Importance of Studying Ethics

Ethics is a central component of any happy, healthy, and mature life. But some critics still question the
value of studying ethics and living an ethical life. After all, if you ignore ethics, you can just focus on
yourself, right? Not so fast. Some great reasons to resist those critics include the following:

Ethics allows you to live an authentic life. An authentic and meaningful life requires you to live
with a sense of integrity. Integrity is making commitments and sticking to them through thick
and thin no matter how much violating them may benefit you. Having a firm character or set
of principles to guide your life and the choices you make is what ethics is all about.

Ethics makes you more successful. You may think that ethics can hold you back in all kinds of
ways, but the truth is the opposite. Ethical people embody traits that unethical people have to
work at to fake theyre honest, trustworthy, loyal, and caring. As a result, ethical people are
perfectly suited not only for interpersonal relationships generally, but also more specifically for
the kinds of interactions that make for thriving business. Unethical people generally dont do so
well at these things.

Ethics allows you to cultivate inner peace. Lives that are lived ethically tend to be calmer, more
focused, and more productive than those that are lived unethically. Most people cant turn off
their sympathy for other human beings. Hurting people leaves scars on both the giver and the
receiver. As a result, unethical people have stormier internal lives because they have to work to
suppress their consciences and sympathies to deal with the ways they treat others. When they
fail to properly suppress their sympathies, the guilt and shame that comes with harming or
disrespecting ones fellow human beings takes deep root within them.

Ethics provides for a stable society. When people live ethical lives, they tell the truth, avoid
harming others, and are generous. Working with such people is easy. On the other hand, callous
and insensitive people are distrusted, so its difficult for them to be integrated well into social
arrangements. A stable society requires a lot of ethical people working together in highly
coordinated ways. If society were mostly composed of unethical people, it would quickly
crumble.

Ethics may help out in the afterlife. Some religious traditions believe ethics is the key to
something even greater than personal success and social stability: eternal life. No one can be
sure about an eternal life, but people of faith from many different religions believe that good
behavior in this life leads to rewards in the next life.

Ethics is a term. Many people think ethics has to do with a set of social conventions or a
religious decree. In professional philosophy we do not typically consider this to be the definition
of ethics. Philosophical ethics could be called the study of what is good and bad. Generally,
philosophical ethics concerns itself with discovering a system one may use to determine who or
what is good, or with evaluating systems that others have proposed.
The pursuit of moral knowledge dates back to Ancient Greek philosophers, but it is mostly the
influence of Enlightenment moral thought that continues to shape ethics today. There are many
well-known figures in the history of ethics, including the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle,

but some of the most important modern influences include such people as Immanuel Kant,
Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, D.W. Ross, C.L. Stevenson, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John
Rawls.
In ethics, a premium is placed upon defining "the good". Different approaches to defining the
good, the nature of moral properties, the source of moral knowledge, and the status of moral
facts have played an important role in shaping various branches of moral theory. The three major
divisions of ethical philosophy may be called Virtue Ethics, Deontology, and Consequentialism.
Ethical mandates from society and church do not qualify as genuine philosophical ethics.
This last statement causes concern in that it reeks of negative presuppositions. First of all, ethical
mandates ALWAYS have ethical undertones. It is inescapable. An ethical mandate may not fit
certain schools of thought, but then certain schools of thought can be erroneous. All ethics are
religious by nature, if one defines religion as an attempt to discover the good. Ethics stem from
the question "What is right?" Whoever decides the answer to that question is a law maker. Laws
are always expressions of religious thought be they theonomic or autonomous.
Ethics is the philosophical attempt to answer Socrates' question of how one should live. This is a
very general question, which could for any individual translate to "How should I live?" It is
important however to note that not all answers to this question are answers of the ethical type.
One could conclude that one should live a self-indulgent life without any kind of logical
contradiction. Moral philosophers study this idea, known as egoism, as well, and the question
"Why be moral?" is because of this distinct from Socrates' question.
It is also important to note that Socrates' question not only allows for non-ethical answers but
also answers from different ethical theories. His question is not the same as Kant's question
"What is my duty?" or the egoist/utilitarian question of "How can we be happy?" There are many
different ways of answering Socrates' question, and answers from the Categorical Imperative to
the imperative "Sit on the couch and watch television" are equally answers to it, but Ethics
attempts to find through reason the best answer to the question.
Ethics, often called Morality interchangeably, tries to answer "How should one live?" given that
we already live in a society. Everyone is born with a place in society even if it is only "Stranger,"
and accordingly everyone has expectations for action placed upon them. One is expected to act a
certain way as a brother, a friend, and a passer-by. Ethics primarily concerns itself with this
realm of individual action. For the most part, ethical theories attempt to develop a system of
obligations that we have towards others. Obligations that are common among different theories
are the obligation to tell the truth, the obligation to help those in distress, and the obligation not
to murder. Of course, most of the theories allow for flexibility based on the situation such as the
ability to help in this circumstance and whether one has any other, higher obligations.
The ethical theories of the past have been of many types. Aristotle proposed a theory of virtue, a
notion that was already a part of Greek culture. He espoused the view that the good man is one
who lives in a way as to allow him to move towards the goal of man-as-such, the telos, and the
way to reach the telos is to live a life of virtue.

Another prominent theory has been consequentialism. This theory includes John Stuart Mills
utilitarianism, and its focus is, from its name, on the consequences of ones actions. General
consequentialism will say we have obligations to help people because helping people produces a
better result than not helping people. Utilitarianism goes beyond this to mathematize ethics. It
quantifies the utility, which it defines as happiness or pleasure, a given action will produce
and weighs that number against the amount of utility produced by another action. Whichever
action produces the most utility is the one that is obligated.
A third common ethical theory is deontology, and its main supporter has been Kant. Deontology
is the study of obligations in a very narrow sense. It attempts to divine from reason alone the
obligations every man holds simply because he is a rational being. Kant first argues for what he
calls the Categorical Imperative, and from that it is possible to derive other universal maxims,
which follow the formula When in situation X, do Y. Kant has two formulations of his
Categorical Imperative. The first is Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the
same time will that it should become a universal law. The second, which Kant claims carries the
same meaning, is "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own
person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an
end."
When considering ethics, it is also important to note that the Enlightenment project of justifying
morality is judged by some prominent contemporary moral philosophers to have been a failure.
These contemporary philosophers take it to be that morality cannot be grounded in reason alone.
Three important alternatives are the philosophies of Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, and
Bernard Williams. MacIntyre advocates a return to the Aristotelian tradition of living out the
virtues in reference to the telos, or goal, of man. Rorty is a pragmatist and argues that the
question we must ask of every moral obligation is Is this useful? He would argue that treating
strangers with distrust and keeping promises are good moral principles because they are
primarily useful for building a better society. Finally, Williams critiques ethical theory on the
whole and the notion of obligation. He also asks why ethics is taken to be a better answer to
Socrates question than non-ethical answers.
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that seeks to determine how one ought to act in a particular situation.
That is to say, if focuses on how one might be able to determine right or good action in any given
situation.
Different schools of ethical thought arise from different areas. Religion often plays a central role in
ethics. The ethics of most people come directly from their religious upbringing, or lack thereof. Many
people believe that the best forms are at the very least derived from religion, if not identical to the
teachings of the religion they subscribe to.
People also derive codes of ethics from several other sources, among them being personal values,
personal gain, and what things harm other people. There are many philosophical schools of ethics. Some
meta-ethicists deny the objectivity of right and wrong, but more rational schools of thought generally
prevail.
In legal terminology, ethics means relating to moral action and conduct; professionally right; conforming
to professional standards.

Divisions of ethics
As a branch of philosophy, ethics has three main subdivisions:

meta-ethics asks questions such as: what do ethical statements mean? In what ways are they
the same as, and in what way do they differ from, non-ethical statements? Do ethical
statements have objective truth, or are they merely subjective expressions of opinion or
emotion? Are ethical statements ultimately reducible to non-ethical statements? How can we
know what is ethical and what is not?

normative ethics asks what are the basic principles of right or wrong: is morality fundamentally
about the consequences of our actions, the inherent nature of the acts we perform, or our
character as actors?

applied ethics seeks to apply ethical principles to concrete social issues, such as abortion,
euthanasia, human sexuality, animal welfare, the environment, poverty, etc. Applied ethics
inevitably depends on the positions one adopts in the areas of normative ethics and meta-ethics

Meta-ethics
Some of the major positions in meta-ethics include:

moral subjectivism rejects the idea that ethical statements are objectively true or false. The
most basic version is naive subjectivism, in which 'good' is defined as 'what I approve of'. More
advanced versions, such as emotivism, do not see that as a proper definition of good as such,
but nonetheless see ethical language as having the sole function of expressing one's own
feelings about issues, and encouraging similar feelings in others

moral naturalism believes ethical properties can be identified with non-ethical properties. For
example, the word 'good' might be defined as 'whatever causes the greatest happiness to the
greatest number of people'. Precisely how a moral naturalist defines good will depend on which
particular theory of normative ethics they adopt.

moral non-naturalists deny that ethical properties can be identified with non-ethical properties.
Although it may well be true that whatever causes the greatest happiness to the greatest
number of people is good, that itself cannot be a definition of good. G.E. Moore is the most
well-known advocate for this position - he believed that, since "Is whatever causes the greatest
happiness to the greatest number of people always good?" appears to be a valid question, that
cannot be a simple definition of what good is, even if the answer is 'Yes'. He compared it with
questions such as 'Are all bachelors unmarried?' and 'Are all the barbers in the village bald?'.
Although the answer in both cases could be 'Yes', clearly in the first case the answer has to be
'Yes', whereas in the second case it doesn't have to be, even if it actually is. He saw questions
about morals as being like the second rather than the first question ("open" rather than "closed"
questions), and hence he concluded the property of being good could never be simply defined.
This argument of his is known as the open question argument. He saw 'good' as being like
'yellow' - we cannot give a precise definition of it, but we can indicate what it is by giving
examples.

moral sense theory believes that all human beings have an inner sense, like the external senses
of vision or hearing, by which one can directly and immediately ascertain the truth or falsehood
of moral propositions - although, just as some people have better vision or hearing than others,
this sense may be more accurate for some people than for others

divine command theory believes that the good is simply whatever God commands; if God had
commanded murder instead, then murder would have been good. The problem with this view,
is that if 'good' is simply whatever God commands, then to call God himself 'good' is an empty
statement (of course God obeys his own commandments).

divine nature theory sees 'good' as being part of God's perfect and eternal divine nature, which
is unchangeable - God could never command murder, since to do so would violate His own
nature. This avoids the problem of divine command theory mentioned above.

Conservatives generally prefer meta-ethical theories which see ethics as being objective in nature,
especially those theories which see ethics as being based on God - thus divine nature theory, divine
command theory, moral sense theory or moral non-naturalism.
Many liberals adopt a position of moral subjectivism - ethics is just a subjective personal expression of
like or dislike, and there are no universally applicable moral values.
Normative ethics
Some of the major positions in normative ethics include:

consequentialism, which calls an act good if it produces good consequences. The most famous
version is utilitarianism, which believes that the good is whatever leads to the greatest
happiness for the greatest number of people. Some versions of utilitarianism are purely
hedonistic, seeking whatever will cause the most pleasure; others are more discerning, as
exemplified by John Stuart Mill's famous words "Better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a pig
satisfied". Other versions include:
o

preference utilitarianism seeks to fulfill as many people's desires as possible, and treats
everyone's desires equally

act utilitarianism judges each act individually for whether it has the best consequences

rule utilitarianism seeks to establish rules of general application in order to maximize

the consequences overall, and then judge individual acts for conformance to those
rules, even if in some individual circumstances the results are worse for obeying the rule
than they would have been had the rule been violated

deontology believes that certain acts are wrong in themselves, regardless of how much good it
may result. This is particularly associated with Catholic and pro-life thinkers - certain acts, such
as taking innocent human life, are wrong, irrespective of how good the consequences might be.
This also describes the viewpoint of many libertarians, followers of Ayn Rand, anarchocapitalists, etc. - they see violating private property rights as always wrong, no matter how good
for society the consequences might be.

virtue ethics focuses, not on our acts, but on our character. It analyses character into positive
traits (virtues) and negative traits (vices). A person with a good character will inevitably do good
acts; a person with a bad character will inevitably do bad ones.

Liberals tend to favor consequentialism, while Conservatives tend to favor the deontology or virtue
ethics approaches.
Applied ethics
Positions in applied ethics inevitably follow from those one adopts in meta-ethics and normative ethics.
For example, if someone believes that 'good' is simply an expression of what people like or dislike, their
positions on issues such as abortion will inevitably reflect their own personal feelings. Whereas, if they
believe that 'good' means obedience to divine commands, they will seek to discover what are God's
commands before answering this question.
Similarly, if someone is a utilitarian, their ethical judgement will be driven by whatever they think causes
the most pleasure or happiness for the most people. They may well conclude that sexual freedom
causes the most pleasure or happiness, and thus adopt liberty as their basic sexual ethic. Whereas, if
someone is a deontologist, they may hold that certain sexual acts are wrong, regardless of how much
happiness or pleasure results, and thus adopt a sexual ethic which rejects those acts unconditionally.
Applied ethics is an enormously broad field. The following is a necessarily incomplete list of some of the
issues it seeks to address:

human sexuality - what is the moral status of homosexuality? adultery? polygamy?

pornography? contraception? etc.

family issues - what is the best way to raise children? what is the proper role of parents v.s. the
Nanny state or the wider community?

life issues - is abortion morally permissible? what about euthanasia?

the morality of biotechnology - are genetic modification, cloning, stem cells, IVF, artifical
insemination & surrogacy moral?

economic issues - what is the most ethical economic system, capitalism or socialism?

criminal justice issues - is capital punishment morally permissible? torture? should crime be
punished, and if so how? what are the rights of the accused or convicted, and how to balance
them with the rights of victims or society?

environmental issues - what are our ethical obligations to the environment? how do we balance
those obligations against the needs of economic development?

animal welfare and animal rights - is it moral to kill animals for food or clothing? to kill or injure
them for scientific research?

racial equality issues - what are our ethical obligations with respect to racial inequality? what is
more important - freedom of speech, or preventing the spread of racial hatred?

does ethics demand a particular political system (such as democracy?) when is government
interference in personal freedom morally permissible, and when is it morally prohibited?

ethics of warfare - when is war morally permissible? are particular weapons or tactics (such as
use of nuclear weapons) moral?