Ethics — Thematic Introduction (Notes)

3.1 Origin and Meaning

  • Etymology: ethics derives from the Greek word ethikos meaning 'customary'. It is also related to ethos = customary behavior, character, etc., i.e., the way humans act and conduct themselves.
  • General sense of ethics: principles of conduct governing individuals or groups, concerning what is right or wrong, good or bad; can involve self-imposed standards or professional codes of conduct.
  • Ethics as a branch of philosophy:
    • Study of the principles of human action/behavior; often described as the 'science of morality'.
    • Philosophical ethics concerns what is good or right; unethical acts are bad or wrong.
    • It seeks to define values and determine moral duty and obligation; evaluates human action.
    • Uses methods of philosophy, not religion; ethical positions arise through human reasoning, not faith in religious authorities.
  • Historical development:
    • Dates back to ancient Greece; humans pursue various goals (health, wealth, efficiency, wellbeing) for themselves and for the general good; conflicts between individual aims and common good.
    • The need for an ethics code arose to govern these conflicts and vindicate rights and wrongs in actions.
    • Distinction from logic and epistemology: those fields concern inference and belief; ethics concerns action and value judgment.
  • Broad definition (Quinton’s all-embracing view): the theory of value in general, distinguishing kinds of value and inquiring into the justification of judgments of value.
  • Focal issues in ethics (illustrative):
    • Do moral convictions have objective validity? If so, what kind?
    • What does virtue or moral goodness consist of?
    • Under what conditions do agents deserve blame or praise?
    • Why be moral at all?
  • Scope and aim of this text: highlight divisions, presuppositions, characteristics, and categories of ethics; discuss its relationship with law and religion (moral theology).

3.2 Divisions of Ethics

  • Ethics comprises several specialties addressing specific problem areas. Divisions depend on approach or on what is judged morally right/wrong.
  • From the standpoint of approach:
    • Scientific or Descriptive Ethics
    • Philosophical or Normative Ethics
    • Applied Ethics
  • From the standpoint of judging morality of an act (results vs standards):
    • Results-Based Ethics
    • Standards-Based Ethics
  • Let us examine these divisions

[A] From the Standpoint of Approach

  • i) Scientific or Descriptive Ethics
    • Focuses on describing ethical concepts and human behavior without making value judgments or prescribing how people should act.
    • Used by social/behavioral sciences; data collected through observation; conclusions drawn from observed behavior.
  • ii) Philosophical Ethics
    • Subdivided into two parts:
    • Normative (Prescriptive) Ethics:
      • Describes what ought to be done; uses terms like should (e.g., “man should always act in his own interest”).
      • Also called moral philosophy or moral science; studies principles of right or wrong in human conduct.
      • Determines what is to be done to live a moral life.
    • Metaethics (Analytic Ethics):
      • Goes beyond normative systems to focus on reasoning, language, and logical structures.
      • Studies origin and meaning of ethical concepts; analyzes ethical language (e.g., what we mean by 'good') and rational foundations of ethical systems.
      • Investigates whether ethical principles are social inventions or reflect deeper realities; discusses universal truths, the role of reason, and the meaning of ethical terms.
  • iii) Applied Ethics
    • Applies normative ethics and metaethics to concrete issues (e.g., abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, nuclear war).
    • Subdivisions include: medical ethics (biomedical ethics), business ethics, environmental ethics, sexual ethics.
    • Two essential features for an issue to be considered 'applied ethics':
    • The issue must be controversial (large for/against debate).
    • It must be morally relevant (a distinctly moral issue).
    • Note on overlap: real-life issues often cross boundaries between normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics (e.g., euthanasia intersects with rights theory and universal principles).
  • Medical Ethics: applied ethics in biomedical contexts.
  • Business Ethics: ethics in workplace relations; issues of honesty and equity; in-house and external societal interactions.
  • Environmental Ethics: ethical issues in environmental use, pollution, resource conservation, and future generations.
  • Sexual Ethics: ethics of human sexuality, including abuse, rape, child abuse; debates about promiscuity and potential social regulation.

[B] From the Standpoint of the Morality of the Act

  • i) Results-Based Ethics (Consequentialism / Teleological Ethics)
    • Morality of an act is determined by its consequences.
    • Judgment hinges on end results; sometimes called teleological ethics.
    • Example: feeding the starving is morally good because it benefits the hungry and society at large.
  • ii) Standard-Based Ethics (Deontological Ethics / Duty Ethics)
    • Morality is determined by whether an action or rule meets a moral standard.
    • Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is a central figure; universalizability principle.
    • A rule is morally good if it can be universalized without contradiction; if it cannot, it is morally bad.
    • Example: telling lies is morally wrong because a universal law allowing lying would lead to contradiction (no one would trust claims).

3.3 Presuppositions of Ethics

  • The fundamental question: to whom or to what does morality apply?
    • Answer: only to human beings; plants, animals, and inanimate objects do not possess moral sense or moral responsibility.
    • Angels, spirits, or supernatural beings’ moral status depends on faith; not empirically verifiable.
  • Ethical presuppositions/axioms common to sciences:
    • Humans can know truth and reason logically.
    • Actions occur; the world exists and can be known.
  • These presuppositions frame ethics as a science of human conduct, anchored in reason and knowledge.

3.4 Objects of Ethics

  • Objects refer to what ethics studies (material object) and how it studies it (formal object).
  • Material object: human conduct; actions consciously performed and for which a person is held accountable.
  • Formal object: the rectitude (rightness) of human acts.
  • Substances or domains against which morality is measured:
    • Nature
    • God
    • The Individual
    • The Society
  • Natural Ethics: morality evaluated against nature; includes environmental considerations and questions of intrinsic value of nature; influenced by environmental degradation and policy responses.
  • Religious Ethics: morality measured in relation to God or gods; exemplified by the first three laws of the Pentateuch in Judeo-Christian tradition; breaches constitute unethicality in relation to God.
  • Individual Ethics: morality measured against an internal conscience; actions may be avoided due to personal moral reasonings; includes obligations to one's own well-being and talents.
  • Social Ethics: morality in relation to other humans; norms, customs, and laws directing social interaction; crosses other ethical areas and is central because most ethical issues arise in social contexts.

3.5 Characteristics of Ethics

  • Because ethics is culturally influenced, there is no universal consensus on all issues; this creates problems for applied ethics.
  • Core characteristics of philosophical ethics include:
    • CRITICAL / REFLECTIVE: requires rational justification; avoids religious/cultural rigidity while recognizing their contributions; accepts consequences of one's decisions.
    • MORALLY SOUND REASONING: arguments must address rightness or wrongness, not amoral concerns.
    • CONSISTENT WITH BASIC PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC: avoids illogical or fallacious conclusions.
    • IMPARTIAL AND UNSELFISH: evaluate issues without bias toward persons or situations; circumstances may influence but do not override the issue.
    • UNIVERSALITY TO A POINT: while cultures differ, ethics seeks principles with cross-cultural relevance, especially for fundamental values like the defense of human life.
    • LIFE-BASED: theories should promote wellbeing and not contradict the value of life; laws that do not promote life are suspect.
    • FACTUAL ACCURACY: ethics relies on well-informed, relevant facts rather than guesses.

3.6 Relationship of Ethics with other Studies

  • Ethics intersects with law, religion, and anthropology; distinct but related disciplines.
  • 3.6.1 Ethics and Law
    • Law is an ordinance of reason promulgated by a competent authority for the common good; sanctions or rewards guide behavior.
    • Law and ethics are not identical: something can be legal but unethical, or illegal but ethical (examples cited include political quotas in Nigerian higher education admissions that may be legal but unethical, and price hikes without adequate relief measures).
    • Morality is not wholly reducible to law; law can enforce morality, but ethics may critique or oppose unjust laws.
  • 3.6.2 Ethics and Religion
    • Central question: can there be ethics without religion? Can non-religious people be truly ethical, and which religious framework would ground ethics if conflicts arise?
    • Religion has historically been a powerful driver of ethical conduct (e.g., eternal rewards/punishments), but this does not prove that ethics must be grounded in religion.
    • Thiroux argues that ethics does not need to rely on religion; ethics is a worldly concern about actions and behavior in this life.
    • Different religions may present conflicting ethical systems; therefore universal ethical basis may lie outside religion.
    • Ethics and Anthropology: ethics uses data from anthropology about moral notions in primitive cultures, but ethics criticizes those customs according to what ought to be done.

3.7 Human Acts

  • Core question: what is a human act?
    • Broadly, all acts performed by humans; in ethics, focus on acts proper to man as man, which proceed from reflection and free will.
    • Humans differ from other animals due to intelligence and free will; thus human acts are morally scrutinizable.
    • Acts done by humans may include acts of man (not fully under deliberate control) but can become human acts if the agent consents.
  • Distinction:
    • Human Acts (actus humanus): consciously controlled and deliberately willed; agent is responsible.
    • Acts of Man (actus hominis): performed without mastery as one lacks deliberate will; not morally responsible.
  • A given act can be a human act if the agent consents to it, even if some initial exposure is involuntary (e.g., witnessing an adult movie becomes a human act once the viewer deliberately chooses to watch).

3.8 Properties of Human Acts

  • For an act to be human, it must possess three properties:
    • Knowledge
    • Freedom
    • Voluntariness
  • These properties are interdependent, with voluntariness being the key factor.
  • Knowledge: a human act is deliberate and requires full knowledge; the will acts under the illumination of the intellect.
  • Freedom: the act involves a choice among alternatives (at least acting or not acting); sometimes circumstances leave no option, in which case the act may be voluntary but not free.
  • Voluntariness: the act must proceed from the will with full prior knowledge of the intellect; the term derives from Latin voluntas.

3.9 Types of Human Acts (Elucidated by the Will)

  • Human acts are divided into elicited acts and commanded acts (the text discusses distinctions arising from how acts originate in the will and are completed by faculties).
  • Elicited acts (acts that begin in the will and are completed by other faculties):
    • WISH: simple love or tendency of the will toward a thing.
    • INTENTION: will's tendency toward a thing regarded as achievable, regardless of actual accomplishment.
    • CONSENT: acceptance by the will of the means necessary to carry out the intention.
    • CHOICE: selection by the will of the precise means to employ in carrying out the intention.
    • USE: employing the powers of the will to carry out the intention by the chosen means.
    • FRUITION: enjoyment of the willed outcome.
  • Commanded acts (acts initiated by the will but executed with external/internal control):
    • INTERNAL: acts performed by internal mental powers under the command of the will.
    • EXTERNAL: acts affected by bodily powers under the command of the will.
    • MIXED: acts involving both bodily and mental powers (e.g., studying).
  • Note: The strict sense of a human act is the elicited act of the will; even when circumstances prevent the completion of a chosen act, the initial decision can still render the act morally significant and the agent responsible for what they controlled.