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morality
Overview of moral and ethical education
Kohlberg's
stages of moral development
If morality is a natural feature of society, should we not give it a great
deal of examination?
Several themes, such as the incorrectness of murder, are part of all
societies. There is a variety of differences in the values held by separate
societies. It is in these differences, and/or lack of knowing/understanding of
the correct ethical construct that we find the conflicts in our human history.
Normative Ethical Principles and Theories: A Brief
Overview
http://www.stedwards.edu/ursery/norm.htm
Introduction to Ethics
from
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/INTROETH.HTM
Sandra LaFave
West Valley College
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Ethics, often called “moral philosophy,” is philosophical thinking about
morality, moral problems, or moral judgments. It attempts to arrive at an
understanding of how we ought to live and what constitutes right conduct. But
ethics is more than the elucidation and justification of particular
“moralities”; it is concerned more generally with questions about what would
constitute good reasons for acting one way rather than another, and about what
constitutes a good life for human beings. It even treats the question of whether
a “good life” includes morality!
In philosophy, the study of ethics presupposes that moral rules are not already
laid out in advance, e.g., by God; they may be, but the goal of philosophers is
to use reason, not revelation. Well-reasoned conclusions are those supported by
good arguments. However, some philosophers have tried to establish that there
are good arguments for faith, so questions of faith and reason are more
complicated than you might think.
Philosophers often distinguish three kinds of thinking about ethics:
1. Descriptive ethics — describes what people actually do, how people think or
have thought about morality, e.g., anthropology, history, psychology. Since
philosophers are interested in reasons for ethical conclusions, and in the
application of these conclusions to the problems of life, descriptive ethics is
not ethics in the philosophical sense; you would not necessarily take guidance
for your own moral decision-making from your knowledge of what others have
thought or done. Naturally, though, philosophers are interested in descriptive
ethical data.
2. Normative ethics — tries to figure out what people should do. Normative
ethics is ethics construed as action-guiding, or prescriptive. Philosophers have
traditionally been interested in normative ethics. Historically, much of moral
philosophy has been concerned with developing systems of normative ethics. A
system of normative ethics usually consists of some implicit rule or set of
rules or decision procedures, such that when you are faced with an ethical
decision, you can apply the rule or decision procedure, and thereby get an
answer about what to do.
Normative ethics tries to come up with well-reasoned judgments about:
· Moral obligation (what is “right” or “wrong”).
· Moral value (what is “good” or “evil”).
3. Metaethics — analytical, critical thinking about the presuppositions of
normative ethics. Metaethics asks questions like “What do normative theories
mean by ‘good’ and ‘right’?”; “How can moral judgments be proved?”; “Why be
moral at all?”, etc. A number of metaethical questions constitute significant
challenges to the very enterprise of normative ethics; for example,
Is morality merely social convention, and thus relative to culture, and possibly
different from culture to culture?
Are people really capable of altruistic (non-self-interested) behavior?
Even if people are capable of altruistic behavior, is it rational to be
altruistic?
Is morality merely a system for the manipulation of one social group (for
example, working people, women, ethnic minorities) by the dominant group?
Is morality possible without religion?
Do people have free will, a prerequisite for morality, in the first place?
Ethics in philosophy is mainly normative ethics or metaethics.
A few words more about normative ethics. Normative ethical systems have differed
historically in their areas of emphasis. Some have emphasized actions, or
consequences of actions, or character.
Normative systems that emphasize performing or (especially) not performing
specific actions (such as murder, lying, stealing, etc.) are called
deontological systems. Kant's ethical system is deontological. Sometimes
deontological systems are called non-consequentialist because the consequences
of action or inaction are not considered important in the determination of moral
rightness or wrongness.
Normative systems that base their moral evaluation of an act on the consequences
of that act — good consequences make an act morally acceptable, bad consequences
make an action morally wrong —are called consequentialist or teleological
ethical systems. Bentham and Mill's system — utilitarianism (“greatest good of
the greatest number”) — is consequentialist.
Both deontological and consequentialist theories are classified as deontic or
action-based theories, since their main emphasis is on the question of what
actions are morally right or wrong. They ask “What should I do?”
Normative systems that focus on character — not on “What should I do?” but on
“What sort of person should I be?” — are called aretaic or virtue-based systems.
Aretaic systems assume that few if any acts are by their very nature
automatically right or wrong; rather, circumstances count. But consequences
alone do not determine morality either. The best way to approach ethics,
according to aretaic theorists such as Aristotle, is to begin by asking what
makes a person a good person — what qualities of character distinguish good
people from others. Once this question is answered, the question of which acts
are good is also answered; the good acts are those that the good person would
perform.
Sample Essay Questions
1. What is the difference between consequentialism and non-consequentialism in
ethics?
2. What is the difference between deontic and aretaic ethical theories?
3. What is the difference between normative and descriptive ethics?
4. What is metaethics?
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