WHAT ETHICS IS AND IS NOT

WHAT IS ETHICS?

• Ethics refers to standards of behavior that

tell us how human beings ought to act in
the many situations in which they find
themselves as friends, parents, children,
citizens, businesspeople, teachers,
professionals and so on.
WHAT ETHICS IS NOT
ETHICS IS NOT THE SAME AS FEELINGS.
• Feelings provide important
information for our ethical
choices.
• “Some people have highly
developed habits that make them
feel bad when they do something
wrong, but many feel good even
though they are doing something
wrong”.
• Feelings tell us it is
uncomfortable to do the right
thing if it is hard.
ETHICS IS NOT RELIGION.

• Many people are not religious,

but ethics applies to everyone.
Most religions do advocate high
ethical standards but sometimes
do not address all the types of
problems we face.
ETHICS IS NOT FOLLOWING THE LAW.

Dura Lex • A good system of law does

incorporate many ethical
standards, but law can deviate
from what is ethical.
• Law can become ethically
corrupt.
• It can serve the interests of the
few.

Sed Lex
ETHICS IS NOT FOLLOWING CULTURALLY
ACCEPTED NORMS.

• Some cultures are quite ethical

• But others become corrupt or

blind to certain ethical concerns
(slavery before civil war)
ETHICS IS NOT SCIENCE.

• Social and natural science

do provide us with
information for ethical
choices, but alone does not
tell us what we ought to do
IDENTIFYING ETHICAL STANDARDS IS HARD

Two fundamental problems

• 1. On what do we base our ethical standards?

• 2. How do those standards get applied to specific situations we

face?
IF ETHICS ARE NOT BASED ON THE PRECEDING,
WHAT IS IT BASED ON?
 OBJECTIONS TO THE POSSIBILITY OF
ETHICS

Religion Culture

Divine Command Theory: Cultural Relativism:

"Conduct is right because “What is right or wrong
God commands it." depends on one’s
culture.”
CONCLUSION
• Ethics has to do with self-determination, and so
with human freedom.

• Ethics is normative, “not with regard to the

correctness of our thinking, but with regard to
the goodness of our living, the right orientation of
our existence.

• Ethics is the “categorically normative science

of human actions, pursued in accordance with
the natural lights which reason casts.” (De
Finance)