Defining Ethics and Morality

Defining Ethics and Morality

• Ethics and morality are often used interchangeably, but have distinct meanings
• Morality consists of personal standards for judging right and wrong that guide beliefs and actions and vary due to different influences
• Influences on morality include family, friends, religion, education, and media leading to diverse moral perspectives
• Morality encompasses societal or cultural standards of right and wrong
• Examples: Islamic societies refraining from pork, European societies accepting homosexual relationships, and Eskimo communities allowing infanticide

The Study of Ethics

• Ethics examines accepted moral standards, reflecting on their soundness
• Ethics encourages critical analysis of inherited moral standards, promoting self-awareness
• Key questions addressed by ethics include defining right conduct, principles for moral decision-making, and the essence of a good life
• Ethics considers moral ideals, guiding individuals in evaluating their beliefs and practices

Areas of Ethics

• Metaethics examines foundations of moral values, raising questions about moral claims and moral accountability
• Normative ethics explores moral standards for right and wrong, formulating moral norms
  • Consequentialism evaluates actions' outcomes
  • Deontology considers adherence to rules
  • Virtue Ethics focuses on the moral agent's character
• Applied ethics applies methods to moral issues in areas like business and medicine by using ethics to guide moral judgment
• Descriptive ethics describes beliefs about morality, without judging what should be

Moral Statements

• Moral statements are normative claims expressing how things should be, assessed by criteria, not empirical data
• Factual statements can be empirically assessed through research, observation, or experiment
• Normative statements vary and can pertain to visual arts, grammar, law, etiquette, or religion

Significance of Facts

• Moral statements aren't justified with facts alone, but require moral standards to bridge factual premises to moral conclusions
• Moral conclusions rely on underlying standards, not just empirical data
• Moral disagreements are more challenging than factual disputes
• Empirical data are the basis for determining acceptability for factual statements, whereas norms and standards do so for moral statements

Moral vs. Non-Moral

• Moral standards can be differentiated by key characteristics
  • Moral standards address serious harm or benefit to human beings
  • They also have universal validity, applying to everyone in similar situations
  • They are considered as having overriding importance
  • They are independent from authority, being validated by supporting reasons

Comparing Norms

• Morality, law, etiquette, and religion provide guiding norms, but they differ
• Laws are enforced but can be questioned
• Etiquette guides social behavior by tradition
• Religion is taught by authorities, and specific to particular faiths
• Moral standards focus on well-being and are universally applicable over authoritative and reason-based

Morality and Etiquette

• Etiquette dictates accepted behaviors indicating respect
• Morality concerns right conduct
• Etiquette is more arbitrary and culture-based and following it means social approval
• Immorality is seen as worse

Moral Actions

• Following etiquette doesn't necessarily equate to acting morally
• Racial discrimination and disrespect is an example of when etiquette is immoral

Morality and Law

• An action that breaks the law is not always immoral
• Conversely, legal actions can be morally wrong
• Laws often codify society's moral values
• Laws may not encompass all conduct and may not align with moral ideals
• Shaw (2002) suggests that law cannot cover the wide variety of possible individual and group conduct

Morality and Religion

• Religion shapes views, and morality is often intertwined with it
• Socrates' Euthyphro dilemma asks whether things are good because God commands them, or God commands them because they are inherently good
• Religions may not address modern issues
• Religions can be conflicting, and relying solely on them can complicate dialogue
• Religion might limit rational reasoning

Ethical Relativism

• Ethical relativism states that morality is relative to cultures or individuals
• Cultural Relativism determines morality by cultural norms and Individual Relativism asserts morality is based on personal beliefs
• Both are criticised for having potential downfalls
• Cultural relativism is more accepted than someone following their own moral compass

Ethical Relativism Arguments

• Diversity Argument reflects differing moral beliefs across cultures
• Dependency Argument highlights that moral beliefs are shaped by context
  • Strong version means all truths are relative to cultural contexts
  • Moderate version means the meaning of actions depends on cultural norms
• Toleration Argument emphasizes that recognizing moral beliefs fosters social harmony

Ethical Relativism Challenges

• A flaw in logic means implying diversity equals relativism
• It may be difficult to criticize harmful practices
• Ethical relativism impedes progress
• Standards exist, such as respect, despite the view that morality is relative

Moral Personhood in Ethics

• Actions are judged to be morally good or bad based on moral persons
• Determining whether doers and recipients are moral persons is the first thing that needs to be considered

Concept of Personhood

• Chapter examines the significance of moral personhood and the conditions for attributing moral accountability
• A. Moral Personhood
• Judgement of what is morally right and wrong refers to moral standards or principles
• Judgment presupposes the entities involved in the action are considered moral persons
• Moral personhood involves recognising entities as having moral status which applies to humans as both sources and recipients
• Actions include animals as moral patients
• It's requested to establish whether an action involves moral persons in order to be morally evaluated

Considering What is Meant By Moral Personhood

• The meaning consists of significances and implications relating to moral judgements
• There are different routes to being a moral person or categories, such as moral agents and moral patients
• The capacities of abilities required in order to be considered a moral person

Defining Concepts In Ethics

• Moral Rights involves possessing entitlements required for making moral judgments
• Moral Agents are entities that can make moral decisions, responsible for actions
• Moral Patients are entities affected by actions, which may not be capable of making moral decisions themselves
• Theories of personhood, abilities such as cognition, consciousness, and moral reasoning

How Decisions Are Made

• Decisions are dependent on clarity of moral judgements depend on evaluating moral status

More On Moral Persons

• Moral personhood makes entities possess moral status so they can be subjects of moral concern
• If an entity is to be called a moral person, it must have moral rights, which is important
• General rights entitles people to perform and express action such as the right to live
• Rights versus duties and individuals failure to express them does not mean punishment
• Duties are required actions with sanctions for failing to carry them out
• The connection is rights means people have duties, and duties mean people respect the rights of others

Types of Duty

• Negative rights impose a duty of not interfering
• Positive rights impose a duty and duty of non interference to assist
• Contract rights occur acquired from agreements either formally or informally
• Legal rights are citizenship such are given due to location
• Moral rights are intrinsic equality, and their human conditions
• Rights transend beyond law, and are about moral rights such as human and animal rights

Agent and Patients

• Classification depends upon the entities moral persons who moral patients depend on their role of acting
• Agents are either entities that performs actions subject for moral evaluation, and can be liable for said actions
• Agents Possess moral duties and can be morally accounted for, possessing capacity for decisive actions
• Patients are the recipients of moraly evaluable actions, having righs that require respect from others
• Agentive and non-agentive moral persons can both be accountable even if they cannot make decisions

Requirements To Qualify As Moral

• Theories split into a mixture of views such as Uni, Multi, Meta and critical approaches
• They use different theories to assign what classifies moral personhood depending on DNA, life, relational or free will etc,
• Theories also have their issues within justification and context that causes criticism against them

Applying Moral Principles

• Attribution conditions determine whether any moral accountability can be assigned to a person for an action and has requirements
• Actions must meet agency conditions and possess knowledge
• Intentionality must be met to qualify for being hold to account
• If not all conditions are set, exclusion from being morally held accountable can be caused
• Those excused are those with no knowledge, without the ability to carry it out and lacked the intent

Level of Accountability

• Degree conditions affect the level of degree of moral accountability as a person bares for an action
• Theses depend on the degree of knowledge, the amount of pressure or severity of harm and the person involvement
• Conditions are required in assessing if a person is morally accountable and to the extent of it, insuring they are proportionate