Moral Philosophy (Ethics)
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• What was the topic in last class?
• Write 2 questions from that.
• The words "moral" and "ethics" (and
cognates) are often used interchangeably.
However, it is useful to make the following
distinction:
– Morality is the system through which we
determine right and wrong conduct -- i.e., the
guide to good or right conduct.
– Ethics is the philosophical study of Morality
– ethics deals with the justification of moral
principles
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• When did ethics begin and how did it originate?
• i.e., the systematic study of what is morally right
and wrong—
“when human beings started to reflect on the best
way to live.”
This reflective stage emerged long after human
societies had developed some kind of morality,
usually in the form of customary standards of right
and wrong conduct.
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• Plato-“there must be some standards of right or wrong
that are independent of the likes and dislikes of the
gods.”
• Modern philosophers have generally accepted Plato’s
argument,
• Indian ethics was philosophical from the start
• the Vedas, ethics is an integral aspect of philosophical
and religious speculation about the nature of reality.
• Vedas are from 1500 to 1200 BCE. They have been
described as the oldest philosophical literature in the
world,
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• Research in psychology and the neurosciences has thrown
light on the role of specific parts of the brain in moral
judgment and behaviour, suggesting that emotions are
strongly involved in moral judgments, particularly those
that are formed rapidly and intuitively.
• “These emotions could be the result of social and cultural
influences, or they could have a biological basis in the
evolutionary history of the human species”
• people sometimes use reasoning processes to reach moral
judgments
• Even though So much diversity in society “concern for kin
and reciprocity are considered good in virtually all human
societies” are universal.
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What is Moral Philosophy?
• Moral Philosophy is the rational study of the meaning and
justification of moral claims. A moral claim evaluates the
rightness or wrongness of an action or a person’s character.
For example, “Lying is wrong” claims the act of lying is wrong,
while “One shouldn’t be lazy” claims a character trait (i.e.,
laziness) is wrong
• Moral philosophy is usually divided into three distinct subject
areas:
– Metaethics
– Normative ethics
– Applied ethics
• The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves
systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of
right and wrong behavior
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What is Metaethics?
• Metaethics examines the nature of moral claims
and arguments. This partly involves attempting to
determine if moral claims have clear essential
meanings (i.e., they avoid vagueness and
ambiguity). But it also attempts to answer
questions such as:
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Are moral claims expressions of individual emotions?
Are moral claims social inventions?
Are moral claims divine commands?
Can one justify moral claims?
How does one justify them?
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What is Normative Ethics?
• Normative ethics examines moral standards that
attempt to define right and wrong conduct
• Historically, this has involved examining good and
bad habits, duties, or an action’s consequences.
• Normative ethics has focused on the prospect of
a single moral standard defining right and wrong
conduct; but it has become more common for
philosophers to propose a moral pluralism with
multiple moral standards
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What is Applied Ethics?
• Applied ethics examines specific moral issues.
For example, one is doing applied ethics when
one addresses the morality of abortion,
euthanasia, capital punishment,
environmental concerns, or homosexuality
etc.
• By using the conceptual tools of metaethics
and normative ethics, discussions in applied
ethics try to resolve these issues.
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Doing Moral Philosophy
• While metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are
distinct subjects, these subjects are interdependent. For
example, how one pursues normative ethics will be greatly
affected by one’s metaethical assumptions. If one assumes,
for example, that moral claims are divine commands, then
one’s normative positions will be determined by identifying
divine commands
• Similarly, how one pursues applied ethics will be greatly
affected by one’s normative assumptions. If one assumes that
one always should pursue those actions which lead to the
best consequences, then one’s position on, for example,
capital punishment, abortion, and terrorism will be
determined by identifying which action(s) will lead to the best
consequences
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• There are two distinct forms of moral relativism
• The first is individual relativism, which holds that
individual people create their own moral standards.
Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, argued that the
superhuman creates his or her morality distinct from
and in reaction to the slave-like value system of the
masses
• The second is cultural relativism which maintains
that morality is grounded in the approval of one’s
society – and not simply in the preferences of
individual people. This view was advocated by
Sextus, and in more recent centuries by Michel
Montaigne and William Graham Sumner
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• There is no absolute and universal nature of morality,
moral values in fact change from society to society
throughout time and throughout the world.
• “Why be moral?”
• Even if I am aware of basic moral standards, such as don’t
kill and don’t steal, this does not necessarily mean that I
will be psychologically compelled to act on them
• Some answers are to avoid punishment, to gain praise, to
attain happiness, to be dignified, or to fit in with society.
• The Golden Rule is a classic example of a normative
principle: We should do to others what we would want
others to do to us
• Is the Golden Rule applicable to Research and Publication?
How? Discuss
Applied Ethics
• Applied ethics is the branch of ethics which
consists of the analysis of specific, controversial
moral issues such as abortion, animal rights, or
euthanasia
• In recent years applied ethical issues have been
subdivided into convenient groups such as
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Medical ethics
Business ethics
Environmental ethics
Sexual ethics
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For Applied ethics
• First, the issue needs to be controversial in
the sense that there are significant groups of
people both for and against the issue at hand
Shooting/Gun control
• it must be a distinctly moral issue-make a
given society run efficiently by devising
conventions, such as traffic laws, tax laws, and
zoning codes.
The following principles are the ones most commonly appealed to
in applied ethical discussions:
• Personal benefit: acknowledge the extent to which an action
produces beneficial consequences for the individual in question.
• Social benefit: acknowledge the extent to which an action
produces beneficial consequences for society.
• Principle of benevolence: help those in need.
• Principle of paternalism: assist others in pursuing their best
interests when they cannot do so themselves.
• Principle of harm: do not harm others.
• Principle of honesty: do not deceive others.
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• Principle of lawfulness: do not violate the law.
• Principle of autonomy: acknowledge a person’s
freedom over his/her actions or physical body.
• Principle of justice: acknowledge a person’s right to
due process, fair compensation forharm done, and
fair distribution of benefits.
• Rights: acknowledge a person’s rights to life,
information, privacy, free expression, and safety.
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Euthanasia ?
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Favour
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• against
Abortion, euthanasia, and the value of human life
• Ethical questions - concerned with the endpoints of the human
life span
– abortion
– use of human embryos as sources of stem cells
– Euthanasia
Non-voluntary, as in the case of severely disabled new born infants
Voluntary euthanasia, free, informed choices of its citizens in matters
that do not cause harm to others.
• When human life begins?
– scientific fact that human life begins at conception or at some other
time
• British philosopher Jonathan Glover in Causing Death and
Saving Lives (1977) -not only the embryo and the fetus but even
the new born infant has no right to life.
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Bioethics
• Ethical issues raised by abortion and euthanasia are part
of the subject matter of bioethics,
• new developments in medicine and the biological
sciences
• Governments sought guidance in setting public policy in
particularly controversial areas of bioethics
• whether the quality of a human life can be a reason for
ending it or for deciding not to take steps to prolong it?
• United States in 1982 when a doctor agreed to follow the
wishes of the parents of an infant with Down
syndrome by not carrying out the surgery necessary to
save the baby’s life. The doctor’s decision was upheld by
the Supreme Court of Indiana, and the baby died
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Clinical trials
• patient autonomy- human experimentation
• generally agreed that patients must give
informed consent to any experimental
procedures performed on them. But how
much information should they be given?
• When experiments were carried out using
human subjects in developing countries, the
difficulties and the potential for unethical
practices become greater still.
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in vitro fertilization
• advances in biology and medicine gave rise to new
issues in bioethics,
• In 1978 the birth of the first human being to be
conceived outside a human body initiated a debate
about the morality of in vitro fertilization.
• This soon led to questions about the freezing of
human embryos and about what should be done with
them if the parents die.
• practice of surrogate motherhood,
• successful cloning (late nineties)
• many legislatures hastened to prohibit the
reproductive cloning of human beings
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Genetic engineering
• mastery of genetic engineering.
• Already in the late 20th century, some couples
in the United States paid substantial sums for
eggs from women with outstanding test
scores at elite colleges.
• Prenatal testing for genetic defects
• genetic testing of embryos- for robust health,
desirable personality traits, attractive physical
characteristics, or intellectual abilities
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