Introduction to Ethics and Ethical Theories

Core Inquiries in the Study of Ethics

• Ethics and being morally good: Understanding what defines ethical behavior and the essence of personal goodness.

• The necessity of ethics: Examining the fundamental reasons for having ethical frameworks.

• Ethics versus Law: Distinguishing between moral codes and legal regulations.

• Types and levels of ethics: Categorizing different approaches and breadths of ethical study.

• The nature of moral principles: Identifying the specific characteristics and functions of moral rules.

The Trolley Problem: A Moral Dilemma

Consider a scenario involving a runaway trolley barreling down railway tracks. Ahead on the tracks, five people are tied up and unable to move; the trolley is headed straight toward them. You are standing in the train yard next to a lever. If you pull the lever, the trolley switches to a different set of tracks. However, there is one person on that sidetrack.

There are two, and only two, options:

1. Do nothing: The trolley kills the five people on the main track.

2. Pull the lever: The trolley is diverted to the sidetrack, killing one person.

This thought experiment forces a decision on which option is more ethical and asks the fundamental question: What is the right thing to do?

Defining Ethics and Morality

• General Definition: Ethics is the formal study of what is good and evil, right and wrong, and just and unjust. It aims to construct a general basis for deciding what is moral.

• Action Guides: It seeks to establish principles of right behavior that serve as practical guides for individuals and groups.

• Influencing Factors: Ethics helps answer what influences moral decisions and why certain acts are regarded as right while others are wrong.

• Personal Development: It addresses how individuals become good people and which actions are commendable.

• Social Harmony: It provides a framework for living peacefully with others.

• Ethics vs. Morality: Often, "morality" refers to the actual content of right and wrong, while "ethics" refers to the process of determining or discovering that content.

Distinguishing Ethics from Law

• Law: Refers to an organized collection of universally recognized rules and regulations established by a legitimate authority, such as a regional, national, or international government. Laws regulate conduct and are enforced through penalties.

• Distinction: While frequently conflated, law and ethics are distinct. Many people consider them identical, but they operate through different mechanisms and justifications.

• Conflict: There are instances where ethics and the law may come into conflict, necessitating a choice between following legal mandates or moral duty.

The Purposes of Morality

Morality serves as a set of rules that, if followed by nearly everyone, allows nearly everyone to flourish. These rules involve a restriction of freedom in order to promote greater collective well-being and freedom.

The five specific purposes of morality are:

1. To keep society from falling apart.

2. To ameliorate (lessen) human suffering.

3. To promote human flourishing.

4. To resolve conflicts of interest in just and orderly ways.

5. To assign praise and blame, reward and punishment, and guilt.

The Nature of Moral Principles

Moral principles are practical action guides. While there is no universal agreement on all traits, five specific traits are widely recognized:

• Prescriptivity: This refers to the action-guiding nature of morality. Moral principles are usually set as injunctions or imperatives, such as "Do not kill" or "Love your neighbor." They are used to advise, influence action, and appraise behavior retroactively (assigning praise, blame, or guilt).

• Universalizability: Principles must apply to all people in relevantly similar situations. If an act $X$ is right for person $P$, it is right for anyone similar to $P$. This is exemplified by the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") and is an extension of the principle of consistency.

• Overridingness: Moral principles have hegemonic (ruling or dominant) authority. They take precedence over other considerations, such as aesthetics, prudence, or law. For example, it might be prudent to lie to save a reputation, but if it is morally wrong, the truth must be told. If a law is egregiously immoral, moral duty may require civil disobedience.

• Publicity: Principles must be made public to guide action. Since they prescribe behavior and advise the public, keeping them secret would be self-defeating. While some utilitarians argue for secret principles in niche cases, general normative rules must be accessible to all.

• Practicability: A moral theory must be workable and not lay too heavy a burden on agents. Extreme altruism that leads to moral despair or ineffective action is avoided. Practicability can explain differences in ethical standards across time, such as discrepancies between Old Testament and New Testament ethics regarding divorce or treatment of enemies based on the "hardness of heart" or evolving ideals.

Levels and Types of Ethics

Ethics is distinguished into three primary levels:

• Metaethics: Investigates the meaning of moral language (the epistemology of ethics) and the justification of ethical theories. It asks whether ethical statements can be true or false (true-apt) or if they are merely emotional claims and personal preferences. It focuses on terms like "right," "good," and "just."

• Normative Ethics: Studies how one ought to live and act. It attempts to find what makes an action morally acceptable by providing a system of principles, rules, and procedures to determine what a person should or should not do.

• Applied Ethics: Investigates the application of ethical theories to actual life and specific fields, including:

  • Medical ethics.

  • Bioethics.

  • Business ethics.

  • Professional ethics.

  • Legal ethics (justice).

  • Media ethics.

  • Environmental/Animal ethics.

  • Computer/Information ethics.

  • Robot/AI ethics.

  • Sexual ethics.

Factors in Determining the Morality of an Action

A moral assessment typically involves four specific considerations:

1. The Action Itself: The nature of the act performed.

2. The Motive: The intent of the moral actor. This is often the only difference between two identical acts, such as the difference between giving a gift and bribery.

3. Consequences: The results produced by the actions and decisions.

4. Character: Evaluating the nature of the moral actor, which is often the most difficult aspect to assess.

Broad Approaches to Ethical Systems

• Deontological Systems: Based on principles where actions, character, or intentions are considered inherently right or wrong, regardless of the outcome.

• Teleological Systems: Morality is determined based on the result or end produced by an action.

• Relativist Systems: Right and wrong are not absolute or unchanging but are relative to culture or personal preference.

Ethical Relativism versus Ethical Universalism

• Ethical Relativism: The position that there are no objective moral values or standards. Morality is invented or created by people and varies across time, cultures, and individuals, much like fashion.

• Ethical Universalism (Objectivism): The position that fundamental objective moral principles and values are universally true for all people, regardless of personal belief, culture, race, sex, religion, or nationality. Examples include Utilitarianism, Deontology, and Virtue Ethics.

Specific Types of Relativism and Egoism

• Psychological Egoism: The thesis that humans are always, deep down, motivated by perceived self-interest. For example, if someone saves another from a fire, a psychological egoist would argue the motive was to feel like a hero or avoid social shame rather than pure altruism.

• Psychological Altruism: The view that humans can sometimes have ultimately altruistic motives.

• Ethical Egoism / Ethical Subjectivism: The normative position that everyone acts based on self-interest, and therefore, one should act in their own self-interest. An action is right if it promotes self-interest and bad if it does not.

• Individual Relativism: The view that ethical rightness is relative to the individual. If person $A$ believes an action is ethical and person $B$ believes it is unethical, both are "right" within their own framework. Rightness is determined by what the individual feels or thinks.

• Cultural or Group Relativism: Right and wrong are dependent on the standards of a particular culture. An action is right if it accords with a society's moral standards (e.g., specific views on abortion) and wrong if it violates them.

Sub-Types of Cultural Relativism

• Descriptive Cultural Relativism: A factual observation of social diversity, noting that different cultures approve of different things (e.g., capital punishment, homosexuality, prostitution). It identifies that significant disagreements exist across cultures.

• Normative Cultural Relativism: The claim that one should not judge or criticize the actions of another society. It suggests members of society $S$ have no warrant to judge society $K$ because they are employing different values from outside that culture.

Critical Reflections

• Consequences of Subjectivism: What would the world be like if individual relativism were taken seriously? What are the potential advantages?

• Justification: Does the fact that cultures differ (descriptive relativism) justify the claim that we should not judge them (normative relativism)?

• Objective Standards: Are there objective standards available to judge other cultures?

• Moral Nihilism: Exploring the concept of the rejection of all religious and moral principles.

• Categorizing Persons: Distinguishing between a person who is moral, immoral, and amoral.

• Subjectivism as Theory: Questioning whether ethical subjectivism should be classified as a moral theory at all.