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Ethical Paper 1 ·
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| 1. Moral Objectivism | 2. Divine Law | 3. Nihilism | 4. Egoism | 5. Altruism | 6. Ethical Relativism | 7. Emotivism | 8. Hedonism |
| 9. Virtue Ethics | 10. Consequentialism | 11. Deontology | 12. Contractarianism | 13. Justice | 14. Rights | 15. Feminist Ethics | 16. Buddhist Ethics |
1. Moral Objectivism: The view that moral principles have objective validity whether or not people recognize them as such. Moral rightness or wrongness does not depend on social approval and is not created or constructed by individuals or societies.
Focus on: Striving to discover and understand which ethical standards that should govern the intentions and actions of agents.
What is good: Living one's life in accordance with objective ethical standards.
Types: Not Applicable
Strengths: The claim that there are objective ethical standards that should govern the intentions and actions of agents.
Weakness: Which ethical standards are truly objective and how are they known to be objective?
2. Divine Law: A family of theories that bases ethical theories upon religious views.
Focus on: Trying to understand God's Will and Word. Moral principles are taken to be laws issued by God to humanity, and their authority thus derives from God's supremacy.
What is good: Obeying God's Will and Word.
Types: Different religions may have different interpretations of God's Will and Word.
Strengths: Mortal certainty based upon divine guidance.
Weakness: Which interpretation of divine law is correct? Different interpretations of divine law and so answer this question quite differently. This may lead to self righteousness and intolerance of the views of others.
3. Nihilism: The doctrine that all value judgements including moral judgements have lost their meaning.
Focus on: Recognizing that since there are no valid moral principles there are no standards for assessing right and wrong.
What is good: Not Applicable
Types: Not Applicable
Strengths: None
Weakness: Which interpretation of divine law is correct? Different interpretations of divine law and so answer this question quite differently. This may lead to self righteousness and intolerance of the views of others.
4. Egoism: The view that actions are right that satisfy self interest.
Focus on: Making the self, the center of all interests and activities.
What is good: Promoting what is good only for me.
Psychological: A descriptive theory about human motivation which states that people are by nature selfish, self-interested and self-centered, and that they always act to satisfy their perceived best interest.
Ethical: This is a prescriptive theory about how people ought to behave. Human nature being what it is, the only ethical standard is an overriding obligation to promote one's personal well being. One should always act to promote one's personal well being and perceived based on self-interests.
Strengths: Autonomous moral judgements based exclusively on self-interest, and therefore moral certainty based on self-interest.
Weakness: Ethical judgements are self-centered, selfish and unrealistic. What I judge is good for me is good without taking the viewpoint of the other into consideration.
5. Altruism: The view that egoism is not enough for morality, and that taking into account other peoples interests, for their own sake, is a necessary condition for morality.
Focus on: The opposite of egoism.
What is good: Making the other the center of all of our interests and activities while downplaying our individual self-interest.
Psychological: Human nature being what is, people can do what they do not believe to be in their self-interest.
Ethical: The view that people sometimes ought to do what is in the interest of others and not in their self-interest.
Strengths: The interests of others are always taken into consideration first.
Weakness: Self-interest is subordinated to the interests of others often at the expense of one's own rational self-interest.
6. Ethical Relativism: The view that moral appraisals are essentially dependent upon the standards that define a particular moral code, the practices and the norms accepted by a social group or an individual at a specific time and place.
Focus on: Social/cultural or individual construction of moral principles.
What is good: Only whatever a society/group/culture or individual decides is good.
Social/Cultural: There are no universal or absolute ethical standards that could apply to all people in all times. Ethical standards differ from society/culture to society/culture. What is right in one society is not necessarily right in another.
Individual: Ethical standards are the product of the individuals view. Ethical standards differ from individual to individual.
Strengths: If we recognize and accept that others have principles different than ours we can develop tolerance of others, this leads to flexibility. Relativism is practical in that it is easily applied.
Weakness: Rules out the criticism of obvious evil, all evaluative judgements are relative to social/cultural norms or individual norms.
7. Emotivism: The view that any sort of ethical claim is nothing more than an exclamatory or expressive function of an agent's feelings, and that the emotive element is the ultimate basis of moral appraisal. Moral judgements express our emotions and serve as a mechanism to persuade others to act as we desire.
Focus on: An agent's emotional reactions to actions and events.
What is good: An action or event is good if one has a positive emotion reaction to it or bad if one has a negative emotional reaction to it.
First: A moral judgement expresses the appraiser's attitude toward the object of evaluation, rather than ascribing properties to that object.
Second: Moral judgements refer to those non-moral properties of the object of evaluation in virtue of which the appraiser has and expresses her attitudes.
Strengths: Moral certainty based on the immediacy of an agent's emotions.
Weakness: Emotions can fluctuate so emotional reactions to external events can rapidly fluctuate and/or change.
8. Hedonism: The view that the best life is a life devoted to pleasure, especially sensual pleasure.
Focus on: Pleasure is highest for human beings and it has value in and in of itself (i.e., it has intrinsic value.)
What is good: An action or event is or should be pursued because it brings pleasure.
Psychological: The theory that it is a psychological fact about human that they pursue only what they think will bring them pleasure and that they avoid what they think will bring them pain. What is considered to be good is anything that contribute to a pleasant experience.
Ethical: The theory that pleasure is the only intrinsic value and that therefore the best way to live is to pursue pleasurable experiences. One ought to pursue anything that contributes to a pleasant experience and one ought to avoid painful experiences.
Strengths: What is good is easily identifiable, it is what causes an agent pleasure.
Weakness: What an agent thinks may cause a pleasant experience may actually cause a painful experience. What can cause pleasure and pain can fluctuate.
9. Virtue Ethics: A theory of ethics that puts the virtues and the acquisition of them by an agent first, before the analyses of duty, actions or consequences. The basis of ethical assessment is an agent's character.
Focus on: The significance and role of the development of an agent's character in moral behavior and moral appraisal. Judgments about inner lives of individuals, their traits, motives, dispositions and character are of the greatest moral importance. The shaping and development of an agent's character through habituation which leads ultimately to the good life.
What is good: Eudaimonia ("Happiness") - the good life. How is this achieved? By nurturing the appropriate virtues. Nurturing virtues that cause the development of an agent's character, which in turn lead to the agent's living the good life.
Platonic: The development of an agent's character is related to the development of the parts of an agent's soul. A moral individual is an individual within whom the three parts of the soul exist in a harmony/balance where the rational part of the soul keeps in check on the spirited and appetitive parts of the soul.
Aristotelian: To live a "Good Life", everything in leading your life, your life style, should be dealt with in complete moderation and an absence of extremes.
Strengths: Virtue is its own reward, acquiring virtue. Virtues = self-actualization = Eudaimonia = Happiness.
Weakness: Which virtues are significant? Consequences or outcomes of actions, the common good and ethical principles may be ignored. Strong agent perspective can prevent us from seeing what we ought to do.
10. Consequentialism (Utilitarianism): Any ethical theory that argues fundamentally that the right action is an action that produces good results or outcomes and that avoids bad results or outcomes. The theory that the right action is the action that maximizes utility. This can be defined in terms of pleasure (Bentham), happiness ideals (Mill) or interests (Perry).
Focus on: The significance and role of the actions of rational agents and the outcomes produced by these actions, in asserting moral behavior and moral appraisal.
What is good: Principle of Utility: Actions are ethical if they promote/create the greatest amount of happiness (pleasure) and the least amount of unhappiness (pain) for people when everyone’s perspective is taken into consideration.
Utilitarianism: An altruistic version of Consequentialism that holds that good results or outcomes are results that maximize benefits and minimize harms. Usually benefits are “pleasures” and harms are “pains”.
Act: The Principle of Utility is applied directly to actions to determine whether the action is right or wrong.
Rule: Rules that are justified directly to actions to determine whether the action is right or wrong.
Strengths: An agents character and intentions are not the bases of moral appraisal. Actions and/or outcomes produced by them are the only proper object of moral appraisal.
Weakness: How do you know everyone’s perspective has been taken into consideration? A good end may be used to justify bad means. Justifies treating the minority as means to an end. This can be dehumanizing to the minority. How can I be certain that what I think will bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people corresponds to what from each of their perspectives will bring about the greatest good?.
11. Deontology: Any moral theory that emphasizes that some actions are obligatory irrespective of the pleasure or painful consequences produced..
Focus on: The significance and role of assessing intentions when conducting moral appraisal. Doing good for the sake of duty. Doing good based upon formulating good intentions based on duty.
What is good: Principle of Utility: Formulating intentions based on fulfilling one’s duties.
Strengths: If duties are identified, this approach is highly principled, consistent, and certain, with respect for self and others serving as primary principles.
Weakness: How do you know everyone’s perspective has been taken into consideration? A good end may be used to justify bad means. Justifies treating the minority as means to an end. This can be dehumanizing to the minority. How can I be certain that what I think will bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people corresponds to what from each of their perspectives will bring about the greatest good?.
12. Contractarianism: The view that the idea of an agreement, contract, or bargain is the origin of moral and political norms.
Focus on: The significance and role of assessing morality as agreeing with rules established in a Contractual Agreement. The idea that morality should be viewed as the outcome of an agreement, contract or bargain that rational self-interested people enter into for their own benefit. Morality is the product of contracts and contractual agreements between self-interested rational agents.
What is good: Recognizing that it is my rational self-interest to adhere to contracts into which I’ve entered..
Social Contract and Political Legitimacy: The contract argument works in the following way. Hobbes maintains that the law of self preservation is a dictate of reason. He maintains that there was a pre-social state of nature that was a state of war of all against all. Self preservation leads each person to favor their own advantage. Natural equality leads difference, fear or suspicion of one’s neighbor. This leads a person to attack first rather than waiting to until they are vulnerable or in need, and this inevitability leads to a state of constant war. Reason and the warlike state of nature provide people with a prudential reason to enter an agreement with one another and to create the sovereign power who will secure peace and order by imposing his will on all the people alike.
Hobbes: The content of moral norms is discoverable by reason and available to all. The warlike state of nature provides a prudential reason for people to create a sovereign power who will secure peace and order by imposing his will on all the people alike. The social contract is an agreement between subjects and sovereign. Moral and political laws are obligatory because they are imposed on us, they are not conditional upon our consent.
Locke: Like Hobbes, the contract is not the source of morality. Locke is not mainly concerned with the foundation of moral norms. He is interested in what form of political rule is compatible with our pre-existing rights and obligations. Government’s role is to protect human rights impartially.
Rousseau: Aimed at reconciling the notions of self rule as freedom, with sovereignty. In the process of constituting itself as a political association, individuals undergo a conversion, or transformation of character and motives. This enables individuals to distance themselves from their particular self-interested will and through the notion of General Will, identify themselves with the community and thereafter only follow rules that apply to all members of the community.
Hypothetical: A way of justifying moral or political norms by considering what might be agreed to if certain artificial or ideal conditions apply. This way of thinking about moral and political obligations does not justify them by showing how they are derived from a real agreement; instead it attempts to reveal the character of such practices by treating them as if they were the result of an agreement.
Contemporary: Most theories of contemporary contractarianism divide into three camps, “moral foundationalists”, “philosophical” and “political” theories.
Moral Foundationalism: For Gauthier, moral rules are derived from rational constraints on self-interest. According to this view it is prudent for self-interested rational agents to be moral.
Philosophical: Scanlon argues that we are best able to make sense of what we mean when we judge something morally wrong. The contract is not a device that gives an account of moral terms, but rather is a metaethical theory about what moral wrongness consists of. “An act is wrong if its performance under the circumstances would be disallowed by any system of rules for the general regulation of behavior which no one could reasonably reject as a basis for uniformed, unforced general agreement.” The idea of reasonable rejection gives everyone a potential veto and thus a ground of consent to moral norms.
Political: Rawls argues that the central problem is that of justice. How can fair terms of cooperation between different groups, as an example, men and women who differ about fundamental ends or the good life, be established? A theory of distributive justice is an important component of a complete and adequate moral theory. If people cannot agree upon the ultimate ends, then fair social cooperation and consent about political institutions that govern must be fair. The key idea is that of a game. If a participant doesn’t like the outcome, they can at least agree that the outcome is a fair one as it is the result of rules that all parties can accept.
Strengths: Moral rules and appraisals based on them follow from social agreements and/or contract.
Weakness:
13. Justice: In one sense this is identical with the ethics of who should receive benefits and burdens, good or bad things of many sorts, given that others might receive these things. The chief problem is how to achieve a fair distribution of scarce resources within a society. Although discourse about justice is often influenced by models of law, the ethics of justice is a subject in itself.
Focus on: An agent sharing in the burdens and benefits of living in a society based on that agent’s particular properties or situation. The question is how to rank and prioritize who suffers the burdens and who will reap the benefits.
What is good: That equals be treated equally, and unequals be treated unequally (in proportion to their relevant similarities and differences.)
Distributive: Refers to the fair/just distribution of the burdens and benefits in society.
Comparative: When what a person deserves is determined by balancing his or her claims against the competing claims of others. Here the condition of others affects how much another is due.
Criminal: Concerns the corrective actions or punishments meted out to redress Criminal wrongs.
Strengths: A system of justice should be concerned with establishing principles that guarantee that all citizens share in the burdens and benefits related to obtaining scarce resources.
Weakness: What are the ultimate criteria that establish a system of justice and moral justice?
14. Rights: In the strongest sense, rights are justified claims to the protection of a person’s important interests. When the rights are effective, this protection is provided as something that is owed to persons for their own sakes. The upholding of rights is thus essential for human dignity.
Focus on: Demands that individuals and groups can make upon others or society. Rights are entitlements to something against another party.
What is good: The intentions, actions, and outcomes produced by agent’s are good if they respect both human and legal rights.
Human: Sometimes called natural or universal rights. These rights are said to belong to humans by the very nature of the fact that they are humans. The American Constitution mentions life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as human rights..
Legal: Political community confers rights. These rights are instrumental in securing freedoms from authoritarian religions or governments. Such rights include freedom of expression, press, of religious expression, and of commerce.
Claims: A person who has this sort of right has a claim against another person. Claims can be legal or moral.
Liberties: Having liberty rights and being autonomous is related to being self-governing and self-determining.
Autonomy: Autonomy is related to rationality in general. An autonomous individual is one who can make rational and unrestricted decisions. Being autonomous is related to an agent selecting means fro freely chosen ends.
Effective Deliberation: A fully rational person can undertake effective deliberations which involves:
Freedom of Choice: When an agent deliberates a range of possibilities present themselves. An agent is autonomous when they can freely choose from the range of possibilities presented to them.
Liberty of Action: Possession of the liberty to act contrasts with being coerced to act. Coercion involves the use of force to prevent an agent from acting freely.
Immunities: These rights relate to the issue inferring with others. An individual has the right to be free from being inferred with by others.
Strengths: Human or Natural Rights are said to hold regardless of historical circumstances.
Weakness:
Focus on: Items that have been overlooked and/or disregarded in the history of "men's ethics." In public life relations to other people are impersonal, contractual, and often adversarial. Male oriented ethical theories try to calculate impersonal duties, contracts, the harmonization of competing interests, as well as costs and benefits. Feminists ethics attempts to revise, reformulate, or rethink traditional western male oriented ethics.
What is good: In the smaller scale world of the home, where we deal with family and friends, we find personal and intimate relations as a source of moral judgements. In our family relationships caring and love dominate and this should be the source of our moral judgements.
Maternal Approach: All moral agents should use the concepts, metaphors, and images associated with the practice of mothering. The claim is that when mothers rear their children they typically manifest a type of "maternal thinking" that constitutes human moral reasoning at its best
Political Approach: Feminist political approaches to ethics offer action guides aimed at subverting rather than reinforcing the present systematic subordination of women. These approaches maintain that the destruction of all systems, structures, institutions, and practices that create or maintain individual power differentials between men and women is the necessary prerequisite for the creation of gender equality.
Lesbian Approach: Lesbian ethicists in general regard feminine and maternal approaches as espousing types of caring that contribute to women's oppression. They insist that lesbians should engage only in the kind of caring that does not get reduced to a set of duties and obligations from which there is no escape. As they see it, separation from men is the only course of action for women who want to develop themselves as truly free moral agents.
Strengths: Ideas about the concerns of private life, where women have traditionally dominated, are usually ignored but in this case they are emphasized.
Weakness: None
Focus on: The starting point is the fact of pain, suffering, death, disease, and the negatives of human existence, and the primary interest is to overcome these. Moral discipline and practice succinctly stated as avoiding evil, doing good and purifying the mind. Buddhist Ethics is in the pursuit of alleviation and elimination of self-interest and suffering. Suffering arises because of a focus on the worldly pleasures, sensual enjoyment, success and praise and the centering of one's life on these leads to suffering. The individual has to give up desire and rise above emotions such as lust, anger, jealousy or hatred. The pursuit of the Middle Way avoids the extremes of self-indulgence and self-torture both of which should be avoided. The Buddha used the concept of karma (fruits of action) and samsara (wheel of rebirth), as well as the view that the escape from the wheel is the highest good. The Buddhist Doctrine teaches that the core of the problem of human existence is desire or craving - for wealth, pleasure, power, and continued existence which fuels the flame of continued life. From pursuit of the Middle Way flows the Four Noble Truths which are:
The Noble Truth of the way leads to the cessation of pain and also flows into the EIGHTFOLD PATH. The snuffing out of craving is the goal of following the EIGHTFOLD PATH (right speech, right action right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration, right views, and right intentions.) The idea is that wisdom follows upon moral conduct and mental discipline in accord with Buddhist precepts.
What is good: The goal of Buddhists is enlightenment (nirvana) which can be attained by human beings who live in accordance with Buddhist teachings.
Theravada: According to this view, samsara or this world as we know it, is ontologically different from nibbana. Samsara is the world of relative concerns, and nibbana the world of absolute transcendent value. The chief goal of a Buddhist life is not attached to samsara, but to enter into nibbana, the supremely good. In the process of transforming from samsara to nibbana one needs morality. One should avoid evil, do good and purify the mind.
Mahayana: One of the distinctive features of Buddhism is compassion. The ideal is to perceive oneself as a Buddha to be, who has great compassion for the world of mortals, and after attaining salvation for oneself, helps others to attain salvation. In Mahayana Buddhism, compassion does not mean that one should sacrifice oneself to assist others, but that one should sacrifice oneself to assist others in achieving enlightenment and nirvana. Achieving the Buddha mind means achieving a compassionate or unselfish mind. There is no sharp distinction between samsara and nirvana. The main purpose of moral discipline is not to stay away from the samsaric world and enter into an other world state.
Strengths: Not Applicable
Weakness: None
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