CHAPTER 1

ETHICS AND ITS SUBDIVIDIONS

Ethics - branch of philosophy that deals with how we ought to live, with the idea of the Good,
and with concepts such as “right” and “wrong.”
Philosophy - an enterprise that begins with wonder at the marvels and mysteries of the world;
that pursues a rational investigation of those marvels and mysteries, seeking wisdom and truth;
and that results in a life lived in passionate moral and intellectual integrity. Taking as its motto
Socrates’ famous statement that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” philosophy leaves no
aspect of life untouched by its inquiry. It aims at a clear, critical, comprehensive conception of
reality.
The main characteristic of philosophy is rational argument. Philosophers clarify
concepts and analyze and test propositions and beliefs, but their major task is to analyze and
construct arguments. Philosophical reasoning is closely allied with scientific reasoning, in that
both build hypotheses and look for evidence to test those hypotheses with the hope of coming
closer to the truth. However, scientific experiments take place in laboratories and have testing
procedures through which to record objective or empirically verifiable results. The laboratory of
the philosopher is the domain of ideas. It takes place in the mind, where imaginative thought
experiments occur. It takes place in the study room, where ideas are written down and
examined. It also takes place wherever conversation or debate about the perennial questions
arises, where thesis and counterexample and counter thesis are considered.
The study of ethics within philosophy contains its own subdivisions, and dividing up the
territory of ethics is a tricky matter. A word must be said first about the specific terms moral and
ethical and the associated notions of morals/ethics and morality/ethicality. Often these terms are
used interchangeably—as will be the case in this book. Both terms derive their meaning from
the idea of “custom”— that is, normal behavior. Specifically, “moral” comes from the Latin word
mores and “ethical” from the Greek ethos.
The key divisions within the study of ethics are:
(1) descriptive morality - refers to actual beliefs, customs, principles, and practices of
people and cultures. Sociologists in particular pay special
attention to the concrete moral practices of social groups
around the world, and they view them as cultural “facts,”
much
like facts about what people in those countries eat or how
they
dress.
(2) moral philosophy (ethical theory) - refers to the systematic effort to understand
moral
concepts and justify moral principles and theories. It analyzes
key ethical concepts such as “right,” “wrong,” and
“permissible.” It explores possible sources of moral obligation
such as God, human reason, or the desire to be happy. It
seeks
to establish principles of right behavior that may serve as
action
guides for individuals and groups.
(3) applied ethics - deals with controversial moral problems such as abortion, pre-
marital
sex, capital punishment, euthanasia, and civil disobedience.
The larger study of ethics, then, draws on all three of these subdivisions, connecting them in
important ways.
MORALITY AS COMPARED WITH OTHER NORMATIVE SUBJECTS
Moral principles concern standards of behavior; roughly speaking, they involve not what
is but what ought to be.
RELIGION (Relation between morality and religion)
Religion relies more on revelation, and morality relies more on reason, on
rational reflection. But religion can provide added incentive for the moral life for those
who believe that God sees and will judge all our actions.
LAW (Relation between morality and law)
Morality and law should be very close, and morality should be the basis of the
law, but there can be both unjust laws and immoral acts that cannot be legally enforced.
The law is shallower than morality and has a harder time judging human motives and

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intentions. You can be morally evil, intending to do evil things, but as long as you don’t
do them, you are legally innocent.
ETEQUITTE (Relation between morality and etiquette)
Etiquette concerns form and style rather than the essence of social existence; it
determines what is polite behavior rather than what is right behavior in a deeper sense.
It represents society’s decision as to how we are to dress, greet one another, eat,
celebrate festivals, dispose of the dead, express gratitude and appreciation, and, in
general, carry out social transactions. Whether people greet each other with a
handshake, a bow, a hug, or a kiss on the cheek depends on their social system. Polite
manners grace our social existence, but they are not what social existence is about.
They help social transactions to flow smoothly but are not the substance of those
transactions.

Law, etiquette, and religion are all important institutions, but each has limitations.
 A limitation of religious commands is that they rest on authority, and we may lack
certainty or agreement about the authority’s credentials or how the authority
would rule in ambiguous or new cases. Because religion is founded not on
reason but on revelation, you cannot use reason to convince someone from
another religion that your view is the right one.
 A limitation of law is that you can’t have a law against every social problem, nor
can you enforce every desirable rule.
 A limitation of etiquette is that it doesn’t get to the heart of what is vitally
important for personal and social existence. Whether or not one eats with one’s
fingers pales in significance with the importance of being honest, trustworthy, or
just. Etiquette is a cultural invention, but morality is more like a discovery
Morality differs from law and etiquette by going deeper into the essence of our social
existence. It differs from religion by seeking reasons, rather than authority, to justify its
principles. The central purpose of moral philosophy is to secure valid principles of
conduct and values that can guide human actions and produce good character. As
such, it is the most important activity we know, for it concerns how we are to live.
TRAITS OF MORAL PRINCIPLE
A central feature of morality is the moral principle. We have already noted that moral
principles are practical action guides, but we must say more about the traits of such
principles. Although there is no universal agreement on the traits a moral principle must
have, there is a wide consensus about five features:
1. prescriptivity- is the practical, or action-guiding, nature of morality. Moral principles
are generally put forth as commands or imperatives, such as “Do not
kill.”. They are intended for use: to advise people and influence action.
Prescriptivity shares this trait with all normative discourse and is used
to appraise behavior, assign praise and blame, and produce feelings of
satisfaction or guilt.
2. universalizability- Moral principles must apply to all people who are in a relevantly
similar situation. If one judges that act X is right for a certain person
P, then it is right for anyone relevantly similar to P. Universalizability
applies to all evaluative judgments. If I say that X is a good Y, then I
am logically committed to judge that anything relevantly similar to X
is a good Y.
3. overridingness - Moral principles have predominant authority and override other
kinds
of principles. They are not the only principles, but they also take
precedence over other considerations including aesthetic,
prudential, and legal ones.
4. publicity- Moral principles must be made public in order to guide our actions.
Publicity
is necessary because we use principles to prescribe behavior, give
advice, and assign praise and blame. It would be self-defeating to keep
them a secret.

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5. practicability- A moral principle must have practicability, which means that it must be
workable and its rules must not lay a heavy burden on us when we
follow them. It might be desirable for morality to require more selfless
behavior from us, but the result of such principles could be moral
despair, deep or undue moral guilt, and ineffective action. Accordingly,
most ethical systems take human limitations into consideration.
DOMAINS OF ETHICAL ASSESSMENT
At this point, it might seem that ethics concerns itself entirely with rules of conduct that
are based solely on evaluating acts. However, it is more complicated than that. Most
ethical analysis falls into one or more of the following domains:
(1) action
 A right act is an act that is permissible for you to do.
 It may be either:
o obligatory act - one that morality requires you to do; it is not
permissible for you to refrain from doing it.
o optional act - one that is neither obligatory nor wrong to do. It
is not your duty to do it, nor is it your duty not to do it. Neither
doing it nor not doing it would be wrong.
 A wrong act is one you have an obligation, or a duty, to refrain from
doing: It is an act you ought not to do; it is not permissible to do it.
 But some acts do not seem either obligatory or wrong. Either is
permissible. Within the range of permissible acts is the notion of
supererogatory acts, or highly altruistic acts. These acts are neither
required nor obligatory, but they exceed what morality requires,
going “beyond the call of duty.”
 The complete scheme of acts, then, is this:
o Obligatory act
o Optional act
 Neutral act
 Supererogatory act
o Wrong act (not permissible)
 One important kind of ethical theory that emphasizes the nature of
the act is called deontological (from the Greek word deon,
meaning “duty”). These theories hold that something is inherently
right or good about such acts as truth telling and promise keeping
and inherently wrong or bad about such acts as lying and promise
breaking. Classical deontological ethical principles include the Ten
Commandments and the Golden Rule. Perhaps the leading
proponent of deontological ethics in recent centuries is Immanuel
Kant (1724–1804), who defended a principle of moral duty that he
calls the categorical imperative: “Act only on that maxim whereby
you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law.”
Examples for Kant are “Never break your promise” and “Never
commit suicide.” What all of these deontological theories and
principles have in common is the view that we have an inherent
duty to perform right actions and avoid bad actions.
(2) consequences
 Another way of ethically assessing situations is to examine the
consequences of an action: If the consequences are on balance
positive, then the action is right; if negative, then wrong.
 Ethical theories that focus primarily on consequences in
determining moral rightness and wrongness are called teleological
ethics (from the Greek telos, meaning “goal directed”). The most
famous of these theories is utilitarianism, set forth by Jeremy
Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), which
requires us to do what is likeliest to have the best consequences.
(3) character
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  Whereas some ethical theories emphasize the nature of actions in
themselves and some emphasize principles involving the
consequences of actions, other theories emphasize character, or
virtue.
 Moral philosophers call such good character traits virtues and bad
traits vices. Entire theories of morality have been developed from
these notions and are called virtue theories.
(4) motive
 Virtually all ethical systems recognize the importance of motives.
For a full assessment of any action, it is important to take the
agent’s motive into account. Two acts may appear identical on the
surface, but one may be judged morally blameworthy and the other
excusable.

CHAPTER 2
ETHICAL RELATIVISM
Ethical relativism is the doctrine that the moral rightness and wrongness of actions
vary from society to society and that there are no absolute universal moral standards
binding on all men at all times. Accordingly, it holds that whether or not it is right for an
individual to act in a certain way depends on or is relative to the society to which he
belongs. (JOHN LADD, ETHICAL RELATIVISM)
In the last century or so, anthropology has exposed our fondness for ethnocentrism.
Ethnocentrism - the prejudicial view that interprets all of reality through the eyes of
one’s own cultural beliefs and values.
We have come to see enormous variety in social practices throughout the world.
Examples: - Eskimos allow their elderly to die by starvation, whereas we believe that this is morally wrong
- Spartans of ancient Greece and the Dobu of New Guinea believe that stealing is morally right, but we believe that it is wrong
- A tribe in East Africa once threw deformed infants to the hippopotamus, but our society condemns such acts.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (485–430 BCE) concluded that “Custom is the
king over all.”
Moral Objectivism - the view that there are universal and objective moral principles
valid for all people and social environments.
Ethical Nihilism - the doctrine that no valid moral principles exist, that morality is a
complete fiction.
TWO MAIN FORMS OF ETHICAL RELATIVISM:
*Subjective ethical relativism (subjectivism): All moral principles are justified
by virtue of their acceptance by an individual agent him- or herself.
Absurd consequences follow from subjectivism. If it is correct, then
morality reduces to aesthetic tastes about which there can be neither
argument nor interpersonal judgment.

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*Conventional ethical relativism (conventionalism): All moral principles are
justified by virtue of their cultural acceptance.
This view recognizes the social nature of morality, which is the theory’s
key asset.
ELEMENTS OF CONVENTIONAL ETHICAL RELATIVISM
Diversity thesis: an anthropological thesis acknowledging that moral
rules differ from society to society; it is sometimes referred to as cultural
relativism.
Dependency thesis: asserts that individual acts are right or wrong
depending on the nature of the society in which they occur. Morality does
not exist in a vacuum; rather, what is considered morally right or wrong
must be seen in a context that depends on the goals, wants, beliefs,
history, and environment of the society in question

CRITISIMS OF CONVENTIONAL ETHICAL RELATIVISM

-Conventional Ethical Relativism Undermines Important Values
* It undermines the basis of important values.
If conventional ethical relativism is true, then we cannot legitimately
criticize anyone who espouses what we might regard as a heinous
principle.
* It undermines a value Regarding Moral Reforms
According to conventional ethical relativism, by going against
dominant cultural standards, their actions are technically wrong. If
relativism is correct, the opposite is necessarily the case: Truth is
with the crowd and error with the individual.
* It undermines our moral duties towards the law.
Our normal view is that we have a duty to obey the law because
law, in general, promotes the human good. However, if ethical
relativism is true, then neither law nor civil disobedience has a firm
foundation.
-Conventional Ethical Relativism Leads to Subjectivism

-Moral Diversity Is Exaggerated

-Weak Dependency Does Not Imply Relativism

It concerns the dependency thesis that all moral principles derive their
validity from cultural acceptance.
-Weak dependency. The application of moral principles depends on
one’s culture.
-Strong dependency. The moral principles themselves depend on
one’s culture

-The Indeterminacy of Language

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-This theory, set forth by Willard V. Quine (1908–2000),13 holds that
languages are often so fundamentally different from each other that we
cannot accurately translate concepts from one to another.
This thesis holds that language is the essence of a culture and
fundamentally shapes its reality, cutting the culture off from other
languages and cultures. This, then, seems to imply that each society’s
moral principles depend on its unique linguistically grounded culture.