Approaches to ethics

Normative ethical theory

Utilitarianism

Kant

Meta-ethics

Realism and anti-realism

What do we mean by ethics?

The word ethics comes from a Greek source meaning custom or habit.  Ethical philosophy involves the study of right and wrong.  Sometimes people use the word morality instead of ethics.  Both morality and ethics are about finding out how we ought to live.  Ethics is a major branch of philosophy.  (The other branches being: epistemology or knowledge, metaphysics or the essential nature of things and logic or reason.)

Approaches to Ethics

There are four possible ways of approaching ethics.

1. Descriptive ethics: involves the description of how things are or the customs of a society. No decision about the rightness or wrongness of an action features in descriptive ethics.
2. Normative ethics: is about making moral decisions or deciding what is right and what is wrong.  There are two main ways of doing this. The first way is known as deontological theory and relates to the subject's intentions particularly the importance of doing one's duty. The second type of normative ethical approach is known as teleological theory and this relates to the outcome of one's actions. Thus a good outcome renders an action ethical. .
3. Meta-ethics; this approach analyses the nature of ethics.  It includes both realism and antirealism.  Realism is the view that moral values can be discovered, possibly by using intuition.  Antirealism is the view that morality is determined by people’s thoughts and feelings
4. Applied ethics: this is how ethical values may be used in specific circumstances.  So for example, the study of abortion would involve an individual applying moral theory to the situation of abortion.  In order to do this they may draw on both normative values those of meta-ethics.

Normative Ethics In More Detail

Teleological Theory

Teleological theory is also known as consequentialism and involves outcomes.  One example of teleological theory is UTILITARIANISM.  According to this theory one should do what creates the most happiness for the greatest number of people.  However utilitarians are divided about what happiness is.  Some claim that happiness is simply pleasure but others claim it is about minimising pain.  Two major exponents of utilitarianism are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

Jeremy Bentham produced the felicific calculus, or hedonic calculus.  For Bentham one could calculate the actual amount of pleasure over pain using a sort of mathematical method.  The calculus involves taking into account factors such as: intensity, duration and certainty of pleasure.

John Stuart Mill divided pleasure into higher and lower order, claiming cultural, spiritual and intellectual pleasures to be higher order in nature. 

Some utilitarians claim that lawmakers ought to apply the happiness principle to formulate general rules for society.  These utilitarians are called rule utilitarians.  On the other hand, act utilitarians claim that one should apply the happiness principle to each act and so determine the morality of each individual situation.

Not surprisingly there are several criticisms of utilitarianism.  One of the main criticisms is the conflict between the greatest number and the greatest happiness.  For instance, what if I can create a lot of happiness for one person or a little happiness for lots of people?  What should I do?  Another problem is to do with how we define happiness because if it is merely pleasure then this is purely hedonistic and somehow this seems wrong.  For instance, it may be pleasurable to spend my whole day playing computer games instead of doing my philosophy homework but this does not make playing games the right thing to do.

Deontological Theory

Deontological theory, on the other hand, maintains that we should act out of good intentions, namely duty. 

Kant’s theory is perhaps the best known deontological theory.  Kant argued that we should do duty for duty’s sake (categorical imperative).  This applies regardless of outcome or emotions and that is why it is categorical.  (Whereas the hypothetical imperative states: ‘Do X to achieve Y’.)

For Kant our actions must pass the universability test, which means one should ask what would happen if everyone acted in that way.  This does not make Kant’s theory consequentialist because he was not concerned with consequences but rather whether any irrationality or contradiction would be produced should everyone act in a certain way.

Kant also said that we should act as though everyone were a member of the kingdom of ends, meaning that we should treat everyone as if they have their own ends or purposes.  This contrasts with a very modern and capitalist view that we treat others for our own ends.  One of the most positive aspects of Kant’s philosophy is his theme of respect for others, which has been the basis of human rights legislation. 

One criticism of Kant’s theory is that he does not explain why we should do duty for duty’s sake.

Meta-ethics in More Depth

Meta means ‘after or beyond’ so this branch of ethics usually goes above or beyond that of normative theory.  Examples of meta-ethical theory include: relativism, intuitionism, emotivism and prescriptivism. 

Meta-ethical questions include:

• What do we mean by good or bad?
• How do we make moral judgements?
• Are some things always good or bad?

One key issue is to do with whether moral judgements can be objective (realism) or subjective (antirealism).  In other words, whether moral judgements are based on the emotions and perceptions of individuals (antirealism) or whether they can be known in some objective way.  Another way of stating this is by questioning whether some things are always good independently of any will or view.

Antirealism

Another form of antirealism is the view that ethical statements are neither true nor false.  Both emotivism and prescriptivism hold this position.  Emotivism holds that morality is about an emotional response so that I may be kind to a kitten because I have an feelings of sympathy towards it.  Whereas prescriptivism holds that moral statements imply a prescription or rather imply an action.  Therefore the statement ‘it is wrong to commit adultery’ implies ‘you should not commit adultery’.

Realism

On the other hand, I may believe that there are objective moral standards or things which are always right or wrong independent of any arbitrary opinion.  For instance, I may believe that marriage is for life and judge as unimportant the fact that attitudes have changed to marriage.  According to this view divorce may still be wrong even if the consensus of opinion changes so that just because the majority think something is right, it does not follow that it is so.

Intutionism is one example of realism. Intuitionists argue that we know how to respond in a given situation because we have an intuitive understanding of goodness.  We have this understanding because goodness is objective. 

It is important to realise that realism is not the same as absolutism. Absolutism is a form of antirealism. Absolutism holds that some things are absolutely wrong in all situations but that they are absolutely wrong as the result of some will such as God’s or that of the monarch. For instance, in divine command theory something is deemed wrong because God says it is wrong.  However this makes morality subject to God’s will.  If something is subject to a will (even God’s) then it is not objective.  Objective standards hold that some things are always right or wrong independent of any arbitrary will. 

Conclusions

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benn, P., Ethics, Routledge, 1998

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm

Norman, R., The Moral Philosophers, Clarendon Press, 1985

Raeper, W. and Smith, L., A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas, Lion, 1991

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaethics/

Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics