Ethics Module 3: Moral Acts and Foundations

Study Notes

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 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

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

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 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 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: 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

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