NATURE OF ETHICS

An overview

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 OBJECTIVES

• Describe the philosophical study of ethics.

• Understand the difference between normative and
descriptive claims.
• Explain the difference between meta-ethics and
normative ethics.
• Evaluate ethical issues
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 WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT THIS
ISSUE?

• Some years ago, the nation was stunned by a report from New York City. A young woman, Kitty
Genovese, was brutally stabbed in her own neighborhood late at night during three separate
attacks while 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens watched or listened. During the 35-minute
struggle, her assailant beat her, stabbed her, left her, and then returned to attack her two more
times until she died. No one lifted a phone to call the police; no one shouted at the criminal, let
alone went to Genovese’s aid. Finally, a 70-year-old woman called the police. It took them just
two minutes to arrive, but by that time Genovese was already dead.
• Only one other woman came out to testify before the ambulance showed up an hour later. Then
residents from the whole neighborhood poured out of their apartments. When asked why they
hadn’t done anything, they gave answers ranging from “I don’t know” and “I was tired” to
“Frankly, we were afraid.”1

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 ISSUES AT HAND

• This tragic event raises many questions about our moral responsibility to others.
• What should these respectable citizens have done? Are such acts of omission morally
blameworthy?
• Is the Genovese murder an atypical situation, or does it represent a disturbing trend?
• This story also raises important questions about the general notion of morality.
• What is the nature of morality, and why do we need it?
• What is the Good, and how will we know it?
• Is it in our interest to be moral?

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN…

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 WHAT IS MORALITY

• The principle concerning the distinction between right and wrong or

good or bad behavior.
• Sense of what is good, right, meaningful in our lives
• Reference point for all possible courses of acions we could choose
• Reflection about the things we think are important and are consistent with our
beliefs

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 MORALITY CAN BE USED

Descriptively, refer to certain codes of conduct put forward

by a society or a group (religious group)
• Accepted by individual fro her own behavior

Normatively, refer to the code of conduct that, at a given

specified condition would be put forward by rational people
• Makes the person a moral agent

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 IMPERATIVES OF ETHICS

• Ethics presupposes three imperatives or sine qua non

• (The essential, crucial, or indispensable ingredient without which
something would be impossible”) without which ethics would be impossible.
• The existence of God or Supreme Being
• There is no reason for man to deny himself evil but pleasurable acts if there were no final judge
to dispense justice
• Retribution/Punishment
• Reward/good acts
• Law of karma

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 IMPERATIVES OF ETHICS

• The existence of human freedom

• an indispensable factor of Ethics and would be meaningless if men were not free to
choose, to do, to act on their own
• Responsibility- the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions
without authorization
• accountability
• Retribution is deserved only if men had the choice to do or not to do, to follow or not to follow
• Exceptions:
• Children – no notion whether to do or not to do
• Persons who suffer from mental illness/disease
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 IMPERATIVES OF ETHICS

• The existence of an afterlife

• The soul is immortal or that the soul outlive the body is
a postulate of Ethics
• Good deeds are rewarded in the afterlife; evil deeds
are punished
• the immortality of the soul is therefore the cornerstone in
Ethics
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 OTHER IMPERATIVES

• The cultural differences of the peoples ( races) of the

world
• The formation of society
• Man is a social being

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 WHAT IS ETHICS?

• Ethics is that branch of philosophy that deals with how we ought to

live, with the idea of the Good, and with concepts such as “right”
and “wrong.”
• It evaluates human actions.
• Morals and ethical
• Both terms derive their meaning from the idea of “custom”—that is, normal
behavior
• “moral” comes from the Latin word mores and “ethical” from the Greek
ethos.
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 AS A BRANCH OF PHILOSOPHY

• Can also be considered as a science of the morality of human acts.

• As a science
• it is systematic body of knowledge meant to guide men in the pursuit of the good and happy life
• It teaches how “MEN OUGHT TO LIVE”
• “ought” is used to indicate duty or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions”
• We ought to respect our parents
• Practical science = not speculative science ( theories)
• Must be applied – teaches how men ought to live

• Morality
• is the quality of goodness or badness of human acts
• It is also the rightness or wrongness of human actions as they conform or do not conform to standards.
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 SUB-DIVISIONS OF ETHICS

Descriptive morality

• refers to actual beliefs, customs, principles, and practices of people and cultures.

Moral Philosophy/Ethical; Philosophy

• the systematic effort to understand moral concepts and justify moral principles and theories.
• Right , wrong, permissible, sources of moral obligations, like God,human reason, desire to be happy,
etc,
• It seeks to establish principles of right behavior that may serve as action guides for individuals and
groups.

Applied Ethics

• deals with controversial moral problems such as abortion, pre- marital sex, capital punishment,
euthanasia, and civil disobedience

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 BRANCHES OF ETHICS

• Normative ethics- helps us decide what is good or bad, better or worse, either in
some general way or with regard to particular ethical issues.
• defends an argument about what is good, right, or just
• Cheating is bad.

• Meta-ethics- explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral values,

properties, and words.
• Meta-ethical inquiry asks questions about the nature of ethics, including the
meaning of ethical terms and judgments
• Example: Is death penalty morally justified?
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RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER
FIELDS

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 MORALITY VS RELIGION

• Ethics is grounded on reason and human • grounded in revelation or divine

experience. authority—as religious teachings
• practice of morality need not be motivated invariably are.
by religious considerations,

Some versions of religious ethics, which posit God’s

revelation of the moral law in nature or conscience, hold that
reason can discover what is right or wrong even apart from
divine revelation.
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 MORALITY VS LAW

• some laws are immoral without denying

that they have legal authority
• Many laws are instituted in order to
• Some laws permit - slavery, spousal
promote well-being, resolve conflicts of
abuse, racial discrimination interest, and promote social harmony,
• some aspects of morality are not
just as morality does
covered by law • Examples of laws-
• Lying is immoral ( no one can be put • statutes, regulations, common law and
to prison by just mere lying, except constitutional law, international laws
perjury

A limitation of law is that you can’t have a law against

every social problem, nor can you enforce every 12/08/2020 18

desirable rule.
 MORALITY AND ETIQUETTE

• Etiquette concerns form and style rather than the

• is right behavior essence of social existence; it determines what is
• morality is the moral code of an polite behavior.

individual or of a society • Well mannered- behavior

• as to how we are to dress, greet one another,
• Expression of the innermost eat, celebrate festivals, dispose of the dead,
character express gratitude and appreciation, and, in
general, carry out social transactions.
• Polite manners grace our social existence, but
they are not what social existence is about.

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 THINK ABOUT IT?

• A good man may have bad

manners; a bad man may have
good manners

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 MORALITY AND ETIQUETTE

A limitation of etiquette is that it doesn’t

get to the heart of what is vitally
important for personal and social Manners constitute a
existence.
special department of
morality
Morality involves exceedingly numerous
sets of relations between persons in
different circumstances and in different
connections
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 TRAITS OF MORAL
PRINCIPLES

Moral principles are guides to action

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 • commanding aspect of morality.

prescriptivity
• intended for use: to advise people and influence action
• Example: do not kill; do not cheat

• Moral principles must apply to all people who are in a relevantly similar situation.

universalizability
• If I judge that an act is right for a certain person, then that act is right for any other
relevantly similar person
• Example: the Golden Rule

• are not the only principles, but they take precedence over other considerations,

overridingness
• Example:
• When the law becomes egregiously immoral, it may be my moral duty to exercise civil
disobedience.

• Moral principles must be made public in order to guide our actions

publicity
• Prescriptivity
• universalizability.

• must be workable and its rules must not lay a heavy burden on us when we follow them

practicability
• Example:
• follow the law, rules

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 REFERENCES

• Cengage Discovering Right and Wrong, Louis Pojman

• Stanford Encyclopedia o Philopsophy

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