Ethics are a system of moral principles and a branch of philosophy which defines what is good for individuals and society. They affect how people make decisions and lead their lives. The term is derived from the Greek word ethos which can mean custom, habit, character or disposition. They infuse debates on topics like abortion, human rights and professional conduct.
Ethics can give several answers
Often there isn’t one right answer – there may be several right answers, or just some least worst answers – and the individual must choose between them
- For some, moral ambiguity is difficult because it forces them to take responsibility for their own choices and actions
Ethics can pinpoint a disagreement
Two people who are arguing a moral issue can often find that what they disagree about is just one particular part of the issue, and that they broadly agree on everything else
Ethics doesn’t give right answers
For many ethical issues there isn’t a single right answer – just a set of principles that can be applied to particular cases to give those involved some clear choices.
Consequentialism
This is the ethical theory that most non-religious people think they use every day
- It bases morality on the consequences of human actions and not on the actions themselves
- People should do whatever produces the greatest amount of good consequences
- Two problems with consequentialism are: it can lead to the conclusion that some quite dreadful acts are good
- Predicting and evaluating the consequences is often very difficult
Intuitionism
Good and bad are real objective properties that can’t be broken down into component parts
- Something is good because it’s good; its goodness doesn’t need justifying or proving
- Moral truths are not discovered by rational argument; they’re discovered by having a hunch or a feeling
Ethics is about the ‘other’
At the heart of ethics is a concern about something or someone other than ourselves and our own desires and self-interest
Ethics and Ideology
Some philosophers teach that ethics is the codification of political ideology, and that the function of ethics is to state, enforce, and preserve particular political beliefs
- More cynical writers suggest that power elites enforce an ethical code on other people that helps them control those people, but do not apply this code to their own behavior
Ethics as a source of group strength
If a group believes that a particular activity is wrong, it can then use morality as the justification for attacking those who practice that activity
What use is ethics?
Ethics needs to provide answers
Moral relativism
Moral relativists say that if you look at different cultures or periods in history you’ll find that they have different moral rules, and that’s just fine
- Respect the diversity of human societies and respond to the different circumstances surrounding human acts
- Many of us feel that moral rules have more to them than the general agreement of a group of people – that morality is more than a super-charged form of etiquette
- Any choice of social grouping as the foundation of ethics is bound to be arbitrary
Approaches to ethics
Meta-ethics deals with the nature of moral judgement
Non-consequentialism or deontological ethics
Concerned only with the actions themselves and not with the consequences
Situation Ethics
Rejects prescriptive rules and argues that individual ethical decisions should be made according to the unique situation
Are ethical statements objectively true?
Ethical realists think that human beings discover ethical truths that already have an independent existence.
- The ethical properties of the world and the things in it exist and remain the same, regardless of what people think or feel – or whether people think/feel about them at all.
Subjectivism
Moral judgments are statements of a person’s feelings or attitudes, and do not contain factual truths about goodness or badness
- If a person says something is good or bad, they are telling us about the positive or negative feelings that they have about that something
Ethics can provide a moral map
Most moral issues get us worked up, but philosophers can offer us ethical rules and principles that enable us to take a cooler view
Moral absolutism
Some people think there are such universal rules that apply to everyone
- Immoral acts, such as breaking these rules, are wrong in and of themselves
- Absolutist thinking enables the drafting of universal rules
- Many of us feel that the consequences of an act or the circumstances surrounding it are relevant to whether that act is good or bad
Emotivism
Moral claims are no more than expressions of approval or disapproval
- When someone makes a moral judgement they show their feelings about something
- Some theorists also suggest that in expressing a feeling the person gives an instruction to others about how to act towards the subject matter
Prescriptivism
Prescriptivists think that ethical statements are instructions or recommendations
Virtue Ethics
Virtue ethics looks at virtue or moral character, rather than at ethical duties and rules, or the consequences of actions.
- An action is right if and only if it is an action that a virtuous person would do in the same circumstances, and if that virtuous person is someone who has a good character.
Searching for the Source of Right and Wrong
In the past, ethical problems could be solved by discovering what God wanted people to do
- If a person did this properly they would be led to the right conclusion
- Now, even philosophers are less sure that it’s possible to devise a satisfactory and complete theory of ethics
- Modern thinkers often teach that ethics leads people not to conclusions but to ‘decisions’
- The role of ethics is limited to clarifying what’s at stake in particular ethical problems
