Ethics and the Examined

Life
• Ethics - or moral philosophy, is the philosophical
study of morality.
• Morality - refers to beliefs concerning right and
wrong, good and bad.
 Difference between morality and ethics
• Morality pertains to standards of right and wrong, usually inherited from a community.
BUT
• Ethics studies standards of right and wrong, the act of making a decision, the nature of the
agent of the agent who makes the decision.
• The Study of Ethics
1. Ethics entails a reflective distance to critically examine standards
 It looks values beneath these moral standards (WHAT or WHY)
 E.g. we take for granted that we should marry in church.
• But have we asked why? If we do, this will affect our attitude to divorce,
etc.
• What is the value? Lifelong commitment?
2. It looks at the agent who makes the moral decision
 Mature?
 Level of moral development (WHO)
 3. It is about the moral decision
making process (WHO)

Ethics is not about theoretical

knowledge but application of
that knowledge, transforming it
to action in everyday life.
Question
• Does it matter whether scientist conduct dangerous
experiments on people without their full knowledge and
consent?
• Does it matter whether the state executes criminals who
have the mental capacity of a ten-year-old?
• Does it matter who actually writes the term paper you turn
in and represent as your own?
• Does it matter whether we regard the terrorists who killed
nearly three thousand innocent people on September 11,
2001, as heroes or as a murderers?
Ethical Landscape
• Descriptive Ethics - the scientific study of moral beliefs and
practices
• normative Ethics - the study of the principles rules, or
theories that guide our actions and judgments
• Applied Ethics - The application of moral norms to specific
moral issues or cases, particularly those in a profession such
as medicine or law.
• Instrumentally (or extrinsically) valuable - valuable as a
means to something else
• Intrinsically Valuable - Valuable in itself, for its own sake
Elements of Ethics
• The Preeminence of Reason

 it involves, even requires critical reasoning

The backbon of critical reasoning generally and moral reasoning in particular

is logical argument.

Our use of critical reasoning and argument help us keep us keep our feelings
about moral perspective.

Feelings are important part of our moral experience

 The Universal Perspective

• Logic requires that moral norms and judgments follow the principle
of universalibility.
• The idea that a moral statement (principle, rule, or judgment) that
applies in one situation must apply in all other situations that are
relevantly similar.
• ex. lying is wrong in a particular situation, then you implicitly agree
that lying is wrong for anyone in relevantly similar situation
• e.g. Killing in self-defense
• This point about universalizability also applies to reasons used to
support moral judgments. if reasons apply in a specific cases , then
those reasons also apply in all relevantly similar cases.
 The Principle of Impartiality

• From moral point of view: all people are considered equal and should
be treated accordingly.
• It means that the welfare and interests of each individual should be
given the same weight as all others.
• We must keep in mind, that sometimes there are good reason for
treating someone differently. (e.g. patient who is treated in the
hospital and the patient who is in the ambulance)
 The Dominance of Moral Norms
• Not all norms are moral norms
• Legal norms (laws, statutes)
• aesthetic Norms ( For judging artistic creations)
• Prudential norms ( practical considerations of self-interest)
• Whenever moral principles or values conflict in someway with
nonmoral principles or values, the moral considerations usually
override the other..
• Moral considerations seems more important, more critical, or
more weighty.
 Religion and Morality
• Many people believe that morality and religion are inseparable, that
religion is the source or basis of morality and that moral precepts
are simply what God says should be done. This view is not at all
suprising, since all religions imply or assert a perspective on
morality
• The three great religions in the Western tradition:
1. Christianity
2. Judaism
3. Islam
• Provide to their believers commandments or principles of conduct
that are thought to constitute the moral law, the essence of
morality.
What is the relationship between religion and
morality?
1. What is the relationship between religion and ethics (the philosophical
study of morality)?
2. What is the realtionship between religion and morality (beliefs about right
and wrong)?
• Question 1 is a query about how religion relates to the kind of investigation
we conduct in this book - the use of experience and critical reasoning to
study morality.
• The key point about the relationship is that whatever your views on religion
and morality, an open minded expedition into ethics is more useful and
empowering than you may realize, especially now at the beginning of your
journey into moral philosophy.
Things to consider:
1. Believers need moral reasoning- It is difficult -
perhaps impossible - for most people to avoid using
moral reasoning. Religious people are no exceptions.
One cause is that religious moral codes (such as the Ten
Commandments) and other major religious rules of
conduct are usually vague, laying out general principles
that may be difficult to apply to specific cases.
For Example:

• we are commanded to love our neighbor, but what neighbors are

included:
• People of a different religion? People who denounce our religion? The
gay or lesbian couple? Those who steal from us? The convicted child
molester next door? The drug dealer on the corner? The woman who
got an abortion?
• Also, what does loving our neighbors demand for us? How does love
require us to behave toward the drug dealer, The gay or lesbian
couple, or the person who denounce our religion? if our terminally ill
neighbor asks us in the name of love to help him kill himself, what
should we do? does love require us to kill him or to refrain from killing
him?
• All these situations force the believer to interpret religious directives,
to try to apply general rules to specific cases, to draw out the
implecations of particular views - in other words, to do ethics.
2. When Conflict arise, ethics steps in - Very often moral contradictions
or inconsistencies confront the religious believer, and only moral
reasoning can help resolve them. Believers sometimes disagree with
their religious leaders on moral issues.
 Moral Philosophy Enables Productive Discourse
• Any fruitul discusions about morality undertaken between people from
different religious traditions o between believers and non believers will
require a common set of ethical concepts and a shared procedure for
deciding issues and making judgments.
• Ethics provides these tools, without them, conversations will resolve nothing,
and prticipants will learn little. Without them, people will talk past each
other, appealing only to their own religious views.
• Furthermore, in a pluralistic society, most of the public discussions about
important moral issues take place in a context of shared values such as
justice, fairness, equality, and tolerance. Just as important, they also occur
according to an unwritten understanding that (1) moral positions should be
explained (2) claims should be supported by reasons, and (3) reasoning
should be judge by common rational standards. These skills, of course, are
the heart of ehtics
 Activity
• How can we hope to grapple with complex moral issues that have
emerged only in recent years?
• Can religion alone handle the Job? consider the following case:
• According to a report by Cnn, Jack and Lisa Nash made history when
they used genetic testing to save the life of their six-year-old daughter,
Molly, by having another child.
• Molly had a rare genetic disorder known as Fanconi anemia, which
prevents the generation of bone marrow and produces a fatal
lukemia. Molly's best chance to live was to get a transplant of stem
cells from the umbilical cord of a sibling.
• And Molly's parents were determined to give her that sibling, brother
Adam. Through genetic testing (and in vitro fertilization) Jack and Lisa
were able to select a child who would not only be born without a
particular disease (Fanconi anemia, in this case) but also would help a
sibling combat the disease by being the optimal tissue match for a
transplant - a historic combination. As Lisa Nash said “I was going to
save Molly no matter what, and I wanted Molly to have siblings.”
Questions:
• Is it right to produce a child to save the life or health of
someone else?
• More to the point, Do the scriptures of the three major
Western religions provide any guidance on this question?
• Do any of these traditions offer useful methods for
productively discussing or debating such issues with people
of different faiths?
• How might ethics help with these challenges?
• Is it possible to formulate a resonable option on this case
without doing ethics, why or why not?
 Summary
• Ethics is the philosophical study of morality, and morality consists of
beliefs concerning right and wrong, good and bad.
• These beliefs can include judgments, principles, and theories
• The three main division of ethis proper are: ,
• normative ethics ( The study of moral norms that guide our actions &
judgments)
• metaethics ( The study of the meaning and logical structure of moral beliefs)
• and applied ethics (The appication of moral norms to specific moral issues or
cases)
• Ethics involves a distinctive set of elements. These includes:
• Preeminence of reason
• universal perspective
• principles of impartiality
• dominance of moral norms
• Some people claim that morality depends on God, a view known
as the dvine command theory.
• The Larger point is that doing ethics using critical reasoning to
examine the moral life can be a useful and productive enterprise
for believers and nonbeliever.