Meta-Ethical Theories

Meta-Ethical Theories

• Commonly classified by semantics, substance, and epistemology.
• Semantics: cognitivist or non-cognitivist.
• Substance: universalist or relativist.
• Epistemology: empiricist, rationalist, or intuitionist.

Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism

• Cognitivism: Moral judgments convey true or false propositions, claiming right and wrong are matters of fact
  • Moral realism: Moral facts exist independently of people's thoughts and perceptions. Morality is about objective facts, not personal subjective judgments
  • Ethical subjectivism: Ethical propositions are dependent on people's attitudes or standards, and is contrary to moral realism
• Non-cognitivism: Denies that moral judgments are true or false, because ethical sentences do not convey authentic propositions
  • Emotivism: Moral judgments are expressions of emotions and feelings, and cannot be deemed true or false

Universalism vs. Relativism

• Moral universalism (moral objectivism): Moral facts/principles apply to everyone in all places, believing some behaviors are simply wrong
  • If right for one, then right for another, and is compatible with moral realism
• Moral relativism: Different moral facts/principles apply to different people or groups of individuals
  • Ethical standards change over time, and morals are mere preferences and compatible with ethical subjectivism

Empiricism vs. Rationalism vs. Intuitionism

• Moral empiricism: Moral facts are known through observation and experience
  • Claims that all knowledge is from experience and moral truths are reducible to cultural opinions or conventions
• Moral rationalism: Moral facts/principles are knowable a priori (by reason alone)
  • Knowledge is gained through non-empirical deductive system, relying on reason rather than intuition
• Moral intuitionism: Moral truths are knowable by intuition (immediate instinctive knowledge)
  • Claims a knowable intuitive awareness of value or morality, even if consequences are unknown
  • Claims that some moral facts can be known w/o inference; empiricist & rationalist theories promote non-inferential moral knowledge may be compatible with moral intuitionism.

Normative Ethics

• Branch of ethics studying how humans should act morally, examining ethical norms for right, worthwhile, virtuous, and just action; it evaluates standards for rightness/wrongness of actions and determines moral course of action. Prescriptive.
• Addressed to specific moral questions about what we should do or believe, like whether discrimination is wrong or duty should be followed

Deontology

• Bases morality on independent moral rules or duties and behaving morally is equated to adherence to duties/moral rules.
• Acting immorally involves failure to obey, and principles are obligatory regardless of consequences.

Teleology

• Determines moral value of actions by their outcomes/results
• Teleology deems an action as morally right if its favorable consequences are greater than its adverse outcomes; morality is determined solely by cost-benefit evaluation of consequences

Virtue Ethics

• Moral system places emphasis on development of good habits of character, such as kindness & generosity, and avoiding bad character traits/vices like greed/hatred
• Virtue ethics describes right actions as those chosen and performed by a suitably virtuous person
• Relies on moral education, as it molds individuals to habitually act in a virtuous manner

Applied Ethics

• Examines specific, controversial moral issues, determining the ethically correct course of action in specific realms of human action
• Requires both moral judgment and controversy with considerable groups of people both for and against the issue
• Classified into various subfields:
  • Bioethics: Concerned with ethical issues pertaining to life, biomedical researches, medicines, health care, and medical profession
  • Environmental Ethics: Deals with moral issues concerning nature, ecosystem, and its nonhuman contents
  • Business Ethics: Examines moral principles concerning business, including practices, policies, behaviors, conducts, and relationships of individuals in the organizations
  • Sexual Ethics: Studies moral issues about sexuality and human sexual behavior.
  • Social Ethics: Deals with what is right for society to do and how it should act as a whole

Virtue Ethics: Socrates and Plato

• Contemporary virtue ethics started with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
• Thomas Aquinas revived, enhanced, and 'Christianized' the Greek Virtue Ethics

Virtue Ethics Definition

• Moral philosophy that teaches that an action is right if it is one that a virtuous person would perform under the circumstances, and a virtuous person is one who acts virtuously if they possess and live the virtues

Objective Ethical Standards

• Emphasizes the development of good habits of character while avoiding bad character traits/vices
• States people live their lives trying to fully develop talents in many capacities (intellectual, physical, social, and moral)
• Developing moral capacity fully pursues ethical excellence
• Virtues are chosen character traits people praise, and this praise stems from difficulties in development, corrective of deficiencies, and benefits to self and society
• A moral person develops the virtues and displays them unfailingly over time
• Greeks listed four cardinal virtues (wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice)
• Religious teachings recommend faith, hope, charity, and love, with humanity associated with grace, mercy, forgiveness, honor, restraint, reasonableness, and solidarity

Socrates and Plato's Moral Philosophy

• Pleasure and pain fail to provide an objective moral standard
• Believed in the existence of objective ethical standards, and in certain independence from the whims of the gods

Plato's Forms Theory

• Central to Plato's philosophy is the objectively existing immaterial entities that are the proper object of knowledge and are like ideal models of ordinary objects.
• Those who comprehend the Good will always do good actions and bad actions are performed out of not knowing the Good
• Knowing the Good requires an austere and intellectually meticulous way of life

Aristotle's Ethics

• Ethical theory is termed self-realizationism, and that someone acting in line with their nature or end ('telos') and realizes full potential, does moral and is happy
• Eudaimonistic focusing on happiness and how to obtain it
• Consists of aretaic, or virtue-based values.

Aristotle's 'Telos'

• A 'telos' is an end or purpose and the essence or essential nature of beings lies not at their cause, but at their end
• Believed rational beings discover the 'essences' and a being's essence is its potential fulfillment or 'telos'
• Essence of 'human being' is rationality

Aristotle's View on Happiness

• The ultimate human goal is self realization
• Achieving natural purpose and functioning naturally with human nature creates happiness, while the inability to realize it leads to sadness, frustration, and ultimately to poor life
• Aristotle identifies three natures of man, which are vegetable or physical, animal or emotional, and rational or mental. According to this theory rational development is the most important aspect as this helps with self-realization or developing one's potential
• This self-realization-- the awareness of our nature and the development of our potentials--is key to the human's happiness. Ethics is inquiry into the human good

Aristotle's Definition of the Human Good

• Ethics: Inquiry into the human good, making ourselves as good as we possibly can
• Human good: Eudaimonia / Happiness

Aristotle's Happiness & Virtues

• Happiness must be sought that is self sufficient, final and attainable, and it is also the summum bonnum. It leads to an end in itself.

Virtues as Habits

• Aristotle connects happiness to virtues, which is the activity of the soul
• The idea of happiness is understood in the sense of human flourishing and is obtained through habital practice of moral and intellectual excellences
• Acting in line with virtues is acting in accordance with rational which in turns, manifests the best states of his rational aspects
• The most important element of moral virtue is 'hexis' or an active state, which means there must be action or actively holding oneself in a stable equilibrium of the soul
• The goal is to select the correct action knowingly and for its own sake

Action & the Self

• Moral virtue = The only practical road to effective action, one must see truely, judge rightly, and act morally
• Virtue = Excellence of moral or intellectual character and this can be broken down into 2 kinds: Of intellect and moral. If the soul is rational/intellect, then the vice is moral
• Formed by habits reflecting repeated choices and moral virtues follow our reasoning. They are the traits/characteristics that enable us to act in reason

Acting Reasonably

• Act in ways that do now go to the defect nor the excess, and virtue lies only in the middle ground
• Because there is a close connection between hapoiness and virtue/vice, actiobns and virtues are enjoyed and vices are loathed. The most effective tool in determining action here, is the golden mean

Courage, Temperate, Justice & Prudence

• Basic virtues are these, in that courage will be found in neither the cowardly nor the reckless but justa bout in the middle of these
• Temperance is between gluttony and frugality, avoid giving one's self to bodily pleasures
• Performing a temperate action also leads to the happiest disposition.

Practical Wisdom

• Practical wisdom enables one to behave and act accordingly
• Virtuous action comes from knowing what is is the proper action to take with all context
• Doing this is also practicing moral virtue

Moral Picture

• The goal is to act in line with rationality living and avoidance
• One's character should exhibit choice and action that follows a wise person as determined by those principles

Evaluation of Greek Theories

• Socrates and Plato take a positive view of humanity, and that immoral behaviors come from ignorance. This, if true, absolves people from blame for actions (although perseverance for the good is encouraged)
• Aristotle develops this more by teaching that virtuous character development, or mere grasping isn't enough, the person must act toward those goals. Aristotle takes things, a step further than his predessors by teaching humans to take accountability and even learn from our mistakes!
• In general Aristotle takes a much more wholisti approach rather than an over simplified and even potentially amoral theory that, if pursued, leads to bad character development

Thomistic Ethics

• Relies heavily on Aristotle, but believes all actions are directed toward ends and happiness. Though this consists in activities accordant with virtue, it can not be achieved in this life
• Only in the souls of the heaven blessed can a person achieve true happiness

Aquina's Natural Law

• The point is to focus on reason for the common good, but to understand this concept in terms of rules and measures (or a sort of "rational thinking style")
• There are 4 types of them: Eternal, Natural, Human, and Divine:
  • Eternal refers to the rational design of God by which all of reality is created
  • Natural = The accessible aspect of eternal order. This applies particularly to human code and conduct.
  • Human is the positive law, and adheres to natural law
  • Divine complements all other codes to lead to holy

Significant Aspects of Natural Law

• Natural code's significance to people, tendency to behave appropriately to code and action.
• Able to be known through natural reason, which means for actions to be good they must be promoted with evil to be avoided. The means to which are determined by their effectiveness to achieving the target/goal

Features of Human Action

• Actions must be based on law. There are "speciies" or kinds of actions that can be categorized as either good actions, bad actions, or somewhere in between. Good actions improve property; bad actions are stealing while indifferent is simply "walking in the park'
• Depending on the ethics, the conteext in which the activities take place can add more or less "morality points." Christian contexts of this action, such as belief in God, adds virtue, so one must be cognizant if something is in line with thier moral compass.
• Actions might be unjust with ill intentions, no matter how good it may be, so ill intention is intrinsically bad.

Thomistic Key Points

• Actions must not be bad/immoral and the circumstances must always be appropriate with virtuous intentions. Actions must be directed toward set goals, but that may only be achieved when the other points line up

Aquinas Ethics

• Virtue is a moral "habit" or "faculty" and must be disposed to be of use

Acquiring Virtues

• Autonomous will is crucial here, it requires being autonomous as well as deliberately attempting something over and over, despite external pressure. This is where infused comes in handy, where God inspires or grants one this gift

Infused Virtues

• Actions must be directed toward set goals, particularly God. Not equated pleasure, it must be virtue-based. You should foster this moral character and make it your goal to attain this

Aquinas Infused Vitues

• moral, aimed activities that are virtuous/inferior. This includes not taking something from someone and being ok with that, along with temeprance, fortitude and justice along with prudence
• theological can also be concerned about this, which gives us the most sincere desire and knowledge

Virtue Actions

• God demands exercise in relation to us. The most important components of this relationship are faith (belief), the desire or 'hope', and with all that, love

Actions

• His moral reasoning is that there must be good intenions and good behavior. The focus is not placed on the action's ability to perform to expectations; this helps it classify in a particular system of ethics, that of being more deontologist and Kanitian in nature. Some of his principles do, in fact, rely upon utilitarianism

Kant's Categorical Imperative in Summary

• Don't base on feelings
• Base them only on reason
• One function is to give us the will to do good not for anything but to be able to do it (to be in the condition to have all other kinds of good)

Actions

• The key is to do it yourself, not to be commanded or persuaded in any shape or form
• Must be voluntary and not the feeling.

Ethics

• You should do the action, not be moved to do it!
• What you ought to do despite feelings

People Acts

• Passions have no value! Not moral
• You feel and still reject the impulse
• You are only moral when you restrain feelings and follow duty

Must!

• Distinguish motive that is to fulfill vs doing what is due. Only do/act on DUTY!
• It isn't about good consequences
• You must know you OUGHT to do it, what obligation is, and work on it

People Actions

• Don't just know good. What is your duty NOW. Is there a test???
• Yes..to act out of impulse/maxim
• Maxims must have the force to make it morally relevant, it has to have some sort of command

Hypothetical vs Categorical

• Command that relies on a end and not one that has force.
• An end goal is too weak. You must act independent. As you are is the point!
• Follow no matter who is benefitted

Can the Moral Maxims be Universalized?

• Follow the law as always applies
• You can want it both ways, always
• Treat others how you use their bodies
• This is how to evaluate if a maxim is moral

Criticisms Kant

• How would someone know it if its moral or a trap? He is very idealistic to think so, especially when it comes to morality and judgement.

Kant Contradicts

• His theory wants you ban the whole idea but his argument is relying on a moral base!

Kant Contradictions

• Kant wants nothing good on you, and so to perform in bad circumstances IS good
• The feelings, natural wants and such are not worth having for Kant

The Study of Morality

• His theory is really about affirming consciousness
• Not science or advancements for character
• The notion must say "treat well as equal under morality"

Rights Theory

• People agree to have a gov over them in exchange for some protections and rights
• Laws should not take advantage of the peoples rights to be free

Ethical War Time

• the theory here determines if the intention to declare war is moraly worthwile

Rights Ethics

• the fact that they exist is reason enough for ethics and morals, whether people are humans or something else such as a species

Example Ethic System

• the fact that someone must be free
• have liberty and the ability to pursue their own destiny
• the right to be innocent until found guilty

States System

• here we see the government as one that is for the pursuit and defence of humans and thier liberty
• moral, it is not always something that is easily achieved. the values are not necessarily set and the laws in certain circumstances are one such result of that
• moral and legal may not be 1 and the same

Morality

• there are people to interpret the laws, and people who find them
• and they are not necessarily congruent and must stand alone without each other