Ethics
,Content
I Introduction to Ethics
Unit-1 Nature and Scope of Ethics
Unit-2 Importance and Challenges of Ethics
Unit-3 Ethics in the History of Indian Philosophy
Unit-4 Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy
II Ethical Foundations
Unit-1 Human Values
Unit-2 Human Virtues
Unit-3 Human Rights
Unit-4 Human Duties
III Applied Ethics
Unit-1 International Ethics
Unit-2 Bioethics
Unit-3 Environmental Ethics
Unit-4 Media Ethics
IV Current Ethical Debates
Unit-1 Natural Moral Law
Unit-2 Deontology and Moral Responsibility
Unit-3 Discourse Ethics
Unit-4 Social Institutions
, Nature and Scope of Ethics
UNIT 1 NATURE AND SCOPE OF ETHICS
Contents
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Moral Intuitionism
1.3 Human Person in Search of Himself/Herself
1.4 Love and the Moral Precepts
1.5 The Dynamics of Morality
1.6 The Constant and the Variable in Morality
1.7 Let Us Sum Up
1.8 Key Words
1.9 Further Readings and References
1.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit aims at introducing the students to the philosophical need for Ethics
starting from a brief discussion of Moral law and how the human person in his or
her process of growth intuits the ethical principles. Discussions pertaining to the
dynamics of morality is undertaken to show how on the one hand new situations
call for new responses from moral point of view and on the other hand certain
fundamentals of ethics remain the same in so far as there is something of a
common human nature adequately understood.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Let us begin our study of Nature and Scope of Ethics by understanding what we
mean by moral law. But two things need to be clarified before we raise the question
with which we are concerned here. First, the moral law is called ‘law’ only
metaphorically, or if one prefers, analogically. The primary meaning of law is “a
rule of action, promulgated by him/her who is in charge of a community in view
of the common good”. This is called positive law. If the legislator is considered
to be God, it is divine positive law; if the legislator is human person, and it is
human positive law. Human positive law can further be subdivided according to
what the common good aimed at. (e.g. civil law, criminal law, commercial law,
etc.) In a case, a positive law lays down rules to be observed by human persons.
It is prescription. Then there is another sense of ‘law’ which is quite different. In
this sense it is a formula expressing a constant of behaviour of things and of
persons. So we have physical law (including laws studied in physics, chemistry,
biology, etc.), psychological law, sociological law, etc. (Since the constant of
behaviour among human persons is less fixed and foreseeable than that among
things it is more of a statistical constant). As distinct from positive law, this kind
of law is called ‘natural law’. It is descriptive. It can also be called prescriptive
to the extent if it is considered as willed by God and includes the divine positive
law, and descriptive to the extent that this divine will is the ultimate cause of the
constant of behaviour in things and human persons. However, moral law
corresponds exactly neither to the positive law nor to the natural law. On the
5
, Introduction to Ethics contrary, the sense of the ‘absolute should’ is an immediate datum of the moral
consciousness itself.
Secondly, in the language of Moral philosophers, moral law includes not only
general and abstract rules of action (e.g. “do good and avoid evil”), or, in our
language, the sense of the absolute should, but also particular and concrete
precepts (e.g. help the poor, obey legitimate authority, be truthful, do not kill the
innocent, adultery is wrong, etc.). These particular and concrete precepts, we are
here calling the specifications of the moral law.
Hence our question: How are the general data of the moral consciousness
particularized and concretized in specific precepts and what is the cause of this
difference among men? In terms of moral value, we can raise this question as
follows. If the moral value par excellence is human person’s self-realization as
human how can this moral value determine specific moral values? And why is
there disagreement as to whether such and such an action is a ‘good’ (moral
value) or not?
1.2 MORAL INTUITIONISM
All ‘deontological’ theories agree that there must exist some rule or law which
‘enforces’ moral value and that it is natural to human person, intuitively known.
There is then an element of ‘intuition’ in all of them – no matter how they conceive
of it and the way they approach it, whether as ‘conscience’ (Ockham), ‘Logos’
(Stoics), ‘moral sense’ (Shaftesbury), the ‘a-priori categorical imperative’ (Kant),
‘right reason’ (Thomas Aquinas and Suarez). This element of moral ‘intuition’ is
also found in the ‘teleological’ theories whether implicitly or even explicitly. It
is implicitly found in the concept of ‘autarxia’ (Epicurus), in that of ‘eudemonia’
(Aristotle), and explicitly in the concept of ‘right reason’ (Hobbes), in the
‘conscientious feelings of mankind’ (Mill).
And in fact the more the idea of moral obligation is prominent in an ethical
theory, the more explicit becomes the recourse to this element of ‘intuition’ (or
‘direct perception’). This element of ‘intuition’ is strongly emphasized by meta-
ethicists who maintain that moral language is ‘objective’ and therefore
‘informative’. But here again, they differ as to what the ‘object’ of this moral
intuition is. This difference is explainable by the difference in their meta-ethical
theories regarding the meaning of moral ‘good.’ Hence for some, this object is
the ‘rightness of specific acts’ (Carritt, Prichard) for others it is a kind of moral
property, simple and indefinable in non-moral terms (Moore), for others, it is a
general principle (e.g. the ‘the principle of utility’ itself – Sidgwick) or a set of
principles (e.g. the ‘Prima facie’ duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice,
beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence – Ross). In ethics the
philosophy which insists on the necessity of moral intuition is called Ethical
Intuitionism.
But even the most insistent of all moral philosophers on this element of intuition
in the moral consciousness, namely Kant, not only does not deny, but, on the
contrary, explicitly states that the moral judgment includes elements derived
from experience (which are therefore ‘a-posteriori’ as opposed to the ‘a-priori’
element). Kant denies the possibility of deriving particular and concrete moral
precepts from the concept of practical reason alone. For this the study of human
6 nature is necessary.
,Content
I Introduction to Ethics
Unit-1 Nature and Scope of Ethics
Unit-2 Importance and Challenges of Ethics
Unit-3 Ethics in the History of Indian Philosophy
Unit-4 Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy
II Ethical Foundations
Unit-1 Human Values
Unit-2 Human Virtues
Unit-3 Human Rights
Unit-4 Human Duties
III Applied Ethics
Unit-1 International Ethics
Unit-2 Bioethics
Unit-3 Environmental Ethics
Unit-4 Media Ethics
IV Current Ethical Debates
Unit-1 Natural Moral Law
Unit-2 Deontology and Moral Responsibility
Unit-3 Discourse Ethics
Unit-4 Social Institutions
, Nature and Scope of Ethics
UNIT 1 NATURE AND SCOPE OF ETHICS
Contents
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Moral Intuitionism
1.3 Human Person in Search of Himself/Herself
1.4 Love and the Moral Precepts
1.5 The Dynamics of Morality
1.6 The Constant and the Variable in Morality
1.7 Let Us Sum Up
1.8 Key Words
1.9 Further Readings and References
1.0 OBJECTIVES
This unit aims at introducing the students to the philosophical need for Ethics
starting from a brief discussion of Moral law and how the human person in his or
her process of growth intuits the ethical principles. Discussions pertaining to the
dynamics of morality is undertaken to show how on the one hand new situations
call for new responses from moral point of view and on the other hand certain
fundamentals of ethics remain the same in so far as there is something of a
common human nature adequately understood.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Let us begin our study of Nature and Scope of Ethics by understanding what we
mean by moral law. But two things need to be clarified before we raise the question
with which we are concerned here. First, the moral law is called ‘law’ only
metaphorically, or if one prefers, analogically. The primary meaning of law is “a
rule of action, promulgated by him/her who is in charge of a community in view
of the common good”. This is called positive law. If the legislator is considered
to be God, it is divine positive law; if the legislator is human person, and it is
human positive law. Human positive law can further be subdivided according to
what the common good aimed at. (e.g. civil law, criminal law, commercial law,
etc.) In a case, a positive law lays down rules to be observed by human persons.
It is prescription. Then there is another sense of ‘law’ which is quite different. In
this sense it is a formula expressing a constant of behaviour of things and of
persons. So we have physical law (including laws studied in physics, chemistry,
biology, etc.), psychological law, sociological law, etc. (Since the constant of
behaviour among human persons is less fixed and foreseeable than that among
things it is more of a statistical constant). As distinct from positive law, this kind
of law is called ‘natural law’. It is descriptive. It can also be called prescriptive
to the extent if it is considered as willed by God and includes the divine positive
law, and descriptive to the extent that this divine will is the ultimate cause of the
constant of behaviour in things and human persons. However, moral law
corresponds exactly neither to the positive law nor to the natural law. On the
5
, Introduction to Ethics contrary, the sense of the ‘absolute should’ is an immediate datum of the moral
consciousness itself.
Secondly, in the language of Moral philosophers, moral law includes not only
general and abstract rules of action (e.g. “do good and avoid evil”), or, in our
language, the sense of the absolute should, but also particular and concrete
precepts (e.g. help the poor, obey legitimate authority, be truthful, do not kill the
innocent, adultery is wrong, etc.). These particular and concrete precepts, we are
here calling the specifications of the moral law.
Hence our question: How are the general data of the moral consciousness
particularized and concretized in specific precepts and what is the cause of this
difference among men? In terms of moral value, we can raise this question as
follows. If the moral value par excellence is human person’s self-realization as
human how can this moral value determine specific moral values? And why is
there disagreement as to whether such and such an action is a ‘good’ (moral
value) or not?
1.2 MORAL INTUITIONISM
All ‘deontological’ theories agree that there must exist some rule or law which
‘enforces’ moral value and that it is natural to human person, intuitively known.
There is then an element of ‘intuition’ in all of them – no matter how they conceive
of it and the way they approach it, whether as ‘conscience’ (Ockham), ‘Logos’
(Stoics), ‘moral sense’ (Shaftesbury), the ‘a-priori categorical imperative’ (Kant),
‘right reason’ (Thomas Aquinas and Suarez). This element of moral ‘intuition’ is
also found in the ‘teleological’ theories whether implicitly or even explicitly. It
is implicitly found in the concept of ‘autarxia’ (Epicurus), in that of ‘eudemonia’
(Aristotle), and explicitly in the concept of ‘right reason’ (Hobbes), in the
‘conscientious feelings of mankind’ (Mill).
And in fact the more the idea of moral obligation is prominent in an ethical
theory, the more explicit becomes the recourse to this element of ‘intuition’ (or
‘direct perception’). This element of ‘intuition’ is strongly emphasized by meta-
ethicists who maintain that moral language is ‘objective’ and therefore
‘informative’. But here again, they differ as to what the ‘object’ of this moral
intuition is. This difference is explainable by the difference in their meta-ethical
theories regarding the meaning of moral ‘good.’ Hence for some, this object is
the ‘rightness of specific acts’ (Carritt, Prichard) for others it is a kind of moral
property, simple and indefinable in non-moral terms (Moore), for others, it is a
general principle (e.g. the ‘the principle of utility’ itself – Sidgwick) or a set of
principles (e.g. the ‘Prima facie’ duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice,
beneficence, self-improvement and non-maleficence – Ross). In ethics the
philosophy which insists on the necessity of moral intuition is called Ethical
Intuitionism.
But even the most insistent of all moral philosophers on this element of intuition
in the moral consciousness, namely Kant, not only does not deny, but, on the
contrary, explicitly states that the moral judgment includes elements derived
from experience (which are therefore ‘a-posteriori’ as opposed to the ‘a-priori’
element). Kant denies the possibility of deriving particular and concrete moral
precepts from the concept of practical reason alone. For this the study of human
6 nature is necessary.
