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On Moral and Ethical Systems (p1)
11 years ago
[Unedited, p1]
We all know what morals are and most of us don't really think about it too much. Before I took a dive into ethics I never put much thought into what is right and wrong. The purpose of this journal is to talk about moral systems in relation to secularism and to Christianity for a Christian audience.
What is morality?
Morals are integrated into humanity and they are very important to us in a great portion of our lives. It's where laws and our concepts of "good" and "bad" come from. There are many different ethical systems. Generally, they are Rights-Based, Consequentialism/Utilitarianism, and Deontology/Kantianism. These systems rely on what's called a "moral intuition" to define a good and bad beforehand that way the systems themselves can make judgments about right and wrong. All three of these are similar to each other in the sense that they rely upon the moral intuition and the decision between right and wrong.
In ethics, there are three ways to categorize an action:
Morally required – You are morally required to do this action, it is wrong to not do it.
Morally permissible – You are morally allowed to do this action, but you don’t have to.
Morally impermissible – Doing this action is wrong, not doing it is good.
Considerations for justifications are based off of questions:
Normative questions – How things should be.
Descriptive questions – How things are in a given situation.
Where does morality get its authority?
There are several ways to "justify" a moral system, but all moral systems depend on where the justification of it comes from. Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Rights-Based ethics all depend upon the intuition, that actions are wrong and right and it's a learned behavior (this is a "Culture" based authority). Not all moral systems rely upon this. The two other common authority based theories are Egoism* (unfortunately) and God/Religion. Egoism is pretty straightforward, you determine what’s right and wrong by how much it benefits you. God and Religion based ethics have good and bad determined by some higher authority.
What are those three systems?
The description of these systems will make evident the need for a proper justification for actions.
Deontology - Deontology is the “...branch dealing with duty, moral obligation, and right action.1 ” This field of ethics is determined upon whether the intention is just or not. Kantianism is a type of deontology focused entirely on the intention. In other words, it is solely the intention behind an action that determines if it was morally just or not, not whether or not the action itself is good or bad. Kantianism interjects that actions are morally unjust if you end up using a person as a means to an end, i.e. “using” someone.
Consequentialism – Consequentialism is “the theory that human actions derive their moral worth solely from their outcomes or consequences” or “the theory that ethical decisions should be made on the basis of the expected outcome or consequences of the action.2 ”This is perhaps the simplest moral system of them all. It’s pretty easily self-defined by its name alone. Utilitarianism is the moral theory that best describes this category, as utilitarianism is making decisions and determining actions depending entirely on their outcomes. Also doesn’t matter if the action itself is good or bad, or what the intention truly is.
Rights-Based Ethics – This set of ethics justifies or condemns actions based upon whether or not they betray the rights that are given to someone. There is not a whole lot to this section, but it interesting how it is viewed in normal ethics.
What moral system do I use? Which do you?
I would deny to following any one system, I’ll explain this later. However, you may have noticed that you also don’t follow any one system. A lot of moral decisions are utilitarian in nature, regarding the outcomes as the justification for making a decision. At the same time, you’d probably want to avoid using someone you know, or anyone. It’s almost impossible to live a life using only one system; the systems overlap heavily. For example, a Kantian would justify an action as impermissible if it uses someone as an end, but at the same time, the statement that something is impermissible and therefore can’t be done is utilitarian in the sense that less bad is done and thus actually doing the action is a utilitarian decision.
The “Prime Difficulty” of Ethics and Morals (and many ways of thinking in science and philosophy):
Almost all moral systems are relative in nature, meaning that the parameters of good and bad can change (and trust me, they do). This is one of the most frustrating and hard to swallow parts of ethics, since a good action can be good but someone else could define it as wrong and both would be right. But that can’t happen; that’s a contradiction. That is, however, exactly what relative ethics says. It implies that progress can’t be made because all moral systems are perfect, even if they contradict with one another. It is this state of contradiction that creates anxiety in the field of ethics. This is cultural authority based ethics. This is what most of us use. The irony is that ethicists criticize Rights-based ethicists because the “inherent rights” are determined solely on opinion- the same way right and wrong is determined with the rest of ethicists.
Alternative to Relativism:
The only truth system aside from Relativism is Absolutism. In ethics, this would imply that certain actions are always wrong. However, absolutism itself presents a difficulty: Where do absolute morals come from? They don’t come anywhere, actually, unless good and bad are permanently designated somewhere. This doesn’t happen in cultures, ethical egoists die at some point (and even before then, it applies only to themselves), and they don’t just magically appear (everyone’s moral intuition is different).
The only possible origin of absolute justification or outlined right and wrong would have to be defined outside of humanity. Religions make this supposition and it’s one of the reasons why they must be examined so closely. God (or gods) define what is wrong or right and thus those actions are always wrong or right.
Christianity:
Christianity is an example of absolute ethics. It states that certain actions are crimes against God and men so certain actions are wrong. Since morality is a social interface, Christian morals are three-fold: you can commit evils against nature, against man, and against God Himself (which includes all evils). Thus, the actions the Bible outlines as evil are always sin. Although Christianity is an absolute authority based ethical system, it does not depend on one process of justification. It is wrong to use someone as a means to end, to waste things, and it is wrong to violate someone’s rights to live, for example.
However, Christian Ethics is an underdeveloped sector of Christian theology and it is often criticized because of this.
----
* - Ethical egoism, Egoist ethics
1 - deontology. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deontology
2 - consequentialism. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/bro.....nsequentialism
We all know what morals are and most of us don't really think about it too much. Before I took a dive into ethics I never put much thought into what is right and wrong. The purpose of this journal is to talk about moral systems in relation to secularism and to Christianity for a Christian audience.
What is morality?
Morals are integrated into humanity and they are very important to us in a great portion of our lives. It's where laws and our concepts of "good" and "bad" come from. There are many different ethical systems. Generally, they are Rights-Based, Consequentialism/Utilitarianism, and Deontology/Kantianism. These systems rely on what's called a "moral intuition" to define a good and bad beforehand that way the systems themselves can make judgments about right and wrong. All three of these are similar to each other in the sense that they rely upon the moral intuition and the decision between right and wrong.
In ethics, there are three ways to categorize an action:
Morally required – You are morally required to do this action, it is wrong to not do it.
Morally permissible – You are morally allowed to do this action, but you don’t have to.
Morally impermissible – Doing this action is wrong, not doing it is good.
Considerations for justifications are based off of questions:
Normative questions – How things should be.
Descriptive questions – How things are in a given situation.
Where does morality get its authority?
There are several ways to "justify" a moral system, but all moral systems depend on where the justification of it comes from. Deontology, Utilitarianism, and Rights-Based ethics all depend upon the intuition, that actions are wrong and right and it's a learned behavior (this is a "Culture" based authority). Not all moral systems rely upon this. The two other common authority based theories are Egoism* (unfortunately) and God/Religion. Egoism is pretty straightforward, you determine what’s right and wrong by how much it benefits you. God and Religion based ethics have good and bad determined by some higher authority.
What are those three systems?
The description of these systems will make evident the need for a proper justification for actions.
Deontology - Deontology is the “...branch dealing with duty, moral obligation, and right action.1 ” This field of ethics is determined upon whether the intention is just or not. Kantianism is a type of deontology focused entirely on the intention. In other words, it is solely the intention behind an action that determines if it was morally just or not, not whether or not the action itself is good or bad. Kantianism interjects that actions are morally unjust if you end up using a person as a means to an end, i.e. “using” someone.
Consequentialism – Consequentialism is “the theory that human actions derive their moral worth solely from their outcomes or consequences” or “the theory that ethical decisions should be made on the basis of the expected outcome or consequences of the action.2 ”This is perhaps the simplest moral system of them all. It’s pretty easily self-defined by its name alone. Utilitarianism is the moral theory that best describes this category, as utilitarianism is making decisions and determining actions depending entirely on their outcomes. Also doesn’t matter if the action itself is good or bad, or what the intention truly is.
Rights-Based Ethics – This set of ethics justifies or condemns actions based upon whether or not they betray the rights that are given to someone. There is not a whole lot to this section, but it interesting how it is viewed in normal ethics.
What moral system do I use? Which do you?
I would deny to following any one system, I’ll explain this later. However, you may have noticed that you also don’t follow any one system. A lot of moral decisions are utilitarian in nature, regarding the outcomes as the justification for making a decision. At the same time, you’d probably want to avoid using someone you know, or anyone. It’s almost impossible to live a life using only one system; the systems overlap heavily. For example, a Kantian would justify an action as impermissible if it uses someone as an end, but at the same time, the statement that something is impermissible and therefore can’t be done is utilitarian in the sense that less bad is done and thus actually doing the action is a utilitarian decision.
The “Prime Difficulty” of Ethics and Morals (and many ways of thinking in science and philosophy):
Almost all moral systems are relative in nature, meaning that the parameters of good and bad can change (and trust me, they do). This is one of the most frustrating and hard to swallow parts of ethics, since a good action can be good but someone else could define it as wrong and both would be right. But that can’t happen; that’s a contradiction. That is, however, exactly what relative ethics says. It implies that progress can’t be made because all moral systems are perfect, even if they contradict with one another. It is this state of contradiction that creates anxiety in the field of ethics. This is cultural authority based ethics. This is what most of us use. The irony is that ethicists criticize Rights-based ethicists because the “inherent rights” are determined solely on opinion- the same way right and wrong is determined with the rest of ethicists.
Alternative to Relativism:
The only truth system aside from Relativism is Absolutism. In ethics, this would imply that certain actions are always wrong. However, absolutism itself presents a difficulty: Where do absolute morals come from? They don’t come anywhere, actually, unless good and bad are permanently designated somewhere. This doesn’t happen in cultures, ethical egoists die at some point (and even before then, it applies only to themselves), and they don’t just magically appear (everyone’s moral intuition is different).
The only possible origin of absolute justification or outlined right and wrong would have to be defined outside of humanity. Religions make this supposition and it’s one of the reasons why they must be examined so closely. God (or gods) define what is wrong or right and thus those actions are always wrong or right.
Christianity:
Christianity is an example of absolute ethics. It states that certain actions are crimes against God and men so certain actions are wrong. Since morality is a social interface, Christian morals are three-fold: you can commit evils against nature, against man, and against God Himself (which includes all evils). Thus, the actions the Bible outlines as evil are always sin. Although Christianity is an absolute authority based ethical system, it does not depend on one process of justification. It is wrong to use someone as a means to end, to waste things, and it is wrong to violate someone’s rights to live, for example.
However, Christian Ethics is an underdeveloped sector of Christian theology and it is often criticized because of this.
----
* - Ethical egoism, Egoist ethics
1 - deontology. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deontology
2 - consequentialism. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/bro.....nsequentialism
foxgamer01
~foxgamer01
That is a nice read. Thank you for posting it. =)
SalemPertaeus
~salempertaeus
OP
Thanks.
