Essien Ubokabasi Faith

17BE022074

MAC 4

Ethical theories Assignment

1) SITUATIONAL ETHCS THEORY:

Situational ethics or situation ethics takes into account the particular context of an act when
evaluating it ethically, rather than judging it according to absolute moral standards. With the
intent to have a fair basis for judgments or action, one looks to personal ideals of what is
appropriate to guide them, rather than an unchanging universal code of conduct, such as Biblical
law.

Joseph Fletcher, who became prominently associated with this approach in the English-speaking
world due to his book (Situation Ethics), stated that "all laws and rules and principles and ideals
and norms, are only contingent, only valid if they happen to serve love" in the particular
situation, and so may be broken or ignored if another course of action would achieve a more
loving outcome.

Fletcher has sometimes been identified as the founder of situation ethics. He is of the position
that moral decision making is contextual or dependent on a set of circumstances. Situation ethics
holds that moral judgments must be made within the context of the entirety of a situation and that
all normative features of a situateion must be viewed as a whole.

2) ANTINOMIAN THEORY

ANTINOMIANISM(fromGreekanti,"against,"andnomos,"law"), is any view which rejects laws

or legalism and argues against moral, religious or social norms, or is at least considered to do so.
Simply put, it is opposition to the law and, more especially, a religiously inspired rejection and
abolition of moral, ritual, and other traditionally accepted rules and standards.

In some Christian belief systems, an antinomian is one who takes the principle of salvation by
faith and divine grace to the point of asserting that the saved are not bound to follow the moral
law contained in the Ten Commandments.

The distinction between antinomian and other Christian views on moral law is that antinomians
believe that obedience to the law is motivated by an internal principle flowing from belief rather
than from any external compulsion.
The ideas of antinomianism had been present in the early church, and some Gnostic heretics
believed that freedom from law meant freedom for license.

3*) LEGALIST THEORY

Legalistic ethics is an ethical system that contains rules for every situation. These rules are
usually linked to doing good/being good. Legalistic ethics are true to the Christian belief.
Religions have set rules and regulations, for example Christianity has set legalistic traditions.

For example when a child is Christened, the parents and God parents have to sign a document
promising to treat the new born with care.

Ethics are created in a society to make it better and to benefit majority of the people, however,
Legalistic ethics can be problematic when people consider revenge. For example the Christian
idea of “An eye for an eye.” It would be considered legally immoral to kill someone as a
punishment for them killing another.

Complex situations aren’t considered, for example killing in self defence, killing in war etc. New
laws have to be created to consider these complex situations, creating confusion over what is
morally right and what is morally wrong.

4) TELEOLOGICAL THEORY

Teleological ethics, (teleological from Greek telos, “end”; logos, “science”), theory of morality
that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved.
Also known as consequentialist ethics, it is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek
deon, “duty”), which holds that the basic standards for an action’s being morally right are
independent of the good or evil generated.

Teleological theories differ on the nature of the end that actions ought to promote. A teleological
theory can be egoistic, telling individual agents to promote only theirown pleasure, knowledge,
or other goods, or, conversely, can say that they should promote only others' good and not their
own.

It can also embrace what C. D. Broad (1971) called "self-referential altruism," which says that
while people should give some weight to everyone's good, they should care more about that of
those who are close to them, such as their family and friends.
5) DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS THEORY:

Deontological ethics, in philosophy, ethical theories that place special emphasis on the
relationship between duty and the morality of human actions. The term deontology is derived
from the Greek deon, “duty,” and logos, “science.”

In deontological ethics an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of

the action itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at
least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare.
Descriptive of such ethics are such expressions as “Duty for duty’s sake,” “Virtue is its own
reward,” and “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”

The first great philosopher to define deontological principles was Immanuel Kant, the 18th-
century German founder of critical philosophy (Kantianism). Kant held that nothing is good
without qualification except a good will, and a good will is one that wills to act in accord with
the moral law and out of respect for that law rather than out of natural inclinations.

6) VIRTUE THEORY

Many philosophers believe that morality consists of following precisely defined rules of conduct,
such as “don’t kill,” or “don’t steal.” Presumably, one must learn these rules, and then make sure
each of our actions live up to the rules. Virtue ethics, however, places less emphasis on learning
rules, and instead stresses the importance of developing good habits of character, such as
benevolence. For example, Once I’ve acquired benevolence, i will then habitually act in a
benevolent manner.

Historically, virtue theory is one of the oldest normative traditions in Western philosophy,
having its roots in ancient Greek civilization. Plato emphasized four virtues in particular, which
were later called cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. Other important
virtues are fortitude, generosity, self-respect, good temper, and sincerity.

Virtue theorists hold that we should avoid acquiring bad character traits, or vices, such as
cowardice, insensibility, injustice, and vanity. Virtue theory emphasizes moral education since
virtuous character traits are developed in one’s youth. Adults, therefore, are responsible for
instilling virtues in the young.

7) RELATIVIST THEORY:

Ethical relativism is the theory that holds that morality is relative to the norms of one's culture.
That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of the society in which
it is practiced. The same action may be morally right in one society but be morally wrong in
another. For the ethical relativist, there are no universal moral standards -- standards that can be
universally applied to all peoples at all times.

The only moral standards against which a society's practices can be judged are its own. If ethical
relativism is correct, there can be no common framework for resolving moral disputes or for
reaching agreement on ethical matters among members of different societies.

Ethical relativism describes the fact that in different cultures one of the variants is the sense of
morality: the mores, customs and ethical principles may all vary from one culture to another.
There is a great deal of information available to confirm this as well. What is thought to be
moral in one country may be thought to be immoral and even made illegal in another country.

8) ABSOLUTIST THEORY:

Moral absolutism is an ethical view that all actions are intrinsically right or wrong. Stealing, for
instance, might be considered to be always immoral, even if done for the well-being of others
(e.g., stealing food to feed a starving family), and even if it does in the end promote such a good.
Moral absolutism stands in contrast to other categories of normative ethical theories such as
consequentialism, which holds that the morality of an act depends on the consequences or the
context of the act.

Moral absolutism is the belief there are universal ethical standards that apply to every situation.