ETHICS

Origin: The word "ethics" is derived from the Greek "ethos"

(meaning "custom" or "habit").

Definition:
•moral principles that govern a person's behavior

• the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and

with moral duty and obligation

•fundamental principles of decent human conduct

• An example of ethics: code of conduct set by a business.

• a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing,
defending, and
recommending concepts of right and wrong
conduct

• a system of accepted beliefs that control behavior,

especially such a system

• the study of what is morally right and what is rig

moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that
involves systematizing, defending, and
recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
 synony moral code, morals, morality, moral
ms stand, moral principles, moral values, rights
and
wrongs, principles, ideals, creed, credo, ethos,
rules of conduct, standards (of
behavior), virtues, dictates of conscience
3 types of ethics

1. Meta ethics
2. Normative ethics
3. Applied ethics.
Ethics in general

Ethics is a system of moral principles. They affect

how people make decisions and lead their lives.

Ethics is concerned with what is good for

individuals and society and is also described as
moral philosophy.
Basic Ethical Principles
1. Respect for Persons
2. Beneficence. ...
3. Justice

Code of ethics is made up of five fundamental

principles:

1. Integrity. Being straightforward, honest and

truthful in all professional and business
relationships
2. Objectivity
3. Professional competence and due care. ...
4. Confidentiality. ...
5. Professional behaviour.
3 types of ethics
1. Normative - is the branch of ethics concerned with
establishing how things should or ought
to be, how to value them, which things
are good or bad, and which actions are
right or wrong.

It attempts to develop a set of rules governing

human conduct, or a set of norms for action.

2. Meta- Ethics - is concerned primarily with the meaning of ethical

judgments, and seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties,
statements, attitudes, and judgments and how they may be supported
or defended.
• deals with the meaning of ethical judgments, and
seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties,
statements, attitudes, and judgments and how they
may be supported or defended.

• A meta-ethical theory, unlike a normative ethical theory,

does not attempt to evaluate specific choices as being
better, worse, good, bad or evil; rather it tries to define the
essential meaning and nature of the problem being
discussed.

• It concerns itself with second order questions, specifically

the semantics, epistemology and ontology of ethics.
3. Applied ethics - is a discipline of philosophy that
attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life
situations.

• It is strict principle-based ethical approaches

often result in solutions to specific problems
that are not universally acceptable or
impossible to implement.

• Applied Ethics is much more ready to include the

insights of psychology, sociology and other
relevant areas of knowledge in its deliberations.

• It is used in determining public policy.

Summary

Ethics studies the rightness or wrongness of a human action.

Raises Questions:
1. How do human persons ought to act?

2. What is a right conduct and a good life?

Ethics has no absolute definition because of constant socio-cultural and

political changes.

Ethics is a science of morals. The “theory of right action and the greater
good” for “systemic study of the underlying principles of morality.

Morality is a practice of Ethics. It deals on the “practice , rigthness or

wrongness of human action for prescribing or telling us what we ought to
do.
Normative Ethics is Prescriptive in nature.

Metaethics is Descriptive in nature.

• Describing or understanding the nature and
dynamic of ethical
principles, and the way we learn and acquire
moral beliefs.
Normative Ethics Metaethics
Do good at all times. What is good?

Applied Ethics
Why should I be moral

Greek Tradition Judeo Chrisdtian Tradition

“ good life” “righteousness before God”
“love of God and neighbor”

“happiness” provides ways to be happy not

necessarily in the present life
“Being Happy” “ Doing what is Right”
 History of Ethics
A. Ancient Greek Ethics
1. Socrates
He asserted that people will naturally do what is good
provided that they know what is right, and that evil or bad
actions are purely the result of ignorance: "There is only
one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance".

He equated knowledge and wisdom with self-awareness

(meaning to be aware of every fact relevant to a person's
existence) and virtue and happiness.
2. Aristotle

"Nature does nothing in vain", so it is only

when a person acts in accordance with their
nature and thereby realizes their full
potential, that they will do good and
therefore be content in life.
He encouraged moderation in all things,
the extremes being degraded and
immoral, (e.g. courage is the moderate
virtue between the extremes of cowardice
and recklessness), and held that Man
should not simply live, but live well with
conduct governed by moderate virtue.
• Aristotle, denotes doing the right thing to
the right person at the right time to the
proper extent in the correct fashion and
for the right reason - something of a tall
order.
3. Cynicism.

• Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, who

lived in a tub on the streets of Athens.

• He taught that a life lived according to Nature

was better than one that conformed to
convention, and that a simple life is essential to
virtue and happiness.

• As a moral teacher, Diogenes emphasized

detachment from many of those things
conventionally considered "good".
4. Hedonism

• affirms that the principal ethic is

maximizing pleasure and minimizing
pain.

• Hedonists are people who believe

that the most ethical pursuit
maximizes pleasure and happiness
for oneself or the most people.
5. Stoicism

• Epictetus posited that the greatest good was

contentment, serenity and peace of mind,
which can be achieved by self-mastery over
one's desires and emotions, and freedom
from material attachments.

• In particular, sex and sexual desire are to be

avoided as the greatest threat to the integrity
and equilibrium of a man's mind.
According to Epictetus, difficult problems in life
should not be avoided, but rather embraced as
spiritual exercises needed for the health of the spirit.
6. Skepticism

• Pyrrho, the founding figure of Pyrrhonian

Skepticism, taught that one cannot
rationally decide between what is good
and what is bad although, generally
speaking, self-interest is the primary
motive of human behavior, and he was
disinclined to rely upon sincerity, virtue
or Altruism as motivations.
Philosophical Approaches

1. Normative or Prescriptive Approach

• Normative Approach (or Prescriptive Ethics) is

concerned with establishing how things should
or ought to be, how to value them, which things
are good or bad, and which actions are right or
wrong.

• It attempts to develop a set of rules governing

human conduct, or a set of norms for action.
Normative ethical theories are usually split
into three main categories:
Consequentialism, Deontology and Virtue
Ethics:

1. Consequentialism (or Teleological Ethics)

argues that the morality of an action is
contingent on the action's outcome or
result. Thus, a morally right action is one
that produces a good outcome or
consequence.
• Consequentialist theories must consider
questions like:

1. "What sort of consequences count as

good consequences?",

2. "Who is the primary beneficiary of moral

action?",

3. "How are the consequences judged and

who judges them.
2. Meta-ethics or Analytic Ethics

• Meta-Ethics is concerned primarily with the

meaning of ethical judgments, and seeks to
understand the nature of ethical properties,
statements, attitudes, and judgments and how they
may be supported or defended.

• A meta-ethical theory, unlike a normative ethical

theory does not attempt to evaluate specific
choices as being better, worse, good, bad or
evil; rather it tries to define the essential
meaning and nature of the problem being
discussed.
• There are two main variants:

a. Ethical Naturalism

• It assumes cognitivism (the view that ethical

sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false),
and that the meanings of these ethical sentences can be expressed
as natural properties without the use of ethical terms.
b. Ethical Non-Naturalism

• This doctrine (whose major apologist is G. E. Moore) holds

that ethical statements express propositions (in that sense it is
also cognitivist) that cannot be reduced to non-ethical statements
(e.g. "goodness" is indefinable in that it cannot be defined in any
other terms).

• Moore claimed that a naturalistic fallacy is committed by any

attempt to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a definition
in terms of one or more natural properties (e.g. "good" cannot be
defined in terms of "pleasant", "more evolved", "desired", etc).
• Ethical Intuitionism is a variant of Ethical Non-Naturalism
which claims that we sometimes have intuitive
awareness of moral properties or of moral truths.
3. Applied Ethics

• Applied Ethics is a discipline of philosophy that

attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life
situations.

It is an strict principle-based ethical approaches

often result in solutions to specific problems
that are not universally acceptable or impossible
to implement.
• Applied Ethics is much more ready to include the
insights of psychology, sociology and other
relevant areas of knowledge in its deliberations. It
is used in determining public policy
The following would be questions of Applied
Ethics:
"Is getting an abortion immoral?“

"Is euthanasia immoral?",

"Is affirmative action right or wrong?",

"What are human rights, and how do we determine them?"

"Do animals have rights as well?"

Some topics falling within the discipline include:

1. Medical Ethics: the study of moral values and

judgments as they apply to medicine.

• Historically, Western medical ethics may be

traced to guidelines on the duty of physicians
in antiquity, such as the Hippocratic Oath (at its
simplest, "to practice and prescribe to the
best of my ability for the good of my
patients, and to try to avoid harming them"),
and early rabbinic, Muslim and Christian
teachings.
Six of the values that commonly apply to medical ethics
discussions are:

1. Beneficence (a practitioner should act in the best

interest of the patient),
2. Non-maleficence ("first, do no harm"),

3. Autonomy (the patient has the right to refuse or choose

their treatment),
4. Justice (concerning the distribution of scarce health
resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment),

5. Dignity (both the patient and the practitioner have the

right to dignity),

6. Honesty (truthfulness and respect for the concept of

informed consent
2. Bioethics: concerns the ethical controversies
brought about by advances in biology and
medicine.

• Public attention was drawn to these

questions by abuses of human subjects in
biomedical experiments, especially during the
Second World War, but with recent advances in
biotechnology, bioethics has become a fast-
growing academic and professional area of
inquiry.
• Issues include consideration of cloning, stem cell
research, transplant trade, genetically modified food,
human genetic engineering, genomics, infertility
treatment, etc,
3.Legal Ethics: an ethical code governing the conduct
of people engaged in the practice of
law.
• Model rules usually address the client-lawyer
relationship, duties of a lawyer as advocate in
adversary proceedings, dealings with persons other
than clients, law firms and associations, public
service, advertising and maintaining the integrity of
the profession.

• Respect of client confidences, candor toward the

tribunal, truthfulness in statements to others, and
professional independence are some of the defining
features of legal ethics.
4. Business Ethics: examines ethical principles and
moral or ethical problems that can arise in a
business environment.

• This includes Corporate Social Responsibility, a

concept whereby organizations consider the interests
of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their
activities on customers, employees, shareholders,
communities and the environment in all aspects of their
operations, over and above the statutory obligation to
comply with legislation.
5. Environmental Ethics: considers the ethical relationship between
human beings and the natural environment.

• It addresses questions like :

1. "Should we continue to clear cut forests for the sake of human
consumption?",

2. "Should we continue to make gasoline powered vehicles,

depleting fossil fuel resources while the technology exists to
create zero-emission vehicles?",

3. "What environmental obligations do we need to keep for

future generations?",
4. "Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a
species for the (perceived or real) convenience of
humanity?"
5. What environmental obligations do we need to keep for future
generations?",

6. "Is it right for humans to knowingly cause the extinction of a

species for the (perceived or real) convenience of humanity?"
6. Information Ethics: investigates the ethical issues
arising from the development and application of
computers and information technologies.

• It is concerned with issues like the privacy of

information, whether artificial agents may be moral,
how one should behave in the info sphere, and
ownership and copyright problems arising from the
creation, collection, recording, distribution,
processing, etc, of information.
7. Media Ethics: deals with the specific ethical
principles and standards of media in general,
including the ethical issues relating to
journalism, advertising and marketing, and
entertainment media.
Summary on the Approaches to ethics:

Philosophers nowadays tend to divide ethical theories into three

areas: Metaethics, Normative ethics and Applied ethics.

A. Meta-ethics deals with the nature of moral judgement. It looks at

the origins and meaning of ethical principles.

B. Normative ethics is concerned with the content of moral

judgements and the criteria for what is right or wrong.

C. Applied ethics looks at controversial topics like war, animal rights

and capital punishment
Where does Ethics comes from?
1. The Supernatural Theory
2. The Natural Law Theory
3. The Subjectivist Theory

1. The Supernatural Theory

Virtually every human society has some form of myth to explain

the origin of morality. In the Louvre in Paris there is a black
Babylonian column with a relief showing the sun god Shamash
presenting the code of laws to Hammurabi (died c. 1750 BCE),
known as the Code of Hammurabi.

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) account of God’s giving the

Ten Commandments to Moses (flourished 14th–13th century
BCE) on Mount Sinai might be considered another example.
In the Dialogue, Protagoras by Plato (428/427–
348/347 BCE), there is an avowedly mythical account of
how Zeus took pity on the hapless humans, who were
physically no match for the other beasts.

To make up for these deficiencies, Zeus gave humans a

moral sense and the capacity for law and justice, so that
they could live in larger communities and cooperate
with one another.
That morality should be invested with all the mystery
and power of divine origin is not surprising.
Nothing else could provide such strong reasons for
accepting the moral law.

By attributing a divine origin to morality, the priesthood

became its interpreter and guardian and thereby
secured for itself a power that it would not readily
relinquish.
This link between morality and religion has been so
firmly forged that it is still sometimes asserted that there
can be no morality without religion.

According to this view, ethics is not an independent

field of study but rather a branch of theology (see moral
theology).
conclusion

God is the source of ethics.

• God-based ethics – supernaturalism

• Supernaturalism makes ethics inseparable from

religion. It teaches that the only source of moral rules
is God.

• So, something is good because God says it is, and

the way to lead a good life is to do what God wants.
 2. The Natural Law Theory

• Fortunately, another mode of inquiry is available.

Because living in social groups is a characteristic
that humans share with many other animal
species—including their closest relatives, the
apes—presumably the common ancestor of humans
and apes also lived in social groups.

• Here, then, in the social behaviour of nonhuman

animals and in the theory of evolution that explains
such behaviour may be found the origins of human
morality.
Social life, even for nonhuman animals, requires
constraints on behaviour. No group can stay together
if its members make frequent, unrestrained attacks on
each other.
• It is not difficult to see analogies here with human
moral codes. The parallels, however, go much further
than this.

• With some exceptions, social animals generally either

refrain altogether from attacking other members of the
social group or, if an attack does take place, do not
make the ensuing struggle a fight to the death—it is
over when the weaker animal shows submissive
behavior.

• It is not difficult to see analogies here with human

moral codes. The parallels, however, go much further
than this.
• Like humans, social animals may behave in ways
that benefit other members of the group at some
cost or risk to themselves.

• Male baboons threaten predators and cover the rear

as the troop retreats.

• Wolves and wild dogs take meat back to members

of the pack not present at the kill.

• Gibbons and chimpanzees with food will, in

response to a gesture, share their food with other
members of the group.
Dolphins support other sick or injured dolphins,
swimming under them for hours at a time and pushing
them to the surface so they can breathe.
3. The Subjectivist Theory

• It may be thought that the existence of such

apparently altruistic behaviour is odd, for
evolutionary theory states that those who do not
struggle to survive and reproduce will be
eliminated through natural select.
• Research in evolutionary theory applied to social
behaviour, however, has shown that evolution need not
be so ruthless. Some of this altruistic behaviour is
explained by kin selection. The most obvious examples
are those in which parents make sacrifices for their
offspring. If wolves help their cubs to survive, it is more
likely that genetic characteristics, including the
characteristic of helping their own cubs, will spread
through further generations of wolves.