ETHICS
Why do we need Ethics?
Euthanasia
Abortion
War
Why
Ethics?
Human
Rights
Business
Ethics
Genetic
Engineering
Punishment
Key Words
 Ethics
= ethos ‘character’
 Morality = moralis ‘customs’ or ‘manners’
Two parts of Ethics:
– ‘Ethical Theory’ = Methods for making
moral decisions
– ‘Applied Ethics’ = Debates about specific
dilemmas
3 Ways of ‘Doing’ Ethics
 Normative
– Asks whether actions are right or wrong
 Descriptive
– Describes and compares different ethical
practices
 Meta-ethics
– Study of meaning of ethical language
Normative Ethics
 Teleological
ethics
– Telos = end. Determine whether an action is
right or wrong depending on the
consequence or end result. Consequentialist.
 Examples:
Utilitarianism; Situation Ethics
 Deontological
ethics
– Actions are intrinsically right or wrong due
to an absolute law. Outcome is not
important, even if it is good.
 Examples:
Kantian ethics; Natural Moral Law
To Kill or not to Kill?


During the 2nd World
War, a man called Adolf
Hitler is going to be the
force behind the
extermination of 9
million civilians
If it were possible to go
back in time, would it be
right to kill Adolf Hitler
before he committed
the atrocities?
G.E. Moore
You can give a definition of a horse because a horse has
many different properties and qualities, all of which
you can enumerate. But when you have enumerated
them all, when you have reduced a horse to its
simplest terms, then you can no longer define these
terms…
‘Good’, then, if we mean by it that quality which we
assert to belong to a thing… is incapable of
definition… ‘good’ has no definition because it is
simple and has no parts. It is one of those
innumerable objects of thought which are themselves
incapable of definition, because they are the ultimate
terms of reference by which whatever is capable of
definition must be defined… There is no intrinsic
difficulty in the contention that ‘good’ denotes a
simple and indefinable quality
(Principia Ethica, p.7)
Absolutism and Relativism
 Absolutism
= something that applies to
everyone all of the time.
– Ethical absolute = moral command that is
true for everyone, all the time in all
situations.
– What is right or wrong cannot change.
There are no special circumstances.
– Objective point of view, not from a
personal viewpoint.
– UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Absolutism and Relativism
 Relativism
= Subjective. There is no
objective truth or if there is, it cannot
be found.
– What is right in one situation might be
considered wrong in another.
– Cultural Relativism = moral rules are
expressions of culture.
 When
in Rome, do as the Romans do!
– Changes in from the past to present
 What
was considered acceptable 100 years ago
is not necessarily acceptable today.
Some Problems
 Relativism
– Different value systems, so there can’t be
one moral truth.
 Which
do we follow?
 Can’t condemn practices that are accepted by
society.
 Absolutism
– Cannot take circumstances into account.
 Intolerant
of cultural diversity.
 No room for manoeuvre.
Strengths and Weaknesses of
Relativism and Absolutism
RELATIVISM
+
-
ABSOLUTISM
Natural Moral Law
Absolute
Deontological
Theory
Cicero
 Cicero
in On the Republic describes
natural law as follows:
– True law is right reason in agreement with
nature. It is applied universally and is
unchanging and everlasting… there will be
no different laws in Rome and in Athens, or
different laws now and in the future, but
one eternal and unchangeable law will be
valid for all nations and all times, and there
will be one master and ruler, that is God…
Aristotle

Laws may vary from place to place, but natural
justice is independent and applies to everyone
no matter where they are / where they live
– The natural is that which everywhere is equally
valid, and depends not upon being or not being
received… that which is natural is unchangeable,
and has the same power everywhere, just as fire
burns both here and in Persia

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book V, Chapter 7, Natural Justice
Aquinas
 Natural
law is the moral code which
human beings are naturally inclined to
 This
moral code exists within the
purpose of nature, created by God:
– ‘Law is nothing else than an ordination of
reason for the common good promulgated
by the one who is in charge of the
community.’
 Natural
law exists to help humans act in
such a way that they reach their eternal
destiny which is with God
 The
law covers both the outward
eternal view of actions and the internal
motivation for doing so
Natural Law
Outward view /
Exterior
Internal
motivation /
Interior
What you do
Why you do it
Task
Does it mater if I do a good thing for a
wrong reason, such as giving to charity
for the admiration and praise that I’ll
receive?
Why might some say this isn’t the best
way to act?
Reason and Human Purpose
 Eternal
law of divine reason is perceived
through revelation, in the form of the
Word of God and through the use of
human reason
 To live in according to and accordance
with reason is to live a moral life
 To live at odds with reason is to live an
immoral life
 Do good and avoid evil!
 God
makes human beings with a certain
nature and this nature enables human
beings to use their reason and their
expertise to understand what is right
 Self-preservation – first rule that
humans should live by
 Primary precepts are required to ensure
this goal of self-preservation and this
will ultimately lead to fellowship with
God
Primary and Secondary Precepts
Do Good and avoid evil
Self-preservation and
the
preservation of the
innocent
Continuation of the
species
through reproduction
Educate children
Live in society
Worship God
Task
 Consider
the following and decide, with
reference to the primary precepts why
Aquinas would think them wrong:
–
–
–
–
–
The use of contraception
Murder
Homosexual sex
Rape
Adultery
 Which,
if any are unclear? Why?
Real and Apparent Goods
 Human
nature is essentially good
 Natural law is innate
 Humans never knowingly pursue evil
 ‘ideal’ human nature which we all have
potential to live up to
 When humans do bad ‘things’ or ‘acts’
they are pursuing apparent goods,
falsely believing them to be really good
Hitler = apparent good
Hitler did not seek
to do evil
 He did what he
thought was good
 He was mistaken
 It was an apparent
good rather than a
real good

Strengths
 Same
as strengths of absolutism
– Enables people to establish common rules in
order to structure communities
 Different
cultures can be seen to have
same basic principles
 Judges actions (torture, rape)
irrespective of consequences
 Not just a set of rules, but a way of life
Weaknesses
 Some
philosophers have disputed the
presence of a common natural law and
whether humans have a single nature
 Humans may have different natures
 Aquinas could be wrong about his
primary precepts
 Secondary precepts may change in some
aspects
Utilitarianism
Principle of Utility
Theory of Usefulness
Sophie's Choice
 Developed
by Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill.
 Utility = usefulness
 Teleological theory
 Consequentialist
 Very famous, used very widely
 Common sense approach
 Humans
motivated by pleasure and
pain = Hedonistic
 ‘Nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two sovereign masters,
pain and pleasure. It is for them
alone to point out what we ought to
do, as well as to determine what we
shall do.’
 As
humans, we seek pleasure and seek
to avoid pain
 Pleasure and pain identifies what we
should and shouldn’t do
 Pleasure is sole good, and pain the
sole evil.
 Hedonistic utilitarianism
 An
action is right if it creates the
greatest good for the greatest
number.
 Good = greatest pleasure or happiness
 Least good = pain or sadness
 Greatest number = majority of people
 Good = maximisation of pleasure,
minimisation of pain
Hedonic Calculus
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Its intensity
Its duration
Its certainty or uncertainty
Its propinquity or remoteness
Its fecundity, or the chance it has of
being followed by sensations of the same
kind
Its purity, or the chance it has of not
being followed by, sensations of the
opposite kind
Its extent; the number of persons to
whom it extends
Imagine you are a doctor driving to one of
your patients, a young mother about to
give birth. She is in great pain and
difficulty and it looks as though she will
need a Caesarean section. It is late at
night and you come across a car
accident down a country road. Two cars
are involved and both drivers are
injured and unconscious. One of them is
the pregnant woman’s husband. The
other is an elderly man. Without medical
help, them both may die.
Who to help first?
Problems with Bentham
 Quantative
pleasures
– Rather than quality
 Predictive
value
– We don’t actually know what is going to
happen in the future.
 What
counts as pleasure?
John Stuart Mill
 Focus
on Qualitative pleasures
 Higher and lower pleasure
 Higher = mind
 Lower = body
 How
can we properly distinguish
between higher and lower pleasures?
 How do we distinguish one higher
pleasure from another?
 Cannot rely on one single factor
equation: the greatest good for
greatest number - Justice
Act Utilitariansim
 Jeremy
Bentham
 Principle of utility applied to each
individual situation
 Flexible = result of individual act
 Problem:
– can justify almost any act
– Impractical to measure every moral choice
we make every time
– Can have extreme results
Rule Utilitarianism
 John
Stuart Mill
 General principles or rules
 Rules take priority
 Problems:
– Does not allow for flexibility
– Somewhat absolute
Kant
Deontological Ethics
The Moral Law
Categorical Imperative
Deontological Ethics
 Actions
not consequences
 Based on duty
 ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’
 Summum bonum – supreme good
 Morality leads to God
The Moral Law
Two things fill the mind with ever new and
increasing admiration and awe… the starry
heavens above me and the moral law within me
 A priori – knowledge without reference to
experience
 A posteriori – knowable through experience
 Analytic – statement true by definition
 Synthetic – true/false through experience
 Moral statements – a priori synthetic

Good Will and Duty
 Good
will = highest form of good
 To have good will is to do your duty
 We don’t do duty for consequences, but
for the duty itself
 Moral for duty, not love
 Moral person = rational being
 Act out of duty alone
 How do we know which actions are
obligatory and which actions are
forbidden?
Categorical Imperative
 Categorical
Imperative
– You should do Y
– Absolute
– Non-conditional
Categorical or Hypothetical?
I
ought not to murder
 I ought not to lie because it’s wrong
 I ought to help my parents
 I ought to give to charity because there
are people starving in the world
 I ought to help the man cross the road
 I ought to study as it will get me into a
better university
The Universal Law
 Do
not act on any principle that cannot
be universalised
 Something that is right for me has to
be right for everyone
 If it’s wrong for one person, it’s wrong
for everyone
 I should only do something if I am
prepared for everyone else to act in the
same way
 So
Treat Humans as Ends in
Themselves
act that you treat humanity, both in
your own person and in the person of
every other human being, never merely
as a means, but always at the same time
as an end
 Cannot use humans as means to ends
 We are rational – highest point of
creation. Demand unique treatment
 Cannot use individual for sake of many
 Promote happiness of others if it allows
freedom of others
Act as if you Live in a Kingdom
of Ends
 So
act as if you were through your maxim
a law-making member of a kingdom of ends
 Kant argues that to preserve the moral
integrity of each individual, every
individual should behave as though every
other individual was an “end”
 You don’t do what everyone else does. You
do what you think is morally right
Freedom
 Humans
free to make rational choices
 Ability to rationalise sets us apart from
animals, who lack this ability
 Have to be free to do our duty
 Duty is to follow categorical imperative
 Every moral action must be possible
 If we’re not free, possibility of making
choices would be denied
Right or wrong action?




You are pushing a car up a hill with three other people
and you think ‘I could just pretend to be pushing, only
three people are needed for this job’, and so you stop
pushing.
You go to the supermarket to buy some washing
powder and buy the own-brand budget powder,
because it’s slightly cheaper than the
environmentally-friendly powder
You avoid paying fares on the train, because you know
you can get away without paying them
You want to listen to some good music, so you borrow
a CD from a friend and tape it
Criticisms
 Cannot
sacrifice few for many. War?
 No exceptions – restrictions on behaviour
 Many people carry out good acts out of
love, not duty
 Conflict in duties: Abortion
 No flexibility
Question
 ‘An
act is morally good if it’s done
entirely from motives if duty.’
– What does Kant mean by duty?
– Consider the strengths and
weaknesses of the claim