Transcript The Terrain of Ethics

THE TERRAIN
OF
ETHICS
“What’s Ethics All
About?”
PHILOSOPHY
“Love of wisdom”
• Pondering …
• Wondering …
• Reflecting …
• Questioning …
• Reasoning …
• Speculating ...
ABOUT
LIFE
“Philosophy is everybody’s
business. The human being is
endowed with the proclivity to
philosophize.”
Mortimer Adler
20th Century philosopher
PHILOSOPHY
• Ontology (A subset of
“metaphysics”—the science
of being itself)
“What (Who) Am I?”
• Epistemology
“What (How) Can I Know?”
• Ethics/Moral Philosophy
“What Should I Do?”
ETHICS (Moral Philosophy) is the
branch of the discipline of philosophy
that studies morality. It is the
“science” of the moral. (Where the
word science in its original sense
means “knowledge.”)
MORALITY is that domain of
understanding that relates us to our
world, and to other humans in our
world. Moral behaviors are those
actions that can be evaluated as good or
right using reasoned, objective criteria.
*The distinction is between the object
of study and the study itself.
WHAT ETHICS
IS NOT . . .
• It is not a set of prohibitions
particularly concerned with sex.
• It is not an ideal system that is
noble in theory but no good in
practice.
• It is not something intelligible
only in the context of religion;
in fact, we will treat ethics
entirely independent of religion.
• It is not something that is
subjective.
WHAT ETHICS IS . . .
• It is about defining and pursuing the
“good life.”
• It is about relating to others in a
manner that allows them to define
and pursue their “good life.”
• It is about “blunting self-interest.”
• It is about reflecting rationally and
impartially about behaviors, and
their consequences for good or evil.
• It is about the “rules of cooperation”
among human beings.
TWO MAJOR
QUESTIONS OF
ETHICS
• What is the good life?
that is
What should I value?
“ETHICS OF ASPIRATION”
• What is right?
that is
What duty do I have to others?
“ETHICS OF OBLIGATION”
Ethics Is Reflection On
the Ultimate Good ...
the “Summum Bonum”
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Good and Badness
Rightness and Wrongness
Virtue and Vice
Approval and Disapproval
Oughts and Ought Nots
Ends and Means
Judgments of Value and
Judgments of Obligation
• Goals of Living and Methods of
Achieving Those Goals.
“We are discussing no
small matter, but how we
ought to live.”
Socrates
in Plato’s Republic
390 B.C.
“We are all moralists
perpetually, geometers (or
public health professionals)
only by chance.”
Samuel Johnson
English lexiographer
1709-1784
Our Moral Obligation
“To be what one is potentially …
A person in a community of
persons.”
Paul Tillich
German-American
theologian/philosopher
LAW
The Societal Institution of
Binding Rules Of Conduct,
With Enforcement By That
Authority.
Law Is Public Consensus
And Not Infrequently A
Temporary One.
Justice
(Ethics)
Rules
(Morality)
Laws
(Government)
“A society without any law is
terrible. But, a society with no
ethics, other than the law is
terrible too. It paralyzes man’s
noblest ambition.”
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn
Russian dissident and author
Law is the floor, not the
ceiling for human
conduct.
“Ethics is HIGHER
than the law, but not
ABOVE the law.”
RELIGION
Literally, a binding together
or reuniting.
Religion is a means of
overcoming the
estrangement or separation
man feels from Nature or
God
PHILOSOPHY
• Structure of Being
• “What It Means to Be”
• Man’s Quest to Understand
Existence
RELIGION
• Structure of Meaning
• “What Being Means”
• Man’s Quest for Meaning in
Existence
“Is conduct right
because the gods
command it, or do the
gods command it
because it is right?”
Socrates
Plato’s Euthyphro
1.God commands us to do what is
right, then:
a) The actions are right
because God commands them
or
b) God commands them
because they are right.
2.If a) then, from moral
perspective, God’s commands
are arbitrary and the doctrine of
goodness of God meaningless.
3.If b) then, admit standard of
right and wrong independent of
God.
4.From religious point of view,
undesirable to regard God’s
commands as arbitrary, or to
give up in goodness of God.
5.THEREFORE, even from
religious perspective, a standard
of right and wrong independent
of God must be accepted.
Theory of Natural Moral Law
Thomas Acquinas
Christian Scriptures
“It is not by having the law but
by doing it that one will be
justified (judged) before God.
When Gentiles who do not
possess the law carry out its
precepts by the light of nature,
then, although they have no law,
they use their own law, for they
display the effect of the law
inscribed on their hearts.”
Romans 2:13,14,15
HIERARCHY OF ETHICAL VIEWS
INDIVIDUAL
FAMILY
CULTURE
NATIONALITY
RELIGION
HOMO SAPIENS
CONTEMPORARY
INTEREST IN
ETHICS
TRANSITIONS
• A TRANSITION driven by
technology and information.
• A TRANSITION from an industrial
society to an information one.
• A TRANSITION from a society
rooted in a Judeo-Christian ethic to
a more humanistic and pluralistic
one.
• A TRANSITION from the rural to
the urban.
• A TRANSITION from dependency
to autonomy.
• A TRANSITION from a national
economy to a world one.
TRANSITIONS
(continued)
• A TRANSITION from an intense
nationalism to a “global village.”
• A TRANSITION from a younger
society to an older one.
• A TRANSITION from a maledominated society to a more
gender-balanced one.
• A TRANSITION from
discrimination to egalitarianism.
SOCIETAL ISSUES
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Role of Government
Capital Punishment
Evolution/Creationism
Hand Guns and Assault Weapons
Equal Rights Amendment
Social Security Benefits
Legalization of Drugs
Widening Income Disparities
Homelessness
Abortion
Integrity of Public Officials
BIOMEDICAL ISSUES
PAST AND PRESENT
• Defining Death
• Foregoing/
Withdrawing
Treatment
• Permanently
Unconscious
Patients
• Withholding
Food and Fluids
• In Vitro
Fertilization
• Surrogate
Parenting
• Fetal Tissue
Research
• Euthanasia,
Active and
Passive
• Cloning
• Abortion
• Genetic
Engineering
• PhysicianAssisted Suicide
• Organ
Transplantation
• Do Not
Resuscitate
Orders
• Informed
Consent
• Access to Care/
Indigent Care
• Allocation of
Scarce Resources
QUESTIONS OF
VALUES
• What is important?
• What matters?
• What endures?
• What is meaningful?
• What is worthwhile?
• What is good?
• What is right?
AND . . .
This is what ethics is all
about!