Ethics Module 3: Moral Acts and Foundations

Criteria and Foundation of a Moral or Ethical Act

• The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said that "everything has been figured out, except how to live" (Gaarder, 1998, 380)
• Philosophy, especially ethics, helps us figure out how to live and make moral judgments
• To make moral judgments, we need to understand the criteria and foundation of any statement asserting ethical claims

Ethics and Morality

• Ethics and morality are often used interchangeably, but they can be distinguished
• Morality concerns rules and standards prior to actions, while ethics involves philosophical study of what is good
• Ethics is derived from the Greek "ethos" or "ethike", French "ethique", and Latin "ethica", meaning moral character
• Ethics has three main branches: Normative Ethics, Meta-Ethics or Special Ethics, and Applied Ethics

Classical Foundations of an Ethical Act

• Four classical foundations or requirements for an act to be judged moral or immoral:
  1. Existence of God
  2. Immortality of the Soul
  3. Freedom (or Free Will)
  4. Knowledge
• These foundations are necessary for moral judgment, but modern and contemporary ethical theories have questioned their necessity

Freedom

• Philosophers have different understandings of freedom:
  • Jean-Paul Sartre's Absolute Freedom
  • BF Skinner's Determinist Freedom
  • Nietzsche's Freedom as Creative
  • Marcel/Levinas' idea of Freedom as Encounter
• Freedom is a conscious act of conscious human beings, not merely dictated by stimulus-response

Knowledge

• Knowledge is a requirement for an ethical act because a person who does something without knowledge cannot be held responsible
• There are two forms of lack of knowledge (or ignorance):
  • Vincible ignorance: a form of ignorance where the person could have known the rightness or badness of the act
  • Invincible ignorance: a form of ignorance where the person had no way of knowing the rightness or badness of the act

Human Acts and Acts of Man

• Human acts are acts that are subject to moral or ethical judgments, proceeding from free will and full knowledge
• Acts of man are acts dictated by instincts or not requiring free will and knowledge

Ethical Relativism vs. Ethical Absolutism

• Ethical Relativism: ethical claims and theories are different due to socio-cultural and geopolitical realities, with no universal moral principles
• Ethical Absolutism: asserts that there is an absolute, objective, and single norm of what is right and wrong
• Critics of ethical relativism argue that it leads to tolerance of harmful cultural practices, while critics of ethical absolutism argue that it leads to imposition of one truth on diverse cultures

Ethical Theories

• Hedonism: pleasure is the norm of morality, with the goal of maximizing pleasure
• Stoicism: apathy and indifference to pleasure are the moral norms, with the goal of achieving inner peace
• Epicureanism: moderate pleasure is the moral norm, with the goal of achieving permanent pleasure and security
• Humanistic Ethics: self-realization is the moral norm, with the goal of achieving full human development and self-actualization