Ethics: Valuations, Morality and Philosophy

• Valuation: Ethics and how we speak of values will be discussed.
• Ethics include the valuations made in a sphere of human actions with gravity, concerning human well-being or human life.
• Life and death matters like war, capital punishment and abortion are included.
• Wellbeing matters such as poverty, inequality, or sexual identity are often included in ethics.
• Ethics origin traces back to the ancient Greek word ēthikóς (ἠθικός), meaning "relating to one's character."
• It comes from the root word êthos (ἦθος), meaning "character, moral nature".
• Ethica is the latin word.
• Éthique is the french word which transferred to English.
• Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and justice and crime.

Ethics and Philosophy

• Philosopy is derived from:
  • Philia meaning love(strong desire for a particular object).
  • Sophia meaning wisdom (correct application of knowledge).
• Philosophy studies the ultimate causes, reasons, and principles through human reason alone.
  • It studies all things that exist. Material or immaterial.

Branches of Philosophy

• Include:
  • Epistemology
  • Metaphysics
  • Political Philosophy
  • Aesthetics
  • Ethics
  • Cosmology
  • Realism
  • Induction
  • Logic
  • Deduction
  • Theology
• Greece is considered the birthplace of philosophy.
• Early Greek thinkers wanted more than poets and storytellers could provide about the world.

Figures in Philosophy

• Socrates:
  • Appeared in 15th century B.C.
  • Redirected philosophy from natural world to the human person.
• Plato:
  • Enhanced the ethical orientation of philosophy.
  • Life is to live to an idea or form of what life ought to be.
• Aristotle:
  • Suggested happy life is not just doing tasks but understanding their purpose.

Ethics as the Study of Morality

• Ethics deals with what is right or wrong in human behavior and conduct.
• Questions to consider:
  • What constitutes good, bad, right, or wrong actions?
  • How does self-interest and the interest of others impact moral decisions?
  • Theories of conduct are valid and why?
  • Morality decided by principles, rules, laws, or each situation individually?
  • Are killing, lying, cheating, stealing, and sexual acts right or wrong, and why?

Branches of Philosophical Study of Ethics

• Meta Ethics
  • The study of ethical language and concepts
  • Must define terms such as good/bad.
• Normative Ethics
  • Concerned with what practically constitutes morality.
  • Aims to put forward a method by which the right moral action can be discovered, but MANY conflicting methods.
• Applied Ethics
  • Employs moral theories to make decisions about real issues like abortion.

Meta Ethics

• A branch of analytic philosophy.
• Explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral values, properties, and words.
• Examples:
  • Abortion is wrong
  • Honesty is a virtue
  • Slavery is evil
• "Meta" comes from Greek, meaning "above" or "after."

Summary of Meta-ethics

Includes three main branches of thought:

• Intuitionism
  • Our intuition tells us what is right or wrong.
• Emotivism
  • What is right or wrong is simply an emotional response to a situation.
• Prescriptivism
  • When something is called right, influencing others to think the same.

Normative Ethics

• Studies of what makes actions right or wrong, situations or events good or bad, and people virtuous or vicious.
• Branch of moral philosophy concerned with ethical principles.
• Moral rules directly impact human actions, institutions, and ways of life.
• It helps answer questions:
  • What makes an action good?
  • How should I strive to act?

Three Major Ethics Theories

• Virtue ethics
• Deontology
• Consequentialism

Types of Normative Ethics

• Virtue Ethics
  • Theory suggests individuals must cultivate habits and qualities i.e courage, justice, temperance, wisdom, and compassion.
  • To lead a moral life conducive to human flourishing.
  • Virtue ethics prioritizes the overall well-being of the patient including physical health and quality of life and flourishing, when offering medical treatment .
• Deontology
  • An ethical theory using rules to distinguish right from wrong.
  • Simply requires following rules and duties.
  • Does not require weighing costs and benefits.
  • Avoids subjectivity by following set rules
• Consequentialism
  • An ethical theory judging if something is right by its consequences.
    • For instance, lying is generally wrong, consequentialism supports it if it saves a persons life.
• Metaethics differs from normative ethics.
• Metaethics wants to define morality, while normative ethics wants to understand what moral verdicts imply.
• Examples of the questions:
  • Permissible and forbidden actions
  • Virtuous and vicious character traits
  • What humans should or should not in morally-freighted situations
  • What kind of people humans should strive to become or avoid.
• Normative ethics questions the goodness or badness of actions.
• Metaethics dives into the morality of ethical claims.

Applied Ethics

• Refers to the practical application of moral considerations in real-world actions. Areas include:
  • Private and public life
  • The professions
  • Health
  • Technology
  • Law
  • Leadership
• Deals with difficult and controversial moral issues:
  • Abortion
  • Giving to the poor
  • Capital punishment
  • Gay/lesbian marriage
  • War tactics
  • Censorship
  • "White lies"
• Normative ethics studies what makes an action right or wrong.
• Applied ethics attempts to figure out if certain acts have those features in actual cases.

Self Interest Theory

• Asserts human beings are always and everywhere selfish.
• It is argued that humans can't live up to objective moral values.
• Definitional Argument
  • Humans are selfish when they act upon their desires.
• Hidden Benefits Argument
  • Helping others provides selfish benefits.
• Fear of Punishment Argument
  • Behaving morally avoids punishment.

Theories of Ethics

• While some values are relative and that people are often selfish, not all values are relative or that people are always selfish.
• Fundamental moral principles are in harmony with moral intuitions.
• Religious Ethics
  • Claims that an authoritative rule book dictates rules.
• Duty Ethics
  • Duties and rights are interconnected; fulfilling obligations is key.

Kant's Approach To Ethics

• If actions can be consistently generalised.
• Morality: Something wrong is always wrong.
• Values are societal constructs, lacking universal application.
• Moral values are customs varying by culture.

Explore ethics, valuations, and their connection to well-being and morality. Delve into the origins of ethics from ancient Greek roots and its evolution through Latin and French. Discover how ethics addresses morality by defining concepts like good and evil, virtue and vice, and justice and crime, and how it relates to philosophy.