Why Study Ethics?
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Moral concerns are unavoidable in
life.
Analogy: morality is a lot like
nutrition.
– Principal concern: health
– The role of experts
– Disagreement
– Doing, not just saying, the right thing
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Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to
Moral Theory
5th ed.
By Lawrence M. Hinman
Ch 1 The Moral Point of View
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Ethics as an Ongoing
Conversation
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Professional discussions of ethical
issues in journals.
We come back to ideas again and
again, finding new meaning in them.
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Ethics and Morality
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Morality: first-order set of beliefs and
practices about how to live a good
life
Ethics: a second-order, conscious
reflection on the adequacy of our
moral beliefs.
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Public and Private Moral Beliefs
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Distinguish between overt and covert
moral beliefs.
Self-knowledge required for
awareness of moral beleifs.
One aim of the course is discussion
to promote this self-knowledge.
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Moral Health
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The goal of ethical reflection is moral
health.
Thus we seek to determine what will
nourish our moral life and what will
poison it.
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Ethical Inventory
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Take the ethical inventory on pp. 7-9
It is a first step in self-knowledge of
your moral beliefs.
Return to your answers after
finishing each chapter.
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The Moral Point of View
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What makes something a moral
issue?
– Content:
• duties, rights, human welfare, suffering,
character, etc.
– Perspective:
• impartial, compassionate, etc.
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Example: Cheating
Imagine a situation in which you see a
classmate cheating. There are several
elements from a moral point of view:
– Some people are hurt by the cheating
– There is deception in the situation
– Cheating seems to be unfair to those who
don’t cheat
– There are conflicting values—honesty, loyalty,
etc.
– There are questions of character.
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The Language of Moral Concerns
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Some philosophers have argued that
moral issues are characterized by a
particular kind of language—terms
such as duty, obligation, right, and
good.
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Impartiality
Many philosophers have argued that
the moral point of view is
characterized by impartiality, that is, I
don’t give my own interest any
special weight.
– Immanuel Kant
– John Stuart Mill
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Compassion
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Other philosophers have seen the
origin of the moral life to be in
compassion, feeling for the suffering
of other sentient beings.
Josiah Royce: “Such as that is for
me, so is it for him, nothing less.”
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Universally Binding
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Moral obligations, some
philosophers maintain, are
universally binding and that is what
gives them their distinctive
character.
Kant: morality is a matter of
categorical imperatives.
– Distinguish between hypothetical and
categorical imperatives.
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Concern for Character
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Philosophers from Aristotle onward
have seen the primary focus of
morality to be character.
Two questions:
– What ought I to do? (Kant and Mill)
– What kind of person ought I to be?
(Aristotle)
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The Point of Ethical Reflection
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Ethics as the Evaluation of Other
People’s Behavior
– We are often eager to pass judgment on
others
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Ethics as the Search for Meaning and
Value in Our Own Lives
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Ethics as the Evaluation of Other
People’s Behavior
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Ethics often used as a weapon
Hypocrisy
Possibility of knowing other people
The right to judge other people
The right to intervene
Judging and caring
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Ethics as the Search for Meaning
and Value in Our Own Lives
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Positive focus
Aims at discerning what is good
Emphasizes personal responsibility
for one’s own life
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What to Expect from a Moral
Theory
Functions of theory:
 Describe
 Explain
 Give strength (Stockdale)
 Prescribe
– Open new possibilities
– Wonder
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What to Expect from a Moral
Theory, 2
What is ethics like?
 Physics
– Clear-cut, definitive answers
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Engineering
– Several possible ways of doing things,
many ways that are wrong
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Conclusion:
Ethics & Good Health
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Ethics is like nutrition
– One studies bodily health, the other
moral health
– Significant disagreement in both fields
– Still there is a significant common
ground.
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