What is ethics?

• Etymologically, ethics is derived from the Greek word- ethos,

which means custom. The idea of custom here is to suggest
that every custom sets certain limits that it expects that
individuals and groups will not cross
• In this regard there is a social control on what is good or bad,
how we should relate to one another, how people in the
community should relate to other living things, the
environment, celestial being, and distant people.
• It has as its main goal carrying investigation into the morality
of human action. Its focus is on how human beings can live a
moral life and the right standards used in evaluating
• Ethics, also referred to as moral philosophy, is
the branch of philosophy that deals with
moral rules that ought to guide social relations
among humans as well as regulate how
human beings ought to relate with other living
and non-living entities around them
• Ethics is a field of philosophy where the
analytical and critical tools of philosophy are
focused on human actions. It is a field that
seeks to unearth the nature of morality and
what the right moral judgement entails.
• It is concerned with the evaluation of human
actions in order to determine whether these
actions are right or wrong, good or bad, just or
unjust. It helps furnish humans with “direction
on what is the appropriate way to conduct
ourselves in the pursuit of what is good over
evil, what is right over what is wrong, and
what is just over what is unjust, among
others”
• Some of the questions that are raised in ethics
are: What makes an action right or wrong?
What is the moral standard? Who determines
what is morally right- God, society, or the
individual? Is what is morally right subjective,
relative or absolute in nature? What do the
terms employed in moral judgement like good,
right, or just, mean?
• Ethics has as its subject matter- morality.
Ethics is the systematic study of what is right,
wrong, good or bad, just or unjust.
• Morality refers to that which is good or
thought to be good, that which is just or that
which is thought to be unjust. It has to do with
living a good life in the society. The good life in
question refers to living a life of virtue.
• The requirement that human beings should be
just is founded on the belief that human
beings are rational. As rational beings we are
expected to know that which is right or wrong
or injurious to humanity
• As rational beings, it is expected that reason
and experience will make humans know those
things which we like or which is good for us,
and that the actor will not want the opposite
for recipients of his/her action. Rationality
presupposes that we do not want harm to
befall us and the implication of this is that we
would want to do unto others as we want
others to do unto us.
• It is also founded on the fact that human
beings are rational in the sense that seeing
that human beings are rational will require
that they seek adequate justification or
relevant evidence that will enable them make
justifiable decisions concerning their actions in
their quest to determine the proper way to
behave.
 Ethics as an inquiry
• Ethics has been defined as “an inquiry into
the moral worth of human conducts.”
• In other words it entails making
investigation.
• As a result of the fact that ethics deals
with human action the investigations
conducted in it are far-reaching touching
nearly all facets of life
 The Ultimate aim of ethics
• The ultimate aim of ethics, is to furnish human
beings with standards with which they can
make distinction between those "actions that
are good and those that are bad, between
those that are right and those that are wrong,
between those that are acceptable and those
that are not acceptable, and between those
that are commendable or not commendable."
• It is for this reason that we have an ethics of nearly
every facet of life- Business Ethics, Environmental
Ethics, Research Ethics, Medical Ethics, Work Ethics,
Christian Ethics, Medical Ethics, Bioethics
• The reason for these various ethics is because of
the recognition that there are diverse ethical
challenges that lurk around in different disciplines
and facets of life that require effective response
able to ensure that moral principles are "sustained
in the various areas of human operations."
• Ethics make a bifurcation of action into two- the good
or the bad, the just or unjust. In doing the separation
ethics separates actions into the moral or the
immoral, and thus further underscore norms that
human conducts should make their actions conform
to and condemns vices which they should run away
from. Through this ethics prescribes the type of
human behaviours that are intrinsically good in
themselves and the criteria for adjudging actions one
is about to undertake as either moral or immoral.
• If people adhere to the principle of ethics and
its recommendation then social order will be
maintained.
 BRANCHES OF ETHICS
• Ethics is studied under the following branches
• 1. Meta-Ethics
• 2. Normative Ethics
• 3. Applied Ethics
 Meta-Ethics
• One of the tools of philosophy, of which ethics is a
branch, is language; the other being logic
• It is with language that we communicate ideas and
thus it is important to ensure that one has a good
grasp of the language with which one is
communicating. Language is however made up of
words or terms or concepts which could have
more than one meaning; and it is important to
ensure that the concepts one is using is clearly
understood.
• According to P.O. Bodunrin, "the first step in
philosophical reasoning is conceptual
analysis."8 This step allows the philosopher to
explicate the concept or idea being discussed,
thereby allowing the philosopher to unearth
the meanings of his terms and avoid linguistic
muddle.
• The explanation and clarification of ethical
concepts is done in meta-ethics. Meta-ethics
may be defined as: a sub-branch of ethics
dedicated to promoting a better
understanding of concepts and terms
employed in ethical discourse so that people
are better positioned to interrogate principles
of action in ethical reasoning
• Some of the words used in ethics are: good,
bad, wrong, right, moral, duty, obligation,
virtue, freedom, rationality, choice, immoral.
Metaethics is interested in examining these
concepts and others in order to show what
they mean in moral discourse.
 Things done in metaethics
• 1. Clarification of concepts. For example;
antinaturalism sees goodness as a simple,
nonnatural, and indefinable property
• 2. investigating the meaning of ethical statement.
For example: Emotivism claims that every ethical
statement shows the emotion of the person making
an ethical claim and is an attempt to evoke the
same feeling from others. So when one says “lying is
wrong” the person is showing his attitude to lying
and expects others to display similar attitude
• Another example is prescriptivism which is the
metaethical theory that says that one is
making a universal prescription about an
action which one likes or dislikes, such that if
one says stealing is wrong then one is
recommending to everyone to desist from
stealing
• 3. The third thing that is done in meta-ethics is
the identification of the source of moral
standards. In other words there is an attempt
to know what make a moral action right or
wrong?
• For example we have: the divine command
theory: which holds that what is right or
wrong depends on God saying so.
• Ethical relativism: this metaethical theory
posits that what is morally right or wrong has
its source in the individual, society, culture, or
period (epoch)
 Normative ethics
• The second branch of ethics is normative ethics.
This is the branch of ethics given to determining
the norms with which to evaluate which action is
right or wrong.
• It is the branch of ethics given to development of
"principles that ought to guide human conduct,”
or "the formulation of moral rules that have
direct implications for what human actions,
institutions, and ways of life should be like."
• Generally speaking two traditional forms of
theories have emerged from this branch of
ethics. They are:
• 1. Teleological ethical theories
• 2 deontological ethical theories
 Teleological ethical theories
• Teleological ethical theories are also called
consequentialist ethical theories. These are
theories that place emphasis on the
consequence or outcome of an action to
determine if the action in question is right or
wrong. an action is right if it brings about good
result and wrong if it brings about bad result.
• There is, however, no consensus among proponents
of teleological ethical theories as to what qualifies a
result as good or bad. Some moral philosophers are
of the view that it is the ability of an action to bring
pleasure that determines whether the result of the
action is good; while if an action produces pain then
the result is bad. Thus, for philosophers who
subscribe to this view, an action is right if it promotes
the greatest amount of pleasure over pain; and
wrong if it enhances more pain than pleasure
• Examples of teleological ethical theories are:
• Ethical hedonism
• Ethical egoism
• Ethical altruism
• Utilitarianism- the greatest amount of good
must be promoted for the greatest number of
people affected by the result of the action
 Critique of teleological ethics
• However, teleological ethical theories have
some shortcomings. One is that they require
that we foresee the outcome of our actions,
which incidentally is what humans are not
totally capable of. Some consequences which
are foreseen to bring good results sometimes
end up producing bad ones and vice versa.
• In addition, humans are often incapable of
foreseeing which action will purely benefit
self, or others, or even the majority. Actions
that one believes will favour oneself
sometimes favour others too, while
benevolent actions sometimes favour one in
addition to favouring others. Fact is that the
demarcation is not often an easy one to make.
• Another major failure of consequentialism is
that it makes it appear that the end justifies
the means. But the problem is that an evil
means cannot justify a good end. If an action
is informed by a bad motive, even if the
consequence of that action is good, the action
cannot be said to be morally good.
 Deontological ethical theories
• Deontological ethical theories generally agree
that it is the nature of an action in itself that
makes an action good or bad and not just the
consequence.
• deontological ethical theories place
importance on rules, motives, and the nature
of the action itself in deciding the rightness or
wrongness of an action. Kant's Moral Theory is
an example of deontological ethical theories