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Ethics
Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour and decide what is morally right in a situation. Ethics provides a frameworks for which to make these decisions.
Values
The are the beliefs that guide a person’s decision making. They are a part of one’s perception on what is important in life. These are things like honesty, loyalty, respect and compassion.
Moral Relativism
The idea that there is not set of universal moral principles. This idea can split into different parts like cultural relativism where the moral standard is defined by the culture. Meta-ethical moral relativism says there are no objective grounds for choosing one moral value over another, the moral choices come from beliefs, customs and practices. Normative moral relativism says that we should accept all societies moral values based on the idea that there are no universal moral principles. Moral absolutism is the opposite idea and says there is always a right ethical choice.
Ethical Egoism
This idea says we only act morally when it promotes our own self interests. This makes an action right if it produces more good and less bad consequences for only me in a situation. Harry Browne argues for this position for the reason that everyone else is putting their happiness above yours so you should too. Although this holds the view that all people only act out of self interest.
Utilitarianism
Bentham argues for this position with his “Principle of Utility” which is where an action judged based on what is achieved. John Stuart Mill was also a utilitarian but with hedonistic values. He argued that happiness should not just be for yourself, but for the greatest number of people possible. In acting for not just our own happiness we gain a sense of higher moral obligation. The moral choice in any situation is the one that creates the most amount of happiness for the most people. Can be explained through Bernard Williams’s thought experiment about a man encountering a group of indigenous people who have been captured by soldiers and the man is given the option to shoot one person and save the other 19 choose to shoot any all 20 die. Bernard argues against utilitarianism here through Kantian ethics saying there is no moral value where killing is ok.
Act Utilitarianism
In a situation, you should choose the action that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Example of this is the five dying patients with one healthy man in the waiting room and using his organs to save them. Example is having the knowledge a man stole money from the bank but gave it to an orphanage, you have to choose if you tell the police.
Rule Utilitarianism
Says that we should live our life by rules that are likely to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Focuses on maximising utility long term instead of just in a situation. Example of a man with his dying wife who does not have money to buy her life saving medication, is it ok for him to steal it.
Divine Command Theory
A non-consequential, normative ethical theory that says we should only do what is the will of God. It says that in any situation if you do what God wills then that is the moral action. This is split into two different kinds, scriptural divine command theory and natural law ethics. Scriptural divine command theory does not justify actions through outcome but just by the fact that it is God’s will. Some issues come up here because different religions use different texts so which is the true will of God? Also, no one is sure that God is actually real. Example of hitting and killing a pedestrian but someone else in convinced that they did it, do you tell the truth.
Natural Law Theory
This view says that people should live according to nature. This view was held by the Stoics, they believed that God has put out a universal natural order and the human mind has to discover that. Living by this natural order would be prevalent in human nature because you would be happy. Epicurus said that we have a natural tendency to believe what is true and living by natural is doing what is morally right. Aquinas held a similar view that because God created the universe and the laws around it, the only moral thing to do is follow them.
Kant’s categorical imperative
It is the central idea of deontology which is ethical frameworks that are based on rules that are universal. Basically says treat others the way you want to be treated.
Buddhist ethics
Is not considered part of divine command theory because Buddhism does not have a god. There are two primary parts of Buddhist ethics. First is that intentional actions are important because it is the outcome that determines your destiny. Secondly, is that there ethics is not based on rules but on wisdom. The four noble truths are suffering, origin of suffering, stopping of suffering and the way of stopping suffering. The five precepts are not taking any life, not stealing, no illicit sex and no lying. Example of hitting and killing a pedestrian but someone else in convinced that they did it, do you tell the truth.
Virtue Ethics
Aristotle saw virtues as the ability to respond correctly in a situation. An example of this is the virtue of courage and being able to respond courageously habitually in any situation. He also believed that virtues are directly related to happiness because it is our main purpose so there had to be a link between moral goodness and being happy. This also connects the idea of reason because using your reason is considered virtues. Virtue ethics is not just ideas about ethics, but a way of acting ethically.
metaethics
Metaethics focuses on the question of what is morality which is different from normative ethics which talks about right actions. There are three parts to the idea of metaethics, first is metaphysics which is about objective truth and if it depends on the mind. Epistemology which talks about if ethical truths exists, how do we find them and if we say something is wrong, how do we justify that morally. Lastly, philosophy of the mind which asks what is it to hold a moral view and what values do these views come from. An example of a metaethical debate comes up between Socrates and Thrasymachus, Socrates believed that morality was real and objective as Thrasymachus saw morality as made up and only a subjective opinion. These views can be split in cognitivism and non-cognitivism where cognitivism is the idea that moral language is meaningful and non-cognitivism says that it’s meaningless.
Cognitivism
In cognitivism there are two types who believe morality is either objective or subjective. This is the difference between realism and anti-realism. Realism is the idea that good exists out in the world and independently of us, it is not created and is seen as fact about the universe. Realism can be split into naturalism and non-naturalism. Naturalism is the idea that what is good is something that can be empirically observed. It includes utilitarianism, natural moral law and virtue ethics. Non-naturalism is split into intuition and reason. Intuitionism was proposed by G.E. Moore and he said we could learn about morality from our intuition. An example of reason is Kantian ethics which is the use of reason alone to make a moral decision, part of his categorical imperative. Anti-realism is the idea that good does not exists independent of us and morality is directly connected to the human mind, it is made up.
Emotivism
A metaethical theory thats is associated with A.J. Ayer. He was influenced by logical positivists who believed that logic was an appropriate tool for analysing language in philosophical problems.
Applied Ethics - Abortion
The main issues surrounding the issue of abortion is that killing is wrong, a foetus is a person, causing pain is wrong. Some of the arguments for abortion are the foetus is not a person, its not always wrong to end a life, potential people do not have rights and the mother has rights too. This involves issues of personhood, normative ethical positions like utilitarianism and the categorical imperative. There is a cognitivist meta-ethical position taken here.
Applied Ethics - Bioethics and Euthanasia
Euthanasia means having a good death or dying peacefully with your loved ones around you on a painless way. There are many distinction in euthanasia. The first is active vs. passive, active is when someone takes action to cause someone’s death like lethal injection and passive is when someone refuses intervention that may prevent their death. Criticisms of euthanasia like how fine the difference is between active and passive depending on what you define as normal care. Also the idea of passive euthanasia causing more suffering. Many of these opposition come from the idea of the sanctity of life, like the idea that life is a gift from god and personhood, Kant said life is priceless. The idea of quality of life was brought up by Peter Singer saying low quality of low justifies dying. Utilitarian approach would be against this because of the focus on consequences and Kantian ethics would be for it because of its emphasis of rights and autonomy.
Applied Ethics - Distribution of Wealth - Poverty
Poverty is when you are not able to afford your basic needs for life like food, housing, clothing, healthcare and education. People who make below 50-60% of the median income are considered to be living in poverty. Poverty can be considered a wicked problem. This idea of the wicked problem was proposed by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber. A wicked problem does not have a definitive formula, no sign of a way they could be solved, no solution is true or false and it cannot be studied through trial and error because there is no end of solutions. This economic equality is inevitable because it allows us to live in the kinds of societies we live in today. Some countries are less equal that others but not even communism has perfect equality.
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