Philosophical Methods of Inquiry

Philosophy is embedded in different disciplines as its goal is to seek the truth.

Branches of Philosophy present different methods of inquiry in knowing and
understanding the truth. As a discipline, philosophy relies on a specific method of
inquiry in order to find answers to the kinds of questions that philosophers deal with.
The aim of philosophical inquiry is to question the truth, reason, reality, knowledge,
ethics and morality. When conducting a philosophical inquiry, philosophers employ a
methodology, which is a set of systematic procedures that guide the inquiry.

Philosophical inquiry is a method geared towards arriving at a clear meaning

of common human issues in everyday life. People have been and are exposed to
different perceptions of the world. They are expected to respond to a variety of human
issues. There are may philosophical approaches people can apply to effectively
understand human nature and its relationship to everyday situations.
In order to address philosophical questions, a philosopher must be logical.
Logic is the science and art of correct thinking. It uses the methods to achieve accuracy
and objectivity in explaining what is valid logical argument. In logic, an argument is
composed of premises and a conclusion. A premise is an assumption that something is
true. From initial premises, philosophers try to work out answers to basic
philosophical questions. A conclusion is a claim that has been reached through the
process of reasoning and is justified by preceding premises. Formulating
philosophical arguments is an important part of the philosophical method.
Philosophers usually offer arguments for the different claims they make. Thus, this
indicated that philosophy is a quest for the most logical and valid arguments.

Logic provides a means of analyzing basic concepts to determine if they are

true or false, valid or invalid, and consistent or inconsistent. It plays an important role
in the history of philosophy. Almost all human knowledge is founded on logical
analysis. However, logic is not enough to find answers to philosophical questions. In
order to arrive at answers to philosophical questions, it is important to prioritize
relevant facts surrounding the question. Specific criteria are needed for selecting the
facts relevant to the issue. Applying a theory helps to determine what facts should be
considered in an explanation (Archie and Archie, 2004).

Philosophical Inquiry provides an explanation that only leads to further inquiry

which reflects the general nature of philosophy. This is in connection to the aim of
ethics at systematic knowledge. People are exposed to many problems and the
challenge is to come up with critical and practical solutions using their own thinking
and reasoning form their ethical perspective. This means applying ethical theories to
actual life experiences supported by personal evaluation in terms of importance and
practicality. Philosophical Inquiry is guided by theories which are crucial for the
prediction and control of behavior.

Epistemology is also the study of the theory of knowledge particularly its

scope, method, and validity. It deals with how knowledge relates to similar notions
such as truth, belief and justification. Humans can only attain the truth if they are
certain that their philosophy is based on facts or pieces of evidence.

Ethics is also related to metaphysics. Metaphysics is the study of the nature of

things, of what is real and apparent. It explores the nature of existence, identity, home,
space and others. In ethics, philosophical inquiry is prompted by uncertainties or
conflicting opinions about duty, morality, and justice in certain situations.
Uncertainties and conflicts are the main source of moral skepticism.
WHAT ETHICS STUDIES
We are partly on our way toward framing a definition of ethics. Ethics has for its
purpose to interpret this fact of human life: the acknowledgment of right and wrong
in human conduct. We find in the human race taken generally a tendency to judge that
there are three kinds of acts:

(1)Those that a man ought to do

(good) (2)Those that he ought not
to do (evil)
(3)Those that he may either do or not do (indifferent)

At this point in our study we do not yet determine whether this judgment is
correct or mistaken; we simply note that it is a fact of experience that men do judge in
this way. So important are these judgments considered that men will regulate their
whole lives in accordance with them and will even sacrifice life itself rather than
diverge from them. We apply these judgments not only to our own conduct but to the
conduct of others; we punish people and even put them to death for doing what we
think they ought not to do, or for not doing what we think they ought to do. The man
who does whatever he wants, with no regard for what he ought, is outlawed from
society and hunted down like a wild beast.
Philosophy, as an interpretation of human life, cannot afford to overlook a fact
of such significance, but must investigate it and determine all that it entails. If men are
correct in distinguishing right from wrong, we need to know why and on what
grounds this judgment is justified. If men are mistaken in distinguishing right from
wrong, we also want to know why, and how such wholesale error can be accounted
for. Without prejudging the case in either way, ethics is a necessary study with a large
and legitimate field of inquiry.
Every distinct branch of learning must have a subject matter (material object)
which it studies from a certain definite aspect or point of view (formal object). The
subject matter
of ethics is human conduct, those actions which a man performs consciously and
willfully, and for which he is held accountable. The aspect or point of view from which
ethics studies human conduct is that of its rightness or wrongness, its oughtness, if we
may manufacture a noun corresponding to the ethical verb ought, which is the real
verb in every ethical judgment. Ethics is not interested in what a man does, except to
compare it with what he ought to do. We call those actions right which a man ought to
do, and those actions wrong which a man ought not to do. The investigation of the
ought is the distinctive feature of ethics and separates it from every other study.
Relation to Other Studies

Besides its relation to the other branches of philosophy, of which it forms a part, ethics
is also related to the other human and social sciences. These all have the same broad
subject matter, but ethics differs from them by its distinctive point of view.
Anthropology and ethics both deal with human customs on various levels of
culture and civilization. Anthropology studies the origin and development of human
customs, without passing any judgment on their moral rightness or wrongness, but it
is this rightness or wrongness alone that interests ethics. Anthropology testifies to the
existence of moral notions, however queer, among primitive tribes; ethics borrows
such data from anthropology, but goes on to criticize the moral value of these
concepts and customs.
Psychology and ethics both deal with human behavior, with the abilities and acts of
man. But psychology studies how man actually does behave, ethics how he ought to
behave. Ethics is dependent on psychology for much information on how the human
mind works, but always passes on from how man does act to how he ought to act.
Sociology, economics, and political science study man's social life, and so also
does ethics. But the same difference of viewpoint remains. These three sciences deal
with man's actual social, economic, and political institutions, what they are and how
they function; ethics determines what they ought to be in terms of human rights and
duties.
The study of law is perhaps more closely related to ethics than any other.
Although both deal with law, and therefore in some way with the ought, the civil law
and the moral law do not always perfectly correspond. The study of civil law deals
only with external acts and positive legality, ethics with internal acts of the will and
the tribunal of conscience. There is a difference between crime and sin, legal immunity
and moral worth, outward respectability and true virtue of soul.
Another distinction remains, but resting on quite different grounds. Moral
theology and ethics both study the rightness and wrongness of human conduct; they
differ in the source from which they derive their knowledge and in the method of
pursuing their conclusions, rather than in any difference of content or purpose. Moral
theology proceeds from the standpoint of divine revelation and ecclesiastical law,
ethics from the standpoint of natural human reason alone. As strictly a part of
philosophy, ethics is not allowed to appeal to revealed sources for its facts or
arguments nor should it discuss ecclesiastical legislation. Philosophy and religion are
often concerned with the same problems, but their approach to them is quite different
and should never be confused. Ethics is philosophy and not religion.
PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ETHICS
Every science has to begin somewhere, and therefore starts by laying down
certain presuppositions. These are truths or propositions not proved by the science
in question but presupposed by it. They are not to be thought of as unwarranted
assumptions, but rather as statements borrowed from another science whose
province it is to investigate and establish them. There would result either an endless
series or a circular process, were it not for the science of metaphysics. This alone
rests on no deeper foundations; as the science of first principles, it takes on itself the
task of testing and proving the fundamental postulates and general presuppositions
of all other sciences, and thus assumes a unique position in the hierarchy of
knowledge.
If one is willing to grant its presuppositions provisionally, ethics might be
studied anywhere in the course of philosophy. But because it leans so heavily on its
presuppositions to establish even its most preliminary considerations, it is customary
to make ethics the last branch of philosophy to be studied. Our treatment will suppose
that the student has already passed through the other branches of philosophy.
Especially must ethics be firmly grounded on the bedrock of metaphysics. Three
philosophical truths stand out as of primary importance to any sound system
of ethics:

1. The freedom of the will.

- Unless the human will is free, a man cannot choose between right and wrong,
is not responsible for what he does, and cannot direct the course of his life. All acts of a
man are equally right if they are his only possible acts; no acts can be wrong if they
cannot be avoided. Determinism leaves no meaning to the ought.
2. The immortality of the soul.
- Unless the human soul is a spirit that outlives the present life, there is no
sufficient motive for doing the right and avoiding the wrong, since we see that virtue
often goes unrewarded and vice unpunished in this world. Why be good, especially
when it is hard, if it makes no difference in the long run?
3. The existence of God.
Unless God exists, there is no Highest Good. God is not only man's Creator, the
Source from which he comes, but also man's Last End, the Goal of all his striving.
Without God as the Absolute Lawgiver and Supreme Judge there could be no moral
law prescribing what we ought to do, and therefore no ought and no ethics.