Approaches to Ethical Theory
Ethics has developed as people have reflected on the intentions and consequences of their acts. From this reflection on the nature of human behavior, theories of conscience conscience, sense of moral awareness or of right and wrong. The concept has been variously explained by moralists and philosophers. In the history of ethics , the conscience has been looked upon as the will of a divine power expressing itself in man's judgments, an
..... Click the link for more information. have developed, giving direction to much ethical thinking. Intuitionists (Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke), moral-sense theorists (the 3d earl of Shaftesbury Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of, 1671–1713, English philosopher. The philosopher John Locke , adviser to the 1st earl, his grandfather, was in charge of Shaftesbury's education, which
..... Click the link for more information. , Francis Hutcheson Hutcheson, Francis (hŭch`əsən), 1694–1746, British philosopher, b. Co. Down, Ireland. He was a professor at the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. ), and sentimentalists (J. J. Rousseau Rousseau, Jean Jacques (zhäN zhäk r
..... Click the link for more information. , Pierre-Simon Ballanche Ballanche, Pierre-Simon (pyĕr-sēmôN` bäläNsh`), 1776–1847, French philosopher.
..... Click the link for more information. ) postulated an innate moral sense, which serves as the ground of ethical decision. Empiricists (John Locke Locke, John (lŏk), 1632–1704, English philosopher, founder of British empiricism.
..... Click the link for more information. , Claude Helvétius Helvétius, Claude Adrien (hĕlvē`shəs, Fr.
..... Click the link for more information. , John Stuart Mill Mill, John Stuart, 1806–73, British philosopher and economist. A precocious child, he was educated privately by his father, James Mill. In 1823, abandoning the study of law, he became a clerk in the East India company, where he rose to become head of the
..... Click the link for more information. ) deny any such innate principle and consider conscience a power of discrimination acquired by experience. In the one case conscience is the originator of moral behavior, and in the other it is the result of moralizing. Between these extremes there have been many compromises.
The Nature of the Good
Another major difference in the approach to ethical problems revolves around the question of absolute good as opposed to relative good. Throughout the history of philosophy thinkers have sought an absolute criterion of ethics. Frequently moral codes have been based on religious absolutes. Immanuel Kant Kant, Immanuel (ĭmän`
..... Click the link for more information. , in his categorical imperative, attempted to establish an ethical criterion independent of theological considerations. Rationalists (Plato Plato (plā`tō), 427?–347 B.C., Greek philosopher.
..... Click the link for more information. , Baruch Spinoza Spinoza, Baruch or Benedict (spinō`zə)
..... Click the link for more information. , Josiah Royce Royce, Josiah, 1855–1916, American philosopher, b. California, grad. Univ. of California, 1873. After studying in Germany and at Johns Hopkins, he returned to California to teach (1878–82).
..... Click the link for more information. ) founded their ethics on a metaphysics.
All varying methods of building an ethical system pose the question of the degree to which morality is authoritative (i.e., imposed by a power outside the individual). If the criterion of morality is the welfare of the state (G. W. Hegel Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (gā`ôrkh vĭl`hĕlm frē`drĭkh hā`gəl)
..... Click the link for more information. ), the state is supreme arbiter. If the authority is a religion, then that religion is the ethical teacher. Hedonism hedonism (hē`dənĭz'əm) [Gr.,=pleasure], the doctrine that holds that pleasure is the highest good.
..... Click the link for more information. , which equates the good with pleasure in its various forms, finds its ethical criterion either in the good of the individual or the good of the group. An egoistic hedonism (Aristippus Aristippus (ărĭstĭp`əs), c.435–c.360 B.C., Greek philosopher of Cyrene, first of the Cyrenaics .
..... Click the link for more information. , Epicurus Epicurus (ĕpĭky
r`əs), 341–270 B.C., Greek philosopher, b.
..... Click the link for more information. , Julien de La Mettrie La Mettrie, Julien Offray de (zhülyăN` ôfrā` də lä mĕtrē`)
..... Click the link for more information. , Thomas Hobbes Hobbes, Thomas (hŏbz), 1588–1679, English philosopher, grad. Magdalen College, Oxford, 1608.
..... Click the link for more information. ) views the good of the individual as the ultimate consideration. A universalistic hedonism, such as utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham Bentham, Jeremy, 1748–1832, English philosopher, jurist, political theorist, and founder of utilitarianism . Educated at Oxford, he was trained as a lawyer and was admitted to the bar, but he never practiced; he devoted himself to the scientific analysis of
..... Click the link for more information. , James Mill Mill, James, 1773–1836, British philosopher, economist, and historian, b. Scotland; father of John Stuart Mill. Educated as a clergyman at Edinburgh through the patronage of Sir John Stuart, Mill gave up the ministry and went to London in 1802 to pursue a
..... Click the link for more information. ), finds the ethical criterion in the greatest good for the greatest number.
Twentieth-Century Ethical Thought
Among ethical theories debated in the first half of the 20th cent. were instrumentalism (John Dewey Dewey, John, 1859–1952, American philosopher and educator, b. Burlington, Vt., grad. Univ. of Vermont, 1879, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1884. He taught at the universities of Minnesota (1888–89), Michigan (1884–88, 1889–94), and Chicago
..... Click the link for more information. ), for which morality lies within the individual and is relative to the individual's experience; emotivism (Sir Alfred J. Ayer Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules (ā`ər, âr), 1910–89, British philosopher, b. London, grad. Oxford, 1932.
..... Click the link for more information. ), wherein ethical considerations are merely expressions of the subjective desires of the individual; and intuitionism (G. E. Moore Moore, George Edward, 1873–1958, English philosopher, b. Upper Norwood. He was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow (1898–1904) and then a lecturer (1911–25) in the department of moral sciences.
..... Click the link for more information. ), which postulates an immediate awareness of the morally good. Agreeing with Moore that the morally good is directly apprehended through intuition, deontological intuitionists (H. A. Prichard, W. D. Ross) went on to distinguish between good and right and to argue that moral obligations are intrinsically compelling whether or not their fulfillment results in some greater good.
Important ethical theories since the mid-20th cent. have included the prescriptivism of R. M. Hare, who has compared moral precepts to commands, a crucial difference between them being that moral precepts can be universally applied. In his arguments for virtue ethics, Alasdair C. MacIntyre MacIntyre, Alasdair C. (ăl`əstər măk`ĭntīr'), 1929–, American philosopher. He teaches at the Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. has cautioned against unbridled individualism and advocated correctives drawn from Aristotle's discussion of moral virtue as the mean between extremes. Thomas Nagel has held that, in moral decision making, reason supersedes desire, so that it becomes rational to choose altruism over a narrowly defined self-interest. See also bioethics bioethics, in philosophy, a branch of ethics concerned with issues surrounding health care and the biological sciences. These issues include the morality of abortion , euthanasia , in vitro fertilization , and organ transplants (see transplantation, medical ).
..... Click the link for more information. .
Bibliography
See H. Sidgwick, Outlines of the History of Ethics (1902); A. C. MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics (1965); M. Warnock, Ethics since 1900 (1979); W. D. Hudson, A Century of Moral Philosophy (1980); B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985); P. Singer, ed., Applied Ethics (1986).
ethics
Branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong. The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles. Ethics is traditionally subdivided into normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics. Normative ethics seeks to establish norms or standards of conduct; a crucial question in this field is whether actions are to be judged right or wrong based on their consequences or based on their conformity to some moral rule, such as “Do not tell a lie.” Theories that adopt the former basis of judgment are called consequentialist (see consequentialism); those that adopt the latter are known as deontological (see deontological ethics). Metaethics is concerned with the nature of ethical judgments and theories. Since the beginning of the 20th century, much work in metaethics has focused on the logical and semantic aspects of moral language. Some major metaethical theories are naturalism (see naturalistic fallacy), intuitionism, emotivism, and prescriptivism. Applied ethics, as the name implies, consists of the application of normative ethical theories to practical moral problems (e.g., abortion). Among the major fields of applied ethics are bioethics, business ethics, legal ethics, and medical ethics.
ethics
http://ethics.acusd.edu/
http://www.ethics.org/
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