TOK 12 Ethics Notes
“On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.”
George Orwell
“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.”
Manley Hall
“To avoid any evil, to seek the good, to keep the mind pure: this is the essence of the Buddha’s
teaching. “
Buddha, The Way of Practice
“If you travel with fraud you reach your destination, but are unable to return.”
(Ghanaian proverb)
“Ethics is concerned with moral values and with the making of moral judgements on the basis of
those values. Moral values and judgements concern good and evil, right and wrong, duty and
obligation.” (page 372)
John L Tomkinson The Enterprise of Knowledge
“Morality ... is not concerned with what people are actually like but with what they should be
like.” (page 372)
John L Tomkinson The Enterprise of Knowledge
Plato and the Ring of Gyges
This is one of Socrates’ “thought experiments” recorded by Plato. In The Republic, the story of
the Ring of Gyges is told by the character Glaucon, a student of Socrates’, who is disagreeing
with Socrates’ point that all men want to be moral because they recognize that justice and virtue
are desirable in themselves. Here’s Glaucon’s story:
 Gyges was a shepherd of the king’s flock who was minding his own business tending his
sheep when a great earthquake opened up a hole in the earth in front of him.
 Like all great heroes, Gyges descended into the hole and found a hollow bronze horse
with doors. Inside the doors, there was a dead body with a gold ring on its finger; Gyges
took the ring and wore it to the next meeting of the shepherds.
 As he sat among his friends, he started to fiddle with the ring and realized when he turned
it backwards, he became invisible to the shepherds around him.
 It so happened that someone from the shepherds had to go the king’s court to make a
report so Gyges, seeing an opportunity to exploit his invisibility, volunteered to go.
 To make a long story short, he seduced the queen, killed the king and stole the crown
 Glaucon says this is an example of what all men would do if they could get away with it.
 In fact, Glaucon said anyone with such a ring would be a fool not to do what Gyges did.
 So Glaucon concluded that “man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is
any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever anyone thinks he can safely
be unjust, there he is unjust.”
(Plato, The Republic Book II)
Theories of Ethics: Religion, Duty Ethics/Universal Law, Ethical Egoism,
Altruism and Utilitarianism
What principles guide the way people behave? (source: van de Langemaat Chapter 12)
Religion:
 “the world’s great religions have been, and continue to be, important sources of moral
insight and guidance to millions of people” (page 376)
 But since all religions do not agree, we still have to decide which religious texts to follow
(if any) and which to reject
 Should we follow sacred writing to the letter (“the idolatry of literalism”) or the spirit
rather than the letter of the moral code? What forces can affect interpretation of text?
 Plato said that religion can’t be the base of our ethics because of this dilemma: “Is
something good because God says it is good (so the definition of “good” depends on
what God decrees?) or does God say that it is good because it is good (independently of
God)?” Would murder be good if God decided it was? Or are there values outside of
God that already exist? Plato said we already have values to use to decide whether or not
to accept or reject religious dogma. So religion as a source of ethics doesn’t make sense.
 And atheists won’t accept ethics based on religion anyway so we get stuck quickly.
Duty Ethics/Universal Law Theory:
 For some “ethics is fundamentally a matter of doing your duty and fulfilling your
obligations” (page 378). But how do we define what our “duties” are?
 Immanuel Kant is the grandfather of duty ethics: he said you should ask yourself what the
world would be like if everyone did (a specific action – fill in the blank).
 Kant called this the “categorical imperative”, the supreme principle of morality.
 We should act in a way that our actions could become a universal rule of humanity.
 Kant believed in a “dual conception of ourselves as not only me but also one among
others.” This is the basic philosophy behind the golden rule: do unto others as you
would be done by (a fundamental principle of all the world’s great religions).
 For Kant, actions are defined as “ethical” based on their intent rather than their
consequences. And truly moral action is based on reason rather than emotion.
Ethical Egoism/Self Interest Theory vs. Altruism:
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An “ethical egoist” is guided by his/her own self-interest/long term happiness
Plato said that egoism is not an excuse to behave badly: immoral activity will not lead to
long term happiness but to guilt, anxiety, fear of punishment.
Aristotle was a famous egoist: he thought people take pleasure in being virtuous so it is in
our own self interest to behave morally. It makes us happy.
Thomas Hobbes was an egoist: he said all human acts are motivated by self interest.
An “altruist” is someone who sacrifices his/her own interests for those of others; but,
psychologists doubt the existence of truly altruistic behaviour.
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If a believer in a particular political or religious dogma sacrifices his/her life as a martyr,
can we determine his/her motives?
Is it possible to be egoistic in our altruism?
This ethical theory is based on the motives behind an action rather than its consequence.
Utilitarianism:
 A “utilitarian” seeks the greatest good for the greatest number of people (in both the short
and long term). Your happiness is only one among many.
 J.S. Mill is the grandfather of utilitarianism: he tried to follow Newton’s example of
explaining natural phenomena using the principle of gravity by focusing on the principle
of utility (or benefit). So ethical action is determined by its outcome or consequence.
 The only thing that is good is happiness (“the sum of pleasures”). A happy life maximizes
happiness and minimizes pain.
 “actions are right in so far as they increase happiness and wrong is so far as they tend to
decrease it.” (page 385) so ethics becomes almost mathematical.
 The problem is “how do we measure happiness?”
 And how can we predict the consequences of our actions?
Exercise:
Jim finds himself in the central square if a small South American town. Tied up against the wall
are a row of Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform.
A heavy man in a sweat stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge, and after a good
deal of questioning of Jim which establishes he got there by accident while on a botanical
expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group, who after recent acts of protest against
the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protesters of the advantages
of not protesting. However, since Jim is an honoured visitor from another land, the captain is
happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then,
as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, then
there is no special occasion and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived
and kill them all. Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if
he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain, Pedro and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it
is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of that kind is going to work: any attempt at that sort of
thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed and himself. The men against the wall, and the
other villagers, understand the situation, and are obviously begging him to accept. What should
he do?
Excerpt from A Critique of Utilitarianism in
Michael Woolman, Ways of Knowing
How might Jim respond to this scenario if he were coming from:
a) A religious point of view?
b) A duty ethics point of view?
c) An egoistic point of view?
d) An altruistic point of view?
e) A utilitarian point of view?