SOCSCI 1110:
INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS
▪ Does it matter whether the present
government executes drug addicts,
suspected terrorist (activists)?
MORALITY
Refers to beliefs concerning
right and wrong (Deontic
Concepts), good and bad
(Value concepts), beliefs that
can include judgments,
values, rules, principles, and
theories.
•This address the powerful
question that Socrates
formulated 24,000 years ago:
“How ought we to live?’’
Ethics is concerned with
values – moral values.
▪ Through sifting and
weighing of moral values we
determine what the most
important things are in our
lives.
▪ What is worth living for and
what is worth dying for.
▪ We decide what is the
greatest good, what goals we
should pursue in life, what
virtues we should cultivate,
what duties we should or
should not fulfil, what values
we should put on human life,
and what pain and perils we
should be willing to endure
for notions such as the
RELEVANCE OF ETHICS IN OUR
▪ Does it matter whether
scientists or the few powerful
people in the world created virus
or contagious disease just to kill
or eliminate the weak and
vulnerable people in the world?
Do these actions and a million others
just as controversial matter at all?
TIME
It undermines our personal freedom
Q: Can we just accept the moral beliefs
handed down to us without critically
If these matters to us, then, ethics matters, because these are
ethical concerns requiring careful reflection using concepts and
reasoning peculiar to ethics.
examining them?
The no – question approach increases the
chances that your responses to moral
dilemmas or contradictions will be
incomplete, confused, or mistaken.
Solving these problems requires intellectual
tools to critically evaluate and re – evaluate
existing moral beliefs.
To not do ethics is to stay locked in a kind of
intellectual limbo, where exploration in ethics
and personal moral progress are barely
possible.
PAUL TAYLOR
Says “that by just embracing morality
bequeathed to him by society we will be left
behind and not be able to defend our beliefs
by rational arguments against criticism.” This
led us from confusion into disillusioned about
morality.
Unable to give an objective, reasoned
justification for his own convictions, he may
turn from dogmatic certainty to total
skepticism, a short step to an amoral life.
EASY ROADS IN ETHICS Science also studies morality, but not in the
way that moral philosophy does.
Subjectivism Metaethics

 You can establish your moral beliefs DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS

The study of the meaning and logical structure of
by simply consulting your feelings or moral belief. It asks not whether an action is right
A scientific
orwhether study
a person’s of moral
character beliefs
is good. and a
It takes
emotions.
practices.
step back from the concerns and asks more
Subjective relativism  Its aim is to describe
fundamental questions about and
them.explain how
Normative ethics people actually behave and think
 What a person believes or approves of when dealing with moral issues and
The study of the principles, rules, or theories that
determines the rightness and concepts.
guide our actions and judgments. Refers to
wrongness ofactions.
norms, or standards, of judgement – in this case,  This kind of empirical research is
norms for judging rightness and goodness. usually conducted by sociologists,
Ethics does not give us a royal road to moral anthropologists, and psychologists.
truth. Instead, it shows us how to ask critical
questions about morality and systematically The focus of moral philosophy is not what people
seek answers supported by good reasons. actually believe and do, but what they should
believe and do.
MANY OF THE QUESTIONS IN
The point of inquiry is to determine what actions
ETHICS ARE AMONG THE are right/wrong and what things are good/bad.
TOUGHEST WE CAN EVER ASK
LIKE:

1. What makes an action right or

wrong?
2. Is this moral argument sound?
3. Should an action be judge by its
consequences or by the kind of action
it is?
4. Can a war ever be just?
The ultimate purpose of doing normative ethics is
5. Is the moral principle “never lie” MAJOR DIVISIONS IN ETHICS
to try to establish the soundness of moral norms,
valid?
especially the norms embodied in a
6. Is morality based on religion? comprehensive moral system, or theory.
7. Do animals and nature have rights?
8. Is it permissible to break a promise in We do normative ethics when we use critical
reasoning to demonstrate that a moral principle is
order to save a person’s life?
justified, or that a professional conduct is
9. Were his intentions good?
contradictory or that of a proposed moral theory
10. Is capital punishment ever
is better than another.
permissible?

THE ETHICAL LANDSCAPE

Moral philosophy suggests, ethics is a branch of
philosophy. Philosophy is the systematic use of
critical reasoning to answer the most fundamental
questions in life. Moral philosophy, obviously, tries
to answer the fundamental questions of morality.
 Applied Ethics Moral principlesOverridingness
must apply to all people who are
Moral principles must be made public in order to
in a relevantly similar situation. This trait is an
guide our actions.
The application of moral norms to specific moral extension of the principle
Moral principles of consistency.
have predominant authority and
issues or cases, particularly those in a profession Practicality
override other kinds of principles.
such as medicine or law.
A moral principle must have practicability, which
means that it must be workable and its rules must
To do normative ethics, we must assume certain not lay a heavy burden on us when we follow
things about the meaning of moral terms and the them.
OBLIGATION
logical relations among them. But the job of
metaethics is to question all these assumptions, to
 Intrinsically good
see if they really make sense.

Universalizability applies to all evaluative

1. What does it mean for an action to be judgments. If I say that X is a good Y, then I am
logically committed to judge that anything
relevantly similar to X is a good Y.

right?
2. Is good the same thing as desirable?
3. How can a moral principle be justified?
4. Is there such a thing as moral good?
MORAL TRAITS OF MORAL PRINCIPLE
1. Did the doctor do right in performing that
abortion?
2. Is it morally permissible for scientists to
perform experiments on people without Accordingly, most ethical systems take human
their consent? limitations into consideration.
3. Was it right for the journalist to distort
her reporting to aid a particular side in
the war?
Questions like these drive the search for answers
in applied ethics.
Publicity is necessary because we use principles to
prescribe behavior, give advice, and assign praise
IN EVERY DIVISION OF ETHICS, WE MUST BE and blame. It would be self-defeating to keep
CAREFUL TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN VALUES them a secret.
AND OBLIGATIONS

VALUES

 Instrumentally or extrinsically good

DOMAINS OF ETHICAL ASSESSMENT

Action

A right act is an act that is permissible for

you to do. It may be either (a) obligatory or
(b) optional.
 a. An obligatory act is one that morality
requires you to do; it is not
permissible for you to refrain from
doing it.
b. An optional act is one that is neither
obligatory nor wrong to do. It is not
theories of morality have been developed
from these notions and are called virtue
theories.
The classic proponent of virtue theory was
Aristotle

A wrong act is one you have an obligation, or (384–322 BCE), who maintained that the
a duty, to refrain from doing: It is an act you
DEONTOLOGICAL development of virtuous character traits is
ought not to do; it is not permissible to do it. needed to ensure that we habitually act
One
Withinimportant kind
the range of ethical theory
of permissible acts is that
the rightly.
emphasizes
notion of supererogatory acts, oris highly
the nature of the act called
deontological (from the Greek word deon,
altruistic acts. These acts are neither
MOTIVE
meaning “duty”).
required nor obligatory, but they exceed
Full moral description of any act will take
what morality requires, going “beyond the
motive into account as a relevant factor.
call of duty.”

your duty to do it, nor is it your duty

not to do it. Neither doing it nor not
doing it would be wrong.

These theories hold that something is inherently

right or good about such acts as truth telling and
promise keeping and inherently wrong or bad
about such acts as lying and promise breaking.

CONSEQUENCES

Ethical theories that focus primarily on

consequences in determining moral rightness
and wrongness are called teleological ethics
(from the Greek telos, meaning “goal
directed”). The most famous of these theories
is utilitarianism, set forth by Jeremy Bentham
(1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–
1873), which requires us to do what is likeliest
to have the best consequences. In Mill’s
words, “Actions are right in proportion as
they tend to promote happiness; wrong as
they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness.”

CHARACTER

Moral philosophers call such good character

traits virtues and bad traits vices. Entire
SOCSCI 1110: HENRY SIDGWICK: THREE AXIOMS OF THE GOOD

Objectivity of Moral Judgments

IN WHAT SENSE ARE MORAL JUDGMENT

POSSIBLE?

It is usually agreed that the validity of the

moral judgments of any individuals is
independent of his own feelings. 1. JUSTICE
PLATO: Three Divisions of a Man
Opinions must be ascertained by some more associated to their Functions in
objective standard. Society
WHAT DETERMINES THE STANDARD?
Head
Is it simply the moral consciousness of the leader/ruler (wisdom)
society in which he lives?
Chest
warriors (courage)
Or there are
Either it is objective Abdomen
Problem Laborers
subjective moral (fortitude/temperance)
standard
Determined by
the moral Valid for all
2. PRUDENCE
consciousness of humanity from  Careful good judgment.
the period. one generation  Being careful about your
to the next. choices, stopping and
thinking before acting. It is a
strength of restraint.
THERE ARE MORAL INTUITIONS OF GOOD
3. BENEVOLENCE
 Kindness or goodwill.
Unanalyzable and No intelligent  Desire to do good to others;
person can deny
irreducible
their truth, any goodwill; charitableness.
more than he can  Opposite of malevolent.
A Priori deny the truth of
the most
Fundamental, elementary
formal and devoid Thesis: “MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE DEDUCIBLE
principles of
of contents. mathematics. ONLY FROM QUANTITATIVE GOODS”.

Question: Are there intrinsic types of goods?

A PRIORI
love beauty friendship
 From Latin, which means “prior to
experience” or “from what is earlier”.
 Something that can be known without
experience or sense data. In a sense the goodness of these values is self-
evident, disinterested, and intrinsic.
 Opposite of “A Posteriori”.
 However, these intrinsic goods cannot be
stated in any a priori way, apart from
experience and calculation of
consequences, that would indicate what all
men in all ages have, or ought to have,
acknowledged.

 VIRTUES However, decisions can be rendered only in the (1)

light of the knowledge and (2) experience available
 INSTRUMENTAL VALUE to the age. There is no way to be absolutely sure
 Promote and increase love, beauty that future ages, with wider experience and greater
and friendship. social and economic achievements, will decide in all
cases as we have done.
 ISSUE

It follows, therefore, that while there are

various notions like "good," "bad,"
"ought," "love," "friendship," and
"beauty" that have intrinsic moral value,
it is impossible to deduce from them, a
priori, moral judgments that would hold
universally?
COMPARATIVE ETHICS
Moral judgements are constantly revised
and improved from time to time.
Identify the good with pleasure, and
measure it quantitatively.
We, however, can see more clearly than the
generation before us, because we are able not only
to profit by the fruits of their experience, as handed
down to us in the moral tradition, but to add our
own experience to it.
 The work of comparative ethics is
constructive as well as destructive.
 It reveals that there has, on the
whole, been a line of moral
development or progress.

For so long as man remains man, his instincts will

UTILITARIAN TEST continue to have about the same relative intensity
and other characteristics.
 That action should be adopted which
will bring the greatest pleasure to the They will not be altered by inheritance of acquired
characters.
greatest number.
Changes in social organization and education will
not modify the innate mental constitution.
KANTIAN TEST

 The good is its coherence with a rule

Children a thousand years hence will be born
or law (C.I.)
with the same native instincts and emotions
 We certainly ought to will what we
of fear, pugnacity, self-assertion, tenderness,
might rationally desire to become
sociability, sex, acquisitiveness, and
universal practice, and we cannot
constructiveness as today.
think it right to permit ourselves to
do what we should condemn in In other words, instincts can never be
others. permitted to develop in a random way into
People differ today on moral issues because of no
sentiments that would be unfavourable for the
fault of revised utilitarian and Kantian tests but welfare of individuals and the common good
because the full data to which these tests should be
applied are not available or are not fully
understood.
of society. Sentiments, on the other hand,
must ever be rationally guided and cultivated
into virtues.

VIRTUE

 A sentiment which grows through the

efforts of the individual and the moral
education that society affords him.

The relative strength of instincts differs in

individuals, and results in various types of
character or personality.
The only moral values we know or can seek are
those which we learn from reflection on human
experience our own, and theirs before us to whom
we owe our moral tradition.
SOCSCI 1110:
The Plurality of Moral Judgments
Moral judgments operates under three
different standards:
1. THE STANDARD OF SELF –
RESPECT
 Articulates one’s moral expectations
concerning one’s behavior and attitudes.
 The kind of standard we seek to maintain.
2. THE STANDARD OF SELF – experience the shame of lost self – respect.
RESPECT
 A much higher standard which arises
whenever we are dissatisfied with our own
self -respect standards.
 One that contains our desire for moral
progress.
3. INSPIRATIONAL STANDARD
 Our standard of moral perfection.
Standard of moral perfection by means of
which we rank all other standards.
 Its distinctness from the standard we seek
to attain may be seen from the fact that
we do not ordinarily aspire to be heroes or
saints.
What are moral standards?
1. It is wider than a moral rule since it is
composed of rules.
2. The moral concept of a moral standards
suggests a scale of standards.
3. A’s self-respect standard may require with
rules x, y, and z.
4. Moral standards concerned with (1)
policies, (2) dispositions, and (3) actions.
 Moral rules are meant to enforce,
prescribe what actions to take.
 Moral standards relate with moral
judgement. How actions are
evaluated based on the rules.
ASPECT OF MORALITY
1. OBLIGATIONAL ASPECT
2. THE ASPIRATIONAL – INSPIRATIONAL
ASPECT
3. HEROES AND SAINTS – Too taxing, we can
choose to become better persons instead.
HOW DO MORAL STANDARDS
FUNCTION?
The standard of self-respect
Best understood on occasions were we
(a) Due to our violation of a rule.
(b) Due to an awareness of the lawness of
our standards – rising to a new level.
Self - respect standards protect us from moral
decline and provide a means to recover from
moral decay.
The aspirational standard
Stimulates us to be morally healthy so that we
grow morally.
Tool for moral progress.
Learning to control our moral satisfaction.
Why are these standards important?
1. To inspire us through its direction.
2. A means to rank other moral standards.
3. To approximate moral perfection.
Since we know of a higher standard, why should
we be guided by a lower one?
SOME ISSUES:
 Ought does not imply can.
 Knowing does not lead to doing.
EVIDENT TRUISMS
 One cannot estimate one’s moral
potential.
 Moral potentialities are inestimable since
moral progress can be achieved between
birth and death.
 One can have genuine religious
conversion.
SOCSCI 1110:
Moral Conflicts and Ethical
Relativism
Moral conflict is a moral datum that a theory must
accommodate.
 An agent cannot be bound by two moral
requirements.
 The function of a moral theory is to
demonstrate how to resolve moral
dilemmas.
 The moral universe is more complicated
than many theories acknowledge.
 There cannot be genuinely irresolvable
moral dilemmas.
Can there be unresolvable moral conflict?
Non – relativistic theories in ethics
imply that moral dilemmas are in
principle resolvable.
Irresolvable moral conflicts lead to some
IMMANUEL
form ofKANT
relativism.
Moral theory and moral conflict.
 Conflicts of duties and obligations are not
conceivable.
 They express the objective practical
necessity of certain actions.
 Suggests the possibility of a higher point
of view (MPV), a court of arbitration for
conflict of interests.
 The task of moral theory is to systematize
moral thought and ultimately provide
rules on principles for overcoming
irreducible conflicts.
There can be no irresolvable moral conflicts.
 Two arguments:
(1) There are ultimate moral standard to
resolve moral dilemmas, and thus
relativism is false.
(2) There can be relativized and non–
relativized deontic axioms and principles;
their denial need not imply any sort of
relativism.
TWO KINDS OF CONFLICTS
1. Single-Agent Dilemma
 A person ought to do each of two
acts but cannot do both.
2. Interpersonal Conflicts
 Arise when agents operate the same
theory.
HAMPSHIRE ON CONFLICTS
(i) Moral conflicts are inevitable.
 There are variations in cultures and ways
of life.
 Our capacity to conceive of diversity is
the origin of our capacity to envisage.
 Moral duties and obligations present
themselves as conflicts.
 Appeal to universal rules or alleged
constancies of human nature will not
resolve moral conflicts.
(ii) Conflicts can be resolved by a right
ordering of the contrary tendencies in human
nature.
TWO TYPES OF CONFLICTS
1. Nature
 Abstract and timeless ideals
which are natural and universal.
2. Convention
 Local ideals from tradition and
convention (give rise to diversity
of moral requirement.
Conflicts that arise from moral choices.
MORAL PHILOSOPHY BECOMES
There can never be a “best” way of life or
“best” choice, claims are not valid for all
mankind.
HARMFUL WHEN:
(1) It postulates that there can be
fundamental agreement in moral
ideals.
(2) It assumes that humanity is a
consistent moral unit across time and
space (myth).
Hampshire’s View
01 Some moral conflicts cannot be
 resolved by any generally There are no universal principle to
acknowledged method of reasoning. establish moral truth.
02 There is no rational path that leads
from conflicts to harmony and to an
assured solution.
03 They cannot be eliminated/ no
overriding criteria.

Commentary to Hampshire:
Some instances of conflicting ethical
opinions are equally valid and it can be
supported by rational method.

EVALUATING CONFLICTING CLAIMS

(1) Moralities cannot be compared and
criticized.
(2) Ways of life are not subject to moral
judgments since there is no
independent ground from which they
can be evaluated.
 Moral feelings can be helpful in
making moral judgments (human
misery and gross injustice are
ethical universals).
 INTERNAL EVALUATIONS
 EXTERNAL EVALUATIONS
 To avoid greater destruction of
life and greater
misery/degradation.

APPEAL TO JUSTICE
 There are moral universals and we
must use them to make cross – cultural
evaluations.

APPEAL TO UTILITY
 We must always judge and evaluate
moral claims and ways of life, but must
not expect conclusive answers.

APPEAL TO FEELINGS
 We must always undertake such
evaluations and expect some cases of
irreducible conflict and some cases of
solvable ones.