Hedonistic utilitarianism: maximize pleasure/minimize suffering. • Preference utilitarianism: maximize utility based on people’s preferences. Each individual preference is unique. But in the end the aggregative satisfaction is the goal. • True preferences vs. corrupt preferences.

Criticisms • Is happiness all that matters? • Paradox of Hedonism: if happiness is all that matters, we must pursue it. But we can’t. • Try making yourself happy. • Happiness is like a NYC bus—you never know when it’s coming.

• Kant • The only unconditionally good this is the will. • 1. Only actions that proceed from duty have moral worth. I can act in accordance or in conformity to duty: I promise that I will give you a lift, but I do it because I want to avoid the ill consequences from not doing so. I then am not doing what is right for the right reason. My action does not proceed from duty. My will cannot be good. If I pay my debt because I want you to lend me more or because I am afraid to pay penalties, my will is not good because my action dos not proceed from the recognition that I have a duty. Or, I can charge difference prices to different customers. But say that I want to maintain a good reputation for my business, then I will conform with the duty that I should not charge different customers differently. But am I doing it for the right reason? No because my action does not proceed from duty.

• An action that proceeds from duty has its moral worth not from the purpose to be attained but from the maxim by which it is determined. A maxim is a subjective principle of volition. My maxim is the principle that motivates me to do something. So an action is never morally good because of what I do but rather because of why I do it. My will might be motivated by material incentive = Not good. If I pay you back not because of reputation or because I want you to like me, or what not, but because I recognize that I have a duty, a principle, categorical that commands me to pay you back. This is good. • Duty is the necessity of acting from respect for the moral law.

Categorical imperative. – “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction. ” – Ask yourself “Would I want all people in all places, at all times to do what I am about to do? ”

The first formulation • Requires that the maxims be chosen as though they should hold as universal laws of nature. This is a test to determine whether a maxim can be universalized: • Take a moral statement, for example the declaration “I will cheat for personal benefit. ” • Imagine a possible world in which everyone followed that maxim. • Decide whether any contradictions or irrationalities arise in such a world as a result of following the maxim. • If a contradiction or irrationality arises, acting on that maxim is not allowed in the real world. • If there is no contradiction, that maxim is morally sound; but if there is, well, then it is not morally sound!

• The second formulation holds that the rational being is “the basis of all maxims of action” and must be treated never as a mere means but as an end. What this means is that all rational beings should never be exploited for personal gain. • What makes a being rational? • The third formulation • All maxims must harmonize with a possible Kingdom of Ends. This means that we should act in such a way that we may think of ourselves as “a member in the universal realm of ends”.

Virtue Ethics • A virtue is a human excellence. An excellent trait of one’s character. • emphasizes the role of one's character and the virtues that one's character embodies for determining or evaluating ethical behavior. • Character requires practice. – Role models. • No rule can tell me to do the right thing. I must use my virtues to determine correct action. • To do wrong is lack of knowledge. • Goal of virtue ethics is well being/happiness/human flourishing.

Virtues • • Prudence Generosity Benevolence Wisdom Justice Courage Temperance Aristotle argued that moral virtues are means between two corresponding vices, one of excess and one of deficiency. For example: courage is a virtue found between the vices of cowardliness and rashness.

Feminist Ethics/Care • Women see morality differently from men. • Motherly care. • Kohlberg stages. – Medicine dilemma. Would it be right to steal a medicine that you cannot afford but will safe your life? Men tend to respond in legal/obligation terms. Women prefer compassion.