Morals and Ethics: METS 173

Lecture 3: Classification of Ethical

systems/ Approaches to Ethics

Lecturer: Bernice Adjei

 Overview
 Introduction

 Descriptive Ethics

 Normative Ethics

 Meta-Ethics
 Introduction

The classification of ethical systems and their usefulness

cannot be assessed chronologically. According to Arthur

Rich (1994), ethical systems can be classified into three

basic groups; descriptive, normative and metha ethics.

 Descriptive Ethics
The word descriptive originates from the Latin word
“descriptio” which means a drawing, sketch or
description.

Descriptive ethics describes, or attempts to describe,

customs, traditions and behavior.
 Descriptive Ethics Cont…d
 The category of descriptive ethics is the easiest to understand - it simply involves
describing how people behave and/or what sorts of moral standards they claim to follow.
Descriptive ethics incorporates research from the fields of
 anthropology,
 psychology,
 sociology and
 history
 as part of the process of understanding what people do or have believed about moral norms
 Descriptive Ethics Cont…d

 Descriptive ethics deals with the ethos of

 Nations

 Religious groups

 Social groups

 Dominant cultures within particular nations

 And subcultures.
 Descriptive Ethics Cont…d
 Descriptive ethics is sometimes referred to as comparative
ethics because so much activity can involve comparing ethical
systems:
 comparing the ethics of the past to the present,
 comparing the ethics of one society to another and
 comparing the ethics which people claim to follow with the
actual rules of conduct which do describe their actions.
 Descriptive Ethics Cont…d
 Descriptive ethics is an empirical science. According to Rich (1994), descriptive
ethics is a discipline about morality. It describes the moral side as follows

 “it is what certain tribes, nations, cultures, social groups or classes regard as “
moral” or “immoral” and the impact it has on the whole of human culture. It is
about finding out about the impacts of moral projections or basic conditions.

 Descriptive ethics strives to explain what “is” ethical or more precisely what
represents “moral” or “immoral” among certain tribes, nations,
 Descriptive Ethics Cont…d

In short, descriptive ethics asks these two

questions:

1. What do people claim as their moral norms?

2. How do people actually behave when it comes to
moral problems?
 Descriptive Ethics Cont…d
 In summary, the main objective of studying descriptive ethics
is to strive for moral and ethical life from the perspective of
different historical eras and geographical places.

 In business ethics, this should depict the moral and ethical

activities of companies (employers and employee) and their
customers.
 Normative Ethics
Ethics cannot be satisfied with the mere ability to
describe. By only describing what ethics are, gives up
on its main task of helping people answer one of the
most fundamental questions about their existence. The
question of how one should act in a way that makes
sense.
 Normative Ethics Cont…d
 Normative ethics is the attempt to provide a general theory that tells us how
we ought to live.

 Normative ethics does not attempt to tell us what moral properties are, it does not
attempt to tell us what specific things have those properties.

 Normative ethics just seeks to tell us how we can find out what things have
what moral properties, to provide a framework for ethics.
 Normative Ethics Cont…d
 For any act, there are three things that might be thought to be morally interesting:
first, there is the agent, the person performing the act; second, there is the act
itself; third, there are the consequences of the act.

 There are three types of normative ethical theory

 virtue,
 deontological, and
 consequentialist
 each emphasizing one of these elements.
 Normative Ethics Cont…d
 Virtue Ethics

 This first normative ethical theory, virtue theory, concentrates on the moral
character of the agent. According to virtue theory, we ought to possess certain
character traits–courage, generosity, compassion, etc.–and these ought to
manifest in our actions. We therefore ought to act in ways that exhibit the virtues,
even if that means doing what might generally be seen as bad or bringing about
undesirable consequences.
 Normative Ethics Cont…d
 Deontology

 Normative theories of the second type, deontological theories, concentrate on the

act being performed. According to deontological theories, certain types of act are

intrinsically good or bad, i.e. good or bad in themselves. These acts ought or

ought not to be performed, irrespective of the consequences.

 Normative Ethics Cont…d
 Consequentialism

 The third approach to normative ethics is consequentialism.

Consequentialist theories hold that we ought always to act in
the way that brings about the best consequences. It doesn’t
matter what those acts are; the end justifies the means. All that
matters for ethics is making the world a better place.
 Normative Ethics Cont…d
 Application

 To give an example, then, suppose that a man bravely intervenes to prevent a young girl from being raped.

 The virtue theorist will be most interested in the bravery that the man exhibits; this suggests that he has a good
character.

 The deontologist will be more interested in what the man did; he stood up for someone in need of protection, and
that kind of behavior is intrinsically good.

 The consequentialist will care only about the consequences of the man’s actions; what he did was good, according
to the consequentialist, because he prevented the young girl from suffering injury.
 Questions for discussion

 What will you say about a drug baron who helps the poor? Or

a money ritualist who helps the poor?

 Are they generous? Would you say they are better than the ice

water seller who barely makes money to even dash some to

people.?
 Meta-ethics

Meta-ethics is an inquiry into the nature of ethics. The

prefix ‘meta’ suggests ‘aboutness’,

 Meta-ethics is the study of ethics: it is concerned with

determining the nature of judgments of moral right or
wrong, good and bad
 Meta-ethics Cont…d
It is not concerned with finding out which
actions or things are right and wrong, or which
states are good and bad, but with understanding
the meaning of concepts of right and wrong,
good and bad.
 Meta-ethics Cont…d
A meta-ethical inquiry may ask: What, if anything, makes a judgment
that lying is always wrong, true (or false)? One possible answer
canvassed by meta-ethics is that moral rules are nothing other than
social conventions of particular cultural groups.

 This entails that the judgment that lying is always wrong is simply an
expression of the beliefs of a group of people, and it is their beliefs
about the matter that make it true.