Ethics A Level

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Virtue Ethics:

The aim was to provide a community where citizens could live meaningful social and political lives.

This ethical theory focuses on the virtues contributing towards making the polis (The community which embraces all other communities) virtuous.

Reason is the supreme human virtue. Human choices are based on phronesis (practical wisdom that needs to be develioed so we can balance self-interest with the needs of others) allowing us to make right ethical decisions.

Agent-Centred Morality:

It's based on the person rather than the action itself.

Aristotle's Main Theories:

- The goal of Eudaimonia (this is the lifelong pursuit)

- To be a part of a virtuous community

- Virtues are found at the Golden Mean (the middle part of the two vices)

- If you live a life of virtue then you will develop a good character

- You develop virtues through habit

- You should follow the example of virtuous people.

Eudaimonia

Encompasses all aspects of happiness including political, emotional and philosophical happiness.

To be achieved, it must be a deserved happiness.

It involves living well in a community or society, respecting both other peoples', and your own interest.

The Golden Mean:

Having extremes of characters are unhelpful in society - if you're very timid or forceful it can cause problems.

So the Golden Mean is the right balance between extremes, the extremes he called 'vices' and the mean he called 'virtue'. Seen below:

Vice of Excess: Virtuous Mean: Vice of Deficiency:

Shyness Modesty Shamelessness

Ambition Proper Ambition Unambitiousness

According to Aristotle the reasonable and appropriate action is judged as a virtue and an extreme action judged as a vice. This is why we need to use our reason, this is what sets us apart from animals and is the supreme human virtue.

Cardinal Virtues:

Aristotle thought there were 4 Cardinal Virtues that were to be achieved:

1. Temperance - enjoy life the way that you can

2. Justice - make sure that people get what they deserve

3. Courage - confront the fear or worry

4. Practical Wisdom (phronesis) - always use practical wisdom

Practising virtue:

Virtues need to be practiced until they become a habit, one becomes excellent at them through practice. Every person should work to deveop their character and make a habit out of being virtuous, good actions will automatically follow.

These virtues should be taught through example rather han a set of rules.

MacIntyre:

- Said that modern ethics put too much emphasis on reason and not enough stress on people, their characters and the context of their lives.

- He said that modern ethics resulted in ethical disagreements which left a moral vacuum which developed 3 types of characters in this world:

1. Bureaucratic manager (like the CEO of Starbucks)

2. Rich aesthete (like a nightclub owner)

3. Therapist (like Oprah Winfrey)

- He said that the most important virtues are justice, courage and honesty. We will only achieve moral excellence through practising these three.

- He also believes all communities depend on virtues- else they would fail.

Phiippa Foot:

- Argued that the wise person directs their will to what is good and a good is something that is both intrinsically and extrinsically good as both the motives and the action are important.

- Believed that goodness should be seen as the natural flourishing of humans as living beings, and that ethics shouldn't be about dry theorising but making the world a better place. The virtues are beneficial to the individual and the community.

Strengths of Virtue Ethics:

- It involves all aspects of human life and society.

- Concentrates on what it means to be a good person and allows people to learn from their mistakes and become a good person over time.

- Flexible and allows for different virtues to be valued in different cultures.

- It's a logical theory that focuses on our practical reasoning and the traits that will help society to prosper.

Weaknesses of Virtue Ethics:

- It doesn't give answers to specific moral dilemmas such as abortion. And it's difficult to apply to actual situations, we know we should be virtuous but how exactly do we do that?

- If everyone was to be virtuous then there would be no variety or excitement in the world.

- It's difficult to know at what point a virtue becomes a vice. Virtue ethics doesn't give a solution to the problem of people doing bad things who think they are acting virtuously.

- Some of the virtues may clash.

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Religion and Morality

3 viewpoints of the relationship between religion and morality:

1. Morality depends on religion. Without religion there would be no morality. The ultimate source of authority is God.

2. Morality is independent of religion. Morality comes from cultural and social viewpoints.

3. Morality is opposed to religion. Religious teachings are outdated, if there is o God then there can be no religious morality so morality must come from humanity itself.

1. Argument 1 that morality depends on religion:

Divine Command Ethics:

That morality is based on commands given by God, such as from the Ten Commandments. It argues that:

- God decides what is right and wrong.

- Human reason has no authority.

- God has absolute authority.

- Human's must accept God's teachings.

- God is the only source of moral guidance.

- Those who fail to obey God will be punished.

Yet there are some weaknesses with this view:

1. If humans obey God's moral commands simply out of fear of punishment then they are acting out of self-preservation not morally.

2. Kant said that fear of punishment should not be the motivation for moral goodness.

3. If being morally good means doing what God commands, then humans have no choice and no chance to decide what is right or wrong for themselves. (plus how do we know that what God commands is always morally right????)

Aquinas

Supported the view that religion and morality were linked by saying that:

- God is the supreme good.

- The gpoodness found in human beings and in the world is a reflection of the supreme goodness of God.

- God being perfect in goodness is also perfect in his very being.

Kant

Argued for the existence of God based on the existence of morality, claiming that:

- The existence of God is the only reason to be moral.

- God is needed if we are to achieve the ultimate aim of morality; the greatest good, or 'summum bonum'.

- All humans have a duty, or a categorical imperative (duty), to seek the highest form of good.

- Moral perfection will never be achieved in this life, instead humans will need an afterlife.

- Therefore God must exist to provide an afterlife and allow humanity to reach moral perfection.

Conscience:

Some regard the conscience to be the voice of God which allows people to distinct right from wrong. The Bible speaks of the conscience as something which all humans have as a gift from God which allows them to hear God which will gain them eternal life.

However having a conscience is not itself quite enough because:

- The conscience needs to be instructed and trained. The more right decisions a person makes the more people will be naturally inclined to make the right choice in the future.

- The conscience is not the same in everyone? And it could be a part of human make-up to control social behaviour.

2. Argument 2 that morality is independent of religion:

- Moral teaching based on scripture is unreliable because sacred texts are ancient, and there have been prblems of interpretation.

The Euthyphro Dilemma:

'Does God command X because it is good, or is X good because God commands it?'

Either:

- If God commands X because it is good, goodness exists as something separate from God.

- If X is good because God commands it, God is the direct source of moral knowledge, God's commands establish what is good and nothing can be good unless God commands it.

But then what happens if God commands contradict human morality? Poses a big question to the relationship between the two.

*Example of Abraham when he is asked by God to kill his only son Isaac as a sacrificial offering.* Did God command what is good here?

3. Argument 3 that morality and religion are opposed:

For example the alleged mass killing of humanity by God in the flood of Noah's Ark point to an immoral God who is not the source of all goodness.

Freidrich Nietzsche:

Said that following religious morals was a slave morality by which suffering and weakness were seen as good. He believed that one day, humanity would develop a full code of morality without using the scriptures.

- Today we live in a multicultural world which is largely secular, we are aware of the diversity of religious traditions and we can see just how powerful religious morality can be, but religion is irrelevant to contemporary secular morality.

Dawkins:

Claims that:

- Religion leads to evil, like a virus that infects human minds. It is responsible for misleading education, prejudice and ignorance.

Morality evolves from society, it's not given by God. To have morality is part of what it means to be a society.

There are examples of individuals taking an 'absolutist approach to morality from religion' where they have interpreted the Bible literally. The Westboro Baptist Church campaigns against homosexuality and society supporting sexuality as they have taken words as the literal truth. They can see no reconciliation or moral compromise between the church and the homosexual community.

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Meta Ethics

Subjective - each person's values are relative to that person so cannot be judged objectively.

Objective - ethical values exist independently

If ethics is objective, then it is cognitive. Cognitive language deals with making statements which can be known to be true or false, they are based on facts. This means we can give reasons for our ethical beliefs as they are based on facts, not just expressing our opinions or likes and dislikes.

If ethics is subjective then it is non-cognitive, meaning the statement cannot be proved to be true or false and it depends on what someone thinks. They are not based on any reality in the world.

Normative Ethics (different from meta-ethics)

Looks at rules, and tries to show us how we should behave.

Includes natural law, virtue ethics and Kantian ethics.

Meta Ethics

Looks at language and meaning and how language is used in ethical statements.

Ethical Naturalism (Cognitivist)

The view that:

- Ethical terms can be defined or explained using the same 'natural terms' that we would use to define maths or science.

- Morals could be based on the same kind of observation of the world as used in science.

Our sense perceptions - the things we see, hear, smell, touch and taste - and our logic facility are the tools that a moral person uses to conclude ethical truths. Moral truths are facts like numbers, you can conclude that something is wrong from observation and analysis.

F Bradley said that a moral perspective was determined from self realisation and from observing one's position in society. This involves us choosing to act in one way rather than another so we can develop ourselves.

Emotivism (Non-Cognitivist)

Moral language doesn't deal with objective facts but with opinion. He argues that the moral statements express our emotions and feelings about the issues (e.g stealing is wrong = all we are saying is we disapprove of stealing).

This theory is also known as the 'Boo-Hurrah' theory. We say 'boo' to stealing and 'hurrah' to respecting other people's property.

Prescriptivism (Non-Cognitivist)

Developed by R Hare who said that moral statements are expressions of opinion rather than fact, but argued that when we make moral statements we aren't only expressing our opinions, but also encouraging others to share our attitude. We are prescribing our opinions and recommending others to follow us. According to Hare, the main function of moral language is to prescribe courses of action that you might want others to follow.

(Criticism, it doesn't help people to understand why they should follow one person's prescriptions rather than another's.)

Intuitionism (Cognitivist)

G Moore claimed that moral judgements are based on an intuitive knowledge of good things. Moral statements cannot be verifgied simply by looking at the edivdence available to the 5 senses, this mistake is called the 'naturalistic fallacy'.

He argued that 'good' is indefinable, it can always be asked what is good, with no real universal answer. But it is possible to make judgements about which things are good but goodness doesn't come from factual evidence but must be recognised by intuition rather than the senses.

We cant explain how we know something is good, we just know it. He uses the example of the colour yellow, we can't describe it, we just know.

Pritchard said that moral obligation presents itself directly to our intuitions. Not all people can intuit moral truth because some people have a clearer intuition than others.

Ross then said that moral principles cannot be absolute. Ross developed 'prima Facie' (first appearance) duties. There are 7 duties which include promise keeping, justice and gratitude.

In a moral dilemma, the various duties we have are apparent, In making moral decisions, our intuition identifies our Prima Facie. Ross also allows for the personal nature of duty, and the obligation that we have to our parents which could overrule the need to provide any greater good.

(Criticism: Ross seems to take no account of rights, even in life or death situations)

Logical Positivists

Saw empirical science as the main source of knowledge. They rejected the idea of certain knowledge about good and bad since they are non-cognitivists. They say that since statements only have meaning if they can be tested, and moral statements cannot be tested, then logically they have no meaning.

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Kantian Ethics

Deontological = based on the actions and not the consequences

Absolute = fixed rules

Kant ethics is based on duty/obligation, we shouldn't act out of love or compassion. Moral statements are prescriptive, they prescribe an action.

Moral Law

Kant believed that there is an objective moral law and we know this law through reason. Moral rules exist and they are binding.

Kant argued we know the moral law without any reference to consequences. Moral statements are 'priori synthetic' (moral knowledge is gained by pure reason, not sense experience and moral statements might be right or wrong.)

Good Will and Duty

The highest form of good is goodwill. To have a good will is to do one's duty. To do one's duty is to perform actions that are morally required and to avoid something that's forbidden.

We don't do our duty because of the consequences of doing it - we do it for the duty itself.

Kant believed we should act of duty and not emotions or feelings. A human action isn't morally good because we feel it's good, or because it's in our self-interest. Kant's theory is based on reason.

A moral person must be a rational person.

Hypothetical Imperative

This tells us what we should do in order to achieve a desired result (if you wish to pass an exam you must revise)

If you are not interested in the result (passing the exam) then you don't have to obey the command (to revise)

There is no obligation to obey the command if you dont want to achieve the outcome.

*Hypothetical Imperative is a moral obligation that is dependent upon desiring the goal in question*

Categorical Imperative

This tells us what we should do without any reference to the likely result. It has no dependence on other factors. It is broken down into 3 rules:

1. The Universal Law - we should only carry out those acts that we are able to for everyone at all times. If everone was to lie, society would become intolerable. (man who needs a bank loan, knowing he can't pay it back. This can only be right to lend him the money if we're willing to let everyone make promises they know they can't keep.)

2. Treat humans as ends - we have a duty to treat each other as persons and not as we would treat an object. We can use objects but we shouldn't use people. We have a duty to also seek the happiness of others and to develop our moral, intellectual and physical capabilities.

3. Act as of you live in a kingdom of ends - a hypothetical or imaginary state where people always act according to the moral rules. We must ask ourselves, would our proposed action be permitted in this hypothetical state?

Strengths of Kant's Ethics:

- People generally do have the same ideas og morality.

- It shows respect for human life and even treats minoriies fairly.

Weaknesses of Kant's Ethics: