Introduction to

Ethics
IT104-Lesson 1

What is Ethics?

From the Greek word [ethos]which

means custom or habit, the characteristic
conduct of an individual human life.

What is Ethics?

Ethics is the branch of study dealing with

what is the proper course of action for man. It
answers the question, "What do I do?" It is the
study of right and wrong in human endeavors.

Understanding ethics can help people decide

what to do when they have choices. Many
philosophers think that doing anything or
making any choice is a part of ethics.

Why is Ethics important?

Ethics is a requirement for human life. It is our means of

deciding a course of action. Without it, our actions would be
random and aimless. There would be no way to work towards
a goal because there would be no way to pick between a
limitless number of goals. Even with an ethical standard, we
may be unable to pursue our goals with the possibility of
success. To the degree which a rational ethical standard is
taken, we are able to correctly organize our goals and
actions to accomplish our most important values. Any flaw in
our ethics will reduce our ability to be successful in our
endeavors.

What are the key elements of a proper

Ethics?

A proper foundation of ethics requires a standard of value to

which all goals and actions can be compared to. This
standard is our own lives, and the happiness which makes
them livable. This is our ultimate standard of value, the goal
in which an ethical man must always aim. It is arrived at by
an examination of man's nature, and recognizing his peculiar
needs. A system of ethics must further consist of not only
emergency situations, but the day to day choices we make
constantly. It must include our relations to others, and
recognize their importance not only to our physical survival,
but to our well-being and happiness. It must recognize that
our lives are an end in themselves, and that sacrifice is not
only not necessary, but destructive

What are values?

VALUES are attitudes and beliefs about things we think are

important in life.

Family time, money, fame, religion, education, health,

community service, independence, honesty are all values.
There are other values, of course, depending on the
individual. If becoming famous is not important to you then
fame is not a personal value for you. Obviously, then, values
differ with the person. We dont always agree with others
about the importance, or value, of some things in life. Family
life is extremely important to some people; there are others
who would rather be on their own and allow for very little
family time

Theories in Ethics

Ancient Greek Ethics

Socrates
He

asserted that people will naturally do what

isgoodprovided that they know what isright,
and that evil or bad actions are purely the result
of ignorance:

"There is only one good, knowledge, and one

evil, ignorance". He equated knowledge
andwisdomwithself-awareness(meaning to be
aware of every fact relevant to a person's
existence) andvirtueandhappiness.

 Aristotle
"Nature

does nothing in vain", so it is only when a

person actsin accordance with their natureand
thereby realizes theirfull potential, that they
will dogoodand therefore becontentin life.

 Hedonism
Posits

that the principal ethic is maximizing

pleasure and minimizing pain. This may range
from those advocating self-gratification
regardless of the pain and expense to others
and with no thought for the future (Cyrenaic
Hedonism), to those who believe that the
most ethical pursuit maximizes pleasure and
happiness for the most people.

Normative Ethics

Normative Ethics (or Prescriptive Ethics) is the

branch of ethics concerned with establishing how
things should or ought to be, how to value them,
which things are good or bad, and which actions are
right or wrong. It attempts to develop a set of rules
governing human conduct, or a set of norms for
action.

Normative ethical theories are usually split into

three main categories:

Consequentialism

Deontologyand

Virtue Ethics

Consequentialism

Consequentialism(orTeleological Ethics) argues

that the morality of an action iscontingenton
the action'soutcomeor result. Thus, amorally
rightaction is one that produces a good outcome
orconsequence. Consequentialist theories must
considerquestionslike:

"What sort of
consequences?",

consequences

count

as

good

"Who is the primary beneficiary of moral action?",

"How are the consequences judged and who judges

them?"

Some consequentialist theories include:

Utilitarianism
-which holds that an action is right if it leads to the most
happiness for the greatest number of people ("happiness" here is
defined as the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of
pain). The origins of Utilitarianism can be traced back as far as
the Greek philosopher Epicurus, but its full formulation is usually
credited to Jeremy Betham, with John Stuart Mill as its foremost
proponent.

Hedonism
-which is the philosophy that pleasure is the most important
pursuit of mankind, and that individuals should strive to maximize
their own total pleasure (net of any pain or suffering).

Some consequentialist theories include:

Egoism
-which holds that an action is right if it maximizes good
for the self. Thus, Egoism may license actions which are
good for individual, but detrimental to the general
welfare.

Individual Egoism holds that all people should do

whatever benefits him.

Personal Egoism holds that he should act in his own

self-interest, but makes no claims about what
anyone else ought to do.

Universal Egoism holds that everyone should act in

ways that are in their own interest.

Some consequentialist theories include:

Asceticism
-which is, in some ways, the opposite of Egoism in that
it describes a life characterized by abstinence from
egoistic pleasures especially to achieve a spiritual
goal.

Altruism
-which prescribes that an individual take actions that
have the best consequences for everyone except for
himself, according to Auguste Comte's dictum, "Live for
others". Thus, individuals have a moral obligation to
help, serve or benefit others, if necessary at the
sacrifice of self-interest.

Deontology

Deontologyis an approach to ethics that focuses on

therightnessorwrongnessofactions themselves, as
opposed to the rightness or wrongness of
theconsequencesof those actions. It argues that
decisions should be made considering the factors
ofone's
dutiesandother's
rights(the
Greek'deon'means
'obligation'
or
'duty').

Some deontological theories include:

Divine Command Theory

-a form of deontological theory which states that an action
is right if God has decreed that it is right, and that that an
act is obligatory if and only if it is commanded by God.
Thus, moral obligations arise from God's commands, and
the rightness of any action depends upon that action being
performed because it is a duty, not because of any good
consequences arising from that action.

Natural Rights Theory

which holds that humans haveabsolute,natural rights(in
the sense ofuniversalrights that areinherentin the nature
of ethics, andnot contingenton humanactionsorbeliefs).
This eventually developed into what we today callhuman
rights.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue Ethics focuses on the inherent character of a

person rather than on the nature or consequences of
specific actions performed. The system identifies
virtues (those habits and behaviours that will allow a
person to achieve "eudaimonia", or well being or a
good life), counsels practical wisdom to resolve any
conflicts between virtues, and claims that a lifetime
of practicing these virtues leads to, or in effect
constitutes, happiness and the good life.

Some Virtue ethics include:

Eudaimonism
-a philosophy originated by Aristotle that defines right
action as that which leads to "well being", and which can
be achieved by a lifetime of practicing the virtues in one's
everyday activities, subject to the exercise of practical
wisdom.

Meta-Ethics

Meta-Ethics is concerned primarily with the meaning

of ethical judgements, and seeks to understand the
nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes,
and judgements and how they may be supported or
defended.

Major meta-ethical views are commonly divided into

two camps:

Moral Realismand

Moral Anti-Realism.

Meta-ethical views:

Moral Realism (or Moral Objectivism)

-holds that there are objective moral values, so
that evaluative statements are essentially factual
claims, which are either true or false, and that
their truth or falsity are independent of our
beliefs, feelings or other attitudes towards the
things being evaluated.

There are two main variants of moral realism:

Ethical Naturalism
-this doctrine holds that there are objective
moral properties of which we have empirical
knowledge, but that these properties are
reducible to entirely non-ethical properties. It
assumes cognitivism (the view that ethical
sentences express propositions and can therefore
be true or false), and that the meanings of these
ethical sentences can be expressed as natural
properties without the use of ethical terms.

There are two main variants of moral realism:

Ethical Non-Naturalism
-this doctrine that cannot be reduced to non-ethical
statements (e.g. "goodness" is indefinable in that it
cannot be defined in any other terms). Moore claimed
that a naturalistic fallacy is committed by any attempt
to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a
definition in terms of one or more natural properties
(e.g. "good" cannot be defined interms of "pleasant",
"more evolved", "desired", etc).
Ethical Intuitionismis a variant of Ethical NonNaturalism which claims that we sometimes
haveintuitive awarenessof moral properties or of
moral truths.

Meta-ethical views:
Moral

Anti-Realism

-holds that there are no objective moral values,

and comes in one of three forms, depending on
whether ethical statements are believed to be
subjective claims (Ethical Subjectivism), not
genuine claims at all (Non-Cognitivism) or
mistaken objective claims (Moral Nihilism or Moral
Skepticism)

Moral Anti-Realism forms:

Ethical Subjectivism
-which holds that there are no objective moral
properties and that moral statements are made true or
false by the attitudes and/or conventions of the
observers, or that any ethical sentence merely implies
an attitude, opinion, personal preference or feeling
held by someone.

Non-Cognitivism
-which holds that ethical sentences are neither true nor
false because they do not express genuine propositions,
thus implying that moral knowledge is impossible.

Different versions of Non-Cognitivism

Emotivism: the view, defended byA.J. AyerandC. L. Stevenson(1908 - 1979) among others, that
ethical sentences serve merely toexpress emotions, and ethical judgements are
primarilyexpressionsof one's own attitude, although to some extent they are alsoimperativesmeant
to change the attitudes and actions ofother listeners.

Prescriptivism(orUniversal Prescriptivism): the view, propounded byR.M. Hare(1919 - 2002), that

moral statements function asimperativeswhich areuniversalizable(i.e. applicable to everyone in
similar circumstances) e.g. "Killing is wrong" really means "Do not kill!"

Expressivism: the view that theprimary functionof moral sentences is not to assert anymatter of
fact, but rather toexpress an evaluative attitudetoward an object of evaluation. Therefore, because
the function of moral language isnon-descriptive, moral sentences do not have anytruth conditions.

Quasi-Realism: the view, developed from Expressivism and defended bySimon Blackburn(1944 - ),
that ethical statements behavelinguisticallylikefactual claims, and can be appropriately called
"true" or "false" even though there areno ethical factsfor them to correspond to. Blackburn argues
that ethics cannot be entirelyrealist, for this would not allow for phenomena such as thegradual
developmentof ethical positions over time or indiffering cultural traditions.

Projectivism: the view that qualities can beattributed to(or "projected" on) an object as if those
qualities actually belong to it. Projectivism in Ethics (originally proposed byDavid Humeand more
recently championed bySimon Blackburn) is associated by many withMoral Relativism, and is
considered controversial, even though it was philosophical orthodoxy throughout much of the 20th
Century.

Moral Fictionalism: the view that moral statements should not be taken to beliterallytrue, but
merely a useful fiction. This has led to charges of individualsclaimingto hold attitudes that they
donot reallyhave, and therefore are in some wayinsincere.

Descriptive Ethics

Descriptive Ethics is a value-free approach to ethics

which examines ethics from the perspective of
observations of actual choices made by moral agents
in practice. It is the study of people's beliefs about
morality, and implies the existence of, rather than
explicitly prescribing, theories of value or of
conduct. It is not designed to provide guidance to
people in making moral decisions, nor is it designed
to evaluate the reasonableness of moral norms.

Applied Ethics

Applied Ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to

apply ethical theory to real-life situations. Strict, principlebased ethical approaches often result in solutions to specific
problems that are not universally acceptable or impossible to
implement. Applied Ethics is much more ready to include the
insights of psychology, sociology and other relevant areas of
knowledge in its deliberations. It is used in determining public
policy.

The following would be questions of Applied Ethics: "Is getting

an abortion immoral?", "Is euthanasia immoral?", "Is affirmative
action right or wrong?", "What are human rights, and how do
we determine them?" and "Do animals have rights as well?"

Some topicsfalling within the discipline include:

Medical Ethics: the study of moral values and judgements as they apply tomedicine.
Historically, Western medical ethics may be traced to guidelines on thedutyof physicians
in antiquity, such as theHippocratic Oath(at its simplest, "to practice and prescribe to
the best of my ability for the good of my patients, and to try to avoid harming them"), and
early rabbinic, Muslim and Christian teachings.

Bioethics: concerns the ethical controversies brought about by advances

inbiologyandmedicine. Public attention was drawn to these questions by abuses of
human subjects inbiomedical experiments, especially during the Second World War, but
with recent advances inbio-technology, bioethics has become a fast-growing academic
and professional area of inquiry.Issuesinclude consideration of cloning, stem cell
research, transplant trade, genetically modified food, human genetic engineering,
genomics, infertility treatment, etc

Legal Ethics: anethical codegoverning the conduct of people engaged in thepractice of

law. Model rules usually address theclient-lawyer relationship, duties of a lawyer
asadvocatein adversary proceedings, dealings withpersons other than clients,
lawfirmsandassociations,public service,advertisingand maintaining theintegrity of
the
profession.
Respect
ofclient
confidences,candourtoward
the
tribunal,truthfulnessin statements to others, and professionalindependenceare some
of the defining features of legal ethics.

Some topicsfalling within the discipline include:

Business Ethics: examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise
in abusiness environment. This includesCorporate Social Responsibility, a concept
wherebyorganizationsconsider the interests ofsocietyby taking responsibility for
theimpactof their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and
the environment in all aspects of their operations, over and above the statutory obligation
to comply withlegislation.

Environmental Ethics: considers the ethical relationship between human beings and
thenatural environment. It addresses questions like "Should we continue to clear cut
forests for the sake of human consumption?", :Should we continue to make gasoline
powered vehicles, depleting fossil fuel resources while the technology exists to create
zero-emission vehicles?", :What environmental obligations do we need to keep for future
generations?", "Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a species for the
(perceived or real) convenience of humanity?"

Information Ethics: investigates the ethical issues arising from the development and
application ofcomputersand information technologies. It is concerned with issues like
theprivacy of information, whetherartificial agentsmay be moral, how one
shouldbehavein the infosphere, andownershipandcopyrightproblems arising from the
creation, collection, recording, distribution, processing, etc, of information.

Media Ethics: deals with the specific ethical principles and standards ofmediain general,
including the ethical issues relating tojournalism,advertisingandmarketing,
andentertainment media.

End of Lesson 1