Introduction to Ethics

the 20th century existentialist philosopher Albert Camus stated that a man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world in this lecture we are going to provide an introduction to ethics to do so we will examine the subject matter of the discipline discuss some of the most important questions addressed by moral philosophers distinguished between moral subjectivism and moral realism examine the famous is aught problem and look at the difference between teleological and deontological theories of ethics as a philosophical discipline ethics originated in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago Socrates and a group of teachers from ancient Athens known as the Sophists are said to be the first moral philosophers in Western civilization ethics is often defined as the study of morality but a more detailed and revealing definition is provided by John day in his book introduction to ethics ethics is a study of what are good and bad ends to pursue in life and what it is right and wrong to do in the conduct of life it is therefore above all a practical discipline its primary aim is to determine how one ought to live and what actions one ought to do in the conduct of one's life it will also be useful to define morality given how often the term is used in ethical discourse day defines morality in the sense used in philosophical ethics as standards of right and wise conduct whose authority and practical thought is determined by reason rather than custom because moral philosophers attempt to determine how one ought to act in the course of their life or in other words with prescribing action ethics is said to be concerned with the normative realm in contrast a discipline such as anthropology is said to be descriptive rather than normative anthropologists observe describe and explain the actions and behaviors of individuals they do not like moral philosophers attempt to prescribe action in addition to the ultimate question of how one ought to live their life a few other questions which have been particularly prominent in the history of ethics include what makes actions moral or in other words good or bad right or wrong and why should one behave in accordance with an ethical theory or in other words why should one do what morality prescribes as a quick sidenote questions which deal with the nature of ethical statements and not with prescribing how one should act are said to belong to the branch of ethics known as meta ethics an important question within meta ethics is whether morality is objective what philosophers are trying to determine when addressing the objectivity of morality is whether moral judgments have a truth value or more simply whether they can be said to be true or false in a manner which is independent of personal opinions and attitudes for example when one makes a statement such as the earth is bigger than the moon or two plus two equals five one can determine whether these statements are true or false in an impersonal objective sense however the question of interest when attempting to determine the objectivity of morality is whether the same can be done with moral judgments such as it is wrong to steal or one ought to tell the truth those who deny that moral judgments can be true or false in the sense we just specified adhere to the position called moral or ethical subjectivism such a position maintains that moral judgments are expressions of preference or personal opinion and therefore there is no rational way for deciding between two conflicting judgments those who believe on the other hand that moral judgments can be true or false and are made so by objective features of the world are called moral realists or moral Objectivists closely related to the question of whether morality is objective is the is odd problem this problem was famously examined by the Scottish philosopher David Hume and his exposition of it forms the basis of what is called Humes law basically the is odd problem concerns whether one can derive a statement of what ought to be the case from what is the case or in other words from descriptive statements about the world as David Hume wrote in every system of morality which I have hitherto met with I have always remarked that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning and establishes the being of a God or makes observations concerning human affairs when all of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual copulations of propositions is and is not i meet with no proposition that is not connected with an odd or an odd not for as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirmation it is necessary that it should be observed and explained and at the same time that a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable how this new relation can be a deduction from others which are entirely different from it philosophers commonly interpret Hume stances being that you cannot logically derive a statement of what ought to be the case from what is the case so let us say that we observe it to be the case that in certain areas of the world there exists a great disparity of wealth this would be a descriptive statement about the way the world is however from this statement of how the world is according to Hume we cannot derive a statement about how things ought to be so from the descriptive statement about wealth inequality we cannot derive the normative statement that we ought to equalize wealth through redistribution nor the normative statement that we ought to abstain from redistributing wealth another important distinction within ethics which is especially pertinent to the question of what makes an action good or bad is that between teleological and deontological ethical theories robert almond ER in his work human happiness and morality a brief introduction to ethics nicely distinguishes between the two by saying the first kind of theory asserts that the morality or the immorality of an act enhance the rightness or wrongness of an act as a function solely of the consequences of the Act and the natural tendency of those consequences to produce pleasure or pain or goodness or happiness in some degree and in some way any such theory we call a consequentialist or a teleological theory the second kind of theory asserts that the morality or the immorality of an act has basically nothing to do with the consequences of the Act this latter kind of theory we call deontological with a teleological theory of ethics an end is selected as the ultimate or highest good in life and actions are then evaluated as moral or immoral depending on whether they help or hinder one in achieving that end teleological theories of ethics include egoism which identifies the ultimate end as happiness or pleasure you Diamond ism which identifies the ultimate end as well being and utilitarianism which identifies the ultimate end as the general good or welfare of humankind Plato Aristotle and Epicurus whose ethical theories are some of the oldest we have record of all put forth teleological theories the deontological view of ethics differs from the teleological view in that actions are not evaluated as moral or immoral based solely on their consequences rather those who advocate deontological theories believe that the morality of an action is grounded by some form of authority independent of the consequences that such actions generate accordingly on deontological accounts people must obey the actions prescribed by morality not because of the consequences that will follow from such actions but rather because they are duty-bound to do so often deontological theories have used a god as the authority which grounds morality and the Judaic and christian conceptions of divine law are believed to be the original inspiration for deontological ethics however it should be noted that not all deontological theories of ethics make use of a supernatural being to conclude this lecture we must play devil's advocate and question whether ethics is effective that is can epics as a philosophical discipline striving to understand how one ought to live be effective at transforming deprave written individuals into virtuous and good human beings there have been numerous philosophers throughout history who have been skeptical that it can Immanuel Kant for example understood that within the discipline of ethics there is a vast gulf which exists between theoretical speculation and practical implementation he wrote the point is not always to speculate but also ultimately to think about applying our knowledge today however he who lives in conformity with what he teaches is taken for a dreamer Arthur Schopenhauer was even more cynical regarding the possibility of ethics influencing one's actions writing virtue cannot be taught no more than genius we would thus be just as foolish to expect that our moral systems and ethics might awaken the virtuous noble and saintly as that our aesthetics might awaken poets sculptors and musicians however this view is not shared by all and to finish the lecture we will provide a quote by Richard Taylor from his book good and evil who saw ethics and a more optimistic light the question what is good is certainly the most important question you can ask for it comes to this each of us has one life to live and that life can be as it commonly is wasted in the pursuit of specious goals things that turn out to be worthless the moment they are possessed or it can be made a deliberate and thoughtful art wherein what was sought and let us hope in some measure gained was something all the while worth striving for or we can put it this way there will come a day for each of us to die and on that day if we have failed we shall have failed irrevocably

Channel: Academy of Ideas

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Keywords: academy of ideas, introduction to ethics, ethics, morality, deontological, teleological, is-ought problem, hume's law, moral realism, moral objectivism, moral subjectivism, david hume, philosophy, moral philosophy, kant

Id: 3_t4obUc51A

Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2013