Chapter 1: Ethics and Ethical Reasoning

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Chapter 1: Ethics and Ethical Reasoning

Why Study Ethics?

Metaethics

What Is Ethics?

Ethics and Religion

Ethical and Other Types of Evaluation

Ethical Terms

Ethics and Reasons

Alternate Theories: Intuitionism and Emotivism

Ethical Reasoning and Argument

The Structure of Ethical Reasoning

and Argument

Evaluating and Making Good

Arguments

Ethical Theory

Types of Ethical Theory

Can Ethics Be Taught?

Readings:

Plato, Euthyphro

C.L. Stevenson, The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms

Key Terms

Getting Started

One might begin a discussion of the nature of ethics by using some controversial issue that is hot in the news. In the text one issue was prevention of terrorism and threats to civil liberties and privacy. Another was whether one has an obligation to save another life if one can. Such cases can be used first to distinguish the ethical questions that the cases raise from factual aspects of the cases. Second, they can also be used to introduce a discussion about the nature of ethics: that ethics addresses questions of good and bad or right and wrong, that it asks us to give reasons for our views or opinions about this, and that when these views are traced to questions of basic values they form the beginnings of an ethical theory. Other questions about whether there is any objective good or right can be deferred to discussions of Chapter 2 on ethical relativism.

Answers to the Review Exercises in the Text

1. Fa. Ethics studies not how people do act and why, but how they ought to act and why.

T b.

F c. This is a descriptive statement, not a normative one.

2.According to the Divine Command Theory, what is good or right is so just because God wills it to be so. In the Euthyphro, Plato contrasts this view with that according to which what is good or right is so because of something about it, and God or the gods approve of it because it is so.

3. a. N, and R

b. D

c. N, and A

d. D

e. N, and L

f. N, and E

4. Ethical theory is unified systematic view involving principles determining what is good, reasons supporting this, and suggestions for application to concrete issues. As such it supplies the reasons for evaluation of these issues. Ethical reasoning involves appeal to some generalizations in the theory, which is what the ethical principles are.

5. a. Cb. Ac. M

Questions for Further Thought

1. Do you think that Ethics can be taught? Why is this a difficult question to answer? What does it depend on?

2. Which of the following have played a role in the development of your moral beliefs: your family, your religion, your experiences, other people? Any other sources? Do you sympathize with the Divine Command theory? Why or why not?

3. What role, if any, do you believe that emotions should play in moral reasoning? Why?

4. Do you think that an action ought to be judged morally in terms of its motive, its consequences, something about the nature of the action, or some combination of these? Explain.

Answers to the Study Questions Preceding the Reading by Plato

1. Piety is “that which is dear to the gods,” or that which is favored by the gods or approved by them.

1. To settle differences about number and magnitude, people do some measuring together. It is much more difficult to settle differences of opinion about what is good and bad, just and unjust. People often resort to conflict to settle such differences.

1. Yes, even the gods disagree about what is just and unjust. This poses a problem for Euthyphro’s first definition of piety because what will be agreeable to one god will be disagreeable to another. Thus some action could be both pious and impious at the same time according to Euthyphro’s definition.

1. People do not argue about whether the guilty should be punished but rather about who is guilty of some evil doing, i.e., who is unjust.

1. Socrates describes the case Euthyphro is bringing to court concerning the action of his father and asks whether all gods would agree that what he is doing is just and what his father did was unjust.

1. Euthyphro amends his definition of piety to what all the gods approve of.

1. He asks “whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.”

1. Socrates says that something is in a state of being carried (or led) because it is carried (or led) by someone. So also something is dear because it is loved. Why is it loved? Because it is of a kind of thing to be loved.

1. This shows that being pious comes first. Something is first pious or holy and because of this it is loved by the gods.

1. Being loved is an attribute of holiness, not its essence. What is needed is to give the essence of holiness. This is yet to be done and is a continuing question throughout the Platonic dialogues.

The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms

1. In seeking a substitute for “Is X good?” it does not need to be identical in meaning.

1. The substitute needs to be relevant to the original meaning. A relevant substitute of a term will be able to be used without ever needing to use the old, unclear sense of the term.

1. Hobbes has used “good” to mean desired by me. Also, Hume in effect argued “good” to mean approved by most people. Stevenson believes both meanings are only partially relevant and not wholly relevant.

1. Ethical terms are not simply descriptive because their major use is not to indicate facts but to create an influence.

1. The meaning he suggests is that ethical terms are instruments. The stealing example exemplifies this since when one says stealing is wrong one is not simply indicating disapproval of stealing but also directs others to disapprove of it as well.

1. Ethical terms influence others to approve of the ethical judgment being made. In this way, ethical judgments can spread to others who agree with the ethical judgment and who in turn share the same ethical judgment with others.

1. The “emotive meaning” of ethical terms is a tendency for the terms to produce affective responses in people.

Chapter 2: Ethical Relativism

What Is Ethical Relativism?

Two Forms of Ethical Relativism

Reasons Supporting Ethical Relativism

The Diversity of Moral Views

Moral Uncertainty

Situational Differences

Are These Reasons Convincing?

The Diversity of Moral Views

Moral Uncertainty

Situational Differences

Further Considerations

*******************

Moral Realism

Moral Pluralism

Reading

Mary Midgley, On Trying Out

One’s New Sword

Friedrich Nietzsche, Master and Slave Moralities

Key Terms

Getting Started

You might begin by asking whether people from various cultures do have different moral beliefs and practices. For example, do they have different sexual mores? Have the students name some if they can. Do they have different views about the place of women in society? Do they have different practices and beliefs regarding human rights? Then you can ask the students whether they would agree that these different views and practices are all equally valid or good. If they say that they are valid for their culture, you can bring up some cultural belief that they would generally condemn, say slavery. Ask how they can judge this as inhumane or wrong and not judge certain treatment of women as unjust. This should be more than enough to get the topic going.

Answers to the Review Exercises in the Text

1. To say that ethical values or beliefs are relative to individuals that hold them means that they are just the values and beliefs that these individuals do in fact hold, and to say that they are relative to various societies means that these are in fact the values and beliefs of these societies. It also implies that there is nothing beyond these values by which they can be judged to be better or worse than any other individual or societal values.

2. Individual ethical relativism holds that all there is is different individuals with their individually formed and held ethical beliefs. Social or cultural ethical relativism stresses the values and beliefs held by various societies, and implies that individuals should conform to these social values.

3. Ethical relativism goes further and states that this is all there is. There is no objective standard even possible in principle by which the moral beliefs of people can be judged or evaluated.

4. The difference between the first and the second reason for supporting ethical relativism is that the first appeals to the very fact of diversity to argue that there is no objective good, while the second appeals not to a fact of diversity but to the difficulty that we have knowing what is right. The third adds to the first some possible reason why there might be diversity of moral values, namely, that people's circumstances differ.

5. You would need to consider the actual reasons that people had for differing about capital punishment. Do they disagree about basic reasons for capital punishment? Or do they have some common values that they want to see furthered, but simply disagree about the best way to further them?

6. Moral realism is a term or phrase that can be applied to moral philosophies that hold that there is some realm of moral fact. In this it is similar to scientific realism. It differs from scientific realism in that the realm in the latter is nature, whereas moral realists have more difficulty specifying just what the realm of moral fact is.

Questions for Further Thought

1. Do you believe that the fact that people disagree about what is good or right is a good reason to support ethical relativism? Explain why you think so.

2. In what ways do you think that science is different from ethics? Are they alike in any ways? For example, do they both involve being impartial and non-biased?

3. Think about a particular moral argument that you have heard or in which you participated. How did the argument proceed? Did it get settled or did you agree to disagree? What, if any, are the implications of this example for relativism?

4. If there is an objective good, do you think that it is likely to be unitary or plural? For example, is it likely that all morality will be a function of the promotion of one good, such as happiness? Or is it more likely that there are many irreducible moral values, such as happiness, autonomy, privacy, fidelity, etc.? If you think there is only one good, what is it? If many, what would you include in your list?

Answers to the Study Questions Preceding the Reading by Midgley

1. “Moral Isolationism” is the position that holds that we can never really understand other cultures well enough to be able to make moral judgments about them. Each culture is thought to be an isolated unit. Moral judgments can only be made about and from within one’s own culture.

2. Yes.

3. No. If we don’t know enough to make a negative critical judgment about another culture, we also don’t know enough to make a positive or favorable judgment about it. You can’t judge what you don’t understand.

4. Moral isolationism would make it impossible to judge our own culture as well as others, according to Mary Midgley. What helps us to understand our own culture is being able to compare it to others. If we thus can’t understand our own culture, we can’t judge it. Rather she believes that it is possible to have some degree of understanding of both our own and other cultures.

5. One person may condemn the practice. Another would object, saying that one shouldn’t judge it so harshly. Then the second person would go further and explain what makes the practice not only intelligible but also of some positive value. While beginning as a “moral isolationist” this person then exemplifies a position contrary to this view.

6. Midgley believes that there are no unmixed cultures. All cultures, even some of the remote ones studied by anthropologists, have been and most continue to be influenced by a variety of other cultures.

Answers to the Study Questions Preceding the Reading by Nietzsche

1. Nietzsche describes the master morality as a noble morality from the powerful, noble type of person who feels himself determining or creating value that is self-glorifying and disdainful of empathetic feelings. The persons adopting this define the concept of the good by reflecting on his own proud inner states since “everything that he knows of himself he reveres” such that “good” means about the same thing as “noble”.

2. “Good” means about the same thing as “noble” and “bad” about the same meaning as “despicable.”

3. Others are either of lower class or foreign and can be treated as they think best or “in any event 'beyond good and evil.'” There is only duty towards peers of nobility, not others.

4. He means that there is no “good” outside of what the noble defines as “good.” (Also see response to number 1.)

5. “Slave morality is essentially a morality of utility.” It upholds the qualities that are useful and practical to endure an oppressive existence.

6. “Good” and “bad” for the master morality is created whereas “good” and “evil” in the slave morality is a reaction to and in opposition with what the noble defines as “good” such that whatever is deemed “good” by the noble is determined to be “evil” by the slave from experience. For slave morality the “evil” person evokes fear and conversely in master morality the “good” person not only evokes fear but also wants to evoke fear. “Good” in the slave morality must be “harmless” he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a bit stupid, a banhomme.”