Introduction to Ethics Lecture 4 What is Ethics?

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Introduction to EthicsLecture 4What is Ethics?

• By David Kelsey

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Ethics

• Ethics the systematic investigation into the
  nature of morality.
• Morality is the code of conduct or system of
  principles that a person or persons follow as
  guidelines for their actions.
• The morality of a society
• When we study morality we study its concepts.
  Some include
• Good Bad
• Right wrong
• Prescription Prohibition
• Permissibility impermissibility

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What morality isnt?

• Some related concepts that we dont study when we
  study Morality
• Religion
• Religion stories, supernatural beings
• A guide to conduct vs. more than this
• Etiquette
• a part of morality
• applies to less serious actions
• Law
• Rules, penalties and officials
• morality and law overlap

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Non-moral and immoral

• The word moral has 2 distinct meanings.
• Vs. Non-Moral
• non-moral not having to do with morality
• Vs. Immoral
• Immoral wrong
• In this class we will use moral in the sense that
  is opposed to non-moral.

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Moral claims

• Moral claim (also called moral judgments)
• non-factual claims that assert that some moral
  property such as Rightness is instantiated in
  some object or action or event.
• A property a way that something can be.
• A moral property is any way that something can be
  morally.
• Examples
• Examples of moral claims

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Moral Arguments

• A moral argument is one which asserts as its
  conclusion a moral claim.
• Abortion example

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Deriving Moral Value Judgments

• Inferring a value claim We cannot derive or
  infer a value claim from merely factual claims.
• Elliots father example we might argue that
  Elliots father depends upon Elliot so Elliot
  ought to take care of his father.
• The problem we are deriving a value claim, that
  Elliot should take care of his father.

• Support from value So if we are trying to infer
  a value claim, at least one of the supporting
  propositions must be a value claim.
• So to justifiably infer that Elliot should take
  care of his father from Elliots father depends
  upon Elliot we need something that links the 2
  claims
• For example

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Critiquing moral reasoning

• What if we come across a moral argument we
  disagree with?
• If you agree with the facts
• yet you disagree with the conclusion
• you must try to show the moral principle false.
• Showing a moral principle false how do you show
  a moral principle false?
• You simply find a counterexample to it
• Abortion is unnatural example

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A note aboutRelativism

• Moral relativism A very popular view in ethics
  is moral relativism.
• This says What is right or wrong depends upon
  and is determined by ones group or culture.
• Confusion often times, the following 2 claims
  are confused
• 1. What is believed to be right and wrong may
  differ from group to group, society to society,
  or culture to culture.
• 2. What is right and wrong may differ from group
  to group, society to society, or culture to
  culture.
• Problems with MR So whats wrong with moral
  relativism?
• True and False
• No correct answers
• Settling Disagreements..
• It is counterintuitive

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Ethics its three areas

• The Discipline of Ethics can be divided into
  three sub-disciplines, which together comprise it
  wholly.
• They are
• Normative Ethics
• Applied Ethics
• Meta-ethics

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Normative Ethics

• Normative Ethics
• This is second order ethics
• Here we aim to find the answer to the question
  What ought I do?
• Here we also aim to construct general guidelines
  for the making of a moral judgment.

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Applied Ethics

• Applied Ethics
• First order ethics
• Here we look to specific cases in which we must
  determine what the right action or the
  permissible action is.
• Here we make moral judgments.

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Meta-ethics

• Meta-ethics
• Third order ethics
• The study of the nature of moral judgments.

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Normative ethics

• Normative Ethics aims to provide a set of
  guidelines for making moral judgments.
• In this class we will look at three such sets of
  guidelines.
• They are
• Utilitarianism
• We will look at the theory of John Stuart Mill
• Deontology
• We will look at Immanuel Kants theory
• Virtue Theory
• We will look at the theory put forth by Aristotle