redross Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Hey guys. I've started a couple of ethics-related posts and a few things were made clear to me. The first is that I've tried to make people do something that they don't know how to do: think in meta-ethical terms. The reason they don't know how to do this is that they are not aware there is more than one way to think about ethics. Before I started taking philosophy in university I thought this way too, that is, I thought that there was only the application of morality to everyday life. So the point of this thread is to educate everyone on the 3 tiers of ethical philosophy in the hopes that subsequent discussions on ethical issues will be more focuses and informed. Tier 1: Meta-ethics Meta-ethics is concerned with two primary questions: How did morals come to be? How do we know about them? There are 2 schools of thought (each with many many schools of thought within them) regarding the first question: How did morals come to be? On one side you have those who think morals exist as actual entities within the world, just as a table or gravity exists. This belief in actually-existing morals is called Moral Objectivism or Objective Morality; objective because morals exist regardless of our attitudes or beliefs towards them. The other side believes the opposite: that morals are human constructs and don't actually exist in the world. This is Subjective Morality. Some popular theories in Objective morality are: Divine command theory - the belief that God created morals that exist actually in the world Natural law theory (sometimes called Darwinism) - the belief that morals came to exist as a result of evolution Some popular theories in Subjective morality are: Relativism - the belief that morals arose as the result of what the moral agent believes is right Theory X (this one doesn't have a name that I'm aware of) - the belief that morals arose as the result of society's need for sustainability Some problems with Objective moral theories: all objective moral theories must answer 3 questions: 1) How did morals come to be? 2) How do we gain knowledge of these morals? 3) How do they motivate us to abide by them? Theories usually cover (1) and (2), but (3) provides difficulty. It is proposed that morals must persuade anyone with knowledge of morality to abide by, or at least be influenced by them. 'Hume's Guillotine' is a popular example of the difficulties that are present in (3). Some problems with Relativism: This is perhaps the most appallingly prevalent moral theory in the minds of budding moral philosophers. It is the belief that what you believe is morally right for you. Upon reflection, however, this view is incoherent. If something is made right by virtue of you believing it to be so, then you need no justification for the rightness of your actions other than the fact that 'you believe it is right'. In this way, every moral is arbitrary and there is no reason to prefer on set of morals over another; it would be just as moral/immoral to rape as to give money to the poor. Some positive points about Objectivism: It is able to answer why we must abide by moral laws and leaves little room for moral disagreement. 'The moral laws are these, they actually exist and you can't change them'. Some positive points about Subjectivism: It more accurately reflects our intuition on how morality should function. It accounts for perceived differences in the morality between societies and moral disagreement. I must go to bed now, but I will continue the other 2 tiers tomorrow. In the meantime, if anyone has any quick questions or wants me to elaborate on certain points, just ask. By the way, it would be great if you guys could let me know if you found this helpful or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Thanks for the info. I love learning new things. Here is what I think, and it is only my own thoughts since I have not been educated in morality. Since humans are social animals than the complicated morality that now exists evolved as our brains became bigger. I think humans needed to develop a system of rights and wrongs to protect their collective groups from extinction and provide protection from other humans in the group. However, I would think that the more isolated the humans are the different moralities would develop within that particular culture. Touching on Capitol Punishment in the other thread, I would think that early humans first reaction to the violence of murder was a response to their inner feelings of disgust. I would say that Capitol Punishment is a primitive human reaction. I do think that humans as a whole are still primitive in many respects and many of their morals reflect this. We are not as altruistic as we'd like to think we are. To me, the most primitive of human acts is war. It has always been morally acceptable to kill other humans who were of another collective group. This goes way back to early human evolution, even futher back than australopithicus, and even chimpanzees do this. Instead of sticks and stones, we have much more technologically advanced methods of killing. I would have to ask is this what Capitol Punishment is? A criminal through their actions has been removed from the collective group and is deemed as not being a part of it, so it would be morally acceptable to kill the individual since they are no longer deemed a member worthy of the protection of life? hmmm....I love threads that make me think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redross Posted October 9, 2006 Author Share Posted October 9, 2006 Thanks! I love making people think and appreciate your positive response. It sounds to me like you believe in the Natural Law theory of ethics with some of the unnamed theory thrown in. (for the record, i subscribe to the unnamed theory). Hope you enjoy this next section....NORMATIVE ETHICS! Tier 2: Normative ethics Normative ethics concerns itself with individual moral laws and moral systems. The specific laws that arise depend on the meta-ethical theory one subscribes to (more on that later). The system is a result of the collection of individual moral laws (from here on just called morals). There are many normative systems, each with many different variations. I will give a few of the most popular and they way in which they decide on which morals to include in their system. Note that many normative systems have the same name as their meta-ethical counterparts. Utilitarianism (UM): UM is based on the doctrine that the moral act is the act which has the best consequences. Many formulations of this theory have been put forth, some with very advanced methods of calculating the 'best' consequence and some that rely on more than just consequence in determining the right/wrongness of an act. Regardless, the thread tying all of the variants together is the belief that whichever act produces the greatest good is the best act, and any act that produces good is a moral act. The converse is also true. Relativism: Whatever you believe is right for you. Two people may disagree completely on a moral issue, but they'd both be right under Relativism. The specific morals arise from, you guessed it, the agent's beliefs. Divine command (DC): All morals are given to us in the form of God's decree: the 10 Commandments, other passages in the bible. If God says something is right or wrong, then it is. DC is based on the idea that all morals are derived from God's word. Societal theory (not the actual name, but I had to give it something): Morals are decided upon based on the acts that a society needs to promote/condemn in order to survive. A society cannot survive if murder is condoned, so murder is immoral under this view. Ties in with the evolutionary/subjective meta-ethical theories. I'm sure I've forgot some major ones, if I remember I'll edit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redross Posted October 10, 2006 Author Share Posted October 10, 2006 And finally... Tier 3: Applied Ethics. This is the area most people concern themselves with, for obvious reasons; it is the application of moral codes to everyday life. There's not really much to say in this section. Take a system from the 'normative ethics' section and apply its principles to actual moral situations. For example, a utilitarian would say that, if executing a criminal produced the greatest good, then executing a criminal would be the moral thing to do. I think that people wrongly take applied ethics to be the most important of the three tiers since they can directly see the results of acting on the theories. They think that since the application is more obvious it is therefore, more relevant. Without normative ethics to provide a basis for applied ethics, and meta-ethics to provide a basis for normative ethics, applied ethics would have no theory to apply to everyday situations. I think that only with an understanding of all three tiers can one adequately make moral judgements. So if any of you think I'm mistaken in my other postings in other threads for wanting to stick to the theoretical, rather than the actual, this is why. Solve the overarching issue, then apply those findings to specifics. That is my view. Questions, comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redross Posted October 12, 2006 Author Share Posted October 12, 2006 ...no one has any comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachelness Posted October 15, 2006 Share Posted October 15, 2006 What are the differences between Natural Law Theory and Theory X? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redross Posted October 17, 2006 Author Share Posted October 17, 2006 What are the differences between Natural Law Theory and Theory X? Hey Rachelness. Good eye, they are very similar. The difference is that NLT states that morals evolved to actually exist in the world; that they are objective. There's not much literature regarding the specific nature of these morals, but they are considered intangible, like math. Theory X states that morals came to be as a result of societal evolution; as human social bonds evolved into societies certain rules became necessary for the maintenance of the society. Theory X does not believe that morals actually exist, rather they only exist insofar as we have societies. Hope that helped Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachelness Posted October 17, 2006 Share Posted October 17, 2006 Thanks for clarifying. And, yes, it was helpful / informative and at the same time very readable and clear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neverclear5 Posted November 7, 2006 Share Posted November 7, 2006 Well done, you seem to have started and continued a thread that is not only informative, but hasen't devolved into a shouting match between two equally hard headed opponents. Thankyou Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jauggy Posted November 11, 2006 Share Posted November 11, 2006 This is perhaps the most appallingly prevalent moral theory in the minds of budding moral philosophers. It is the belief that what you believe is morally right for you. Upon reflection, however, this view is incoherent. If something is made right by virtue of you believing it to be so, then you need no justification for the rightness of your actions other than the fact that 'you believe it is right'. In this way, every moral is arbitrary and there is no reason to prefer on set of morals over another; it would be just as moral/immoral to rape as to give money to the poor. Morality is relative in the sense that different people have different opinions on what is right and wrong. That's how I define relative - different for different people. If you do not believe that morality is relative, then you simply disagree with my definition of what it means to be 'relative'. The basis that we judge other people is our own morality. Right and wrong is a value like beauty. It is subjective. It exists because humans have emotions. Emotions give us preferences. Preferences on how we want other humans to behave. Morality is how humans OUGHT to behave. What people do to persuade others to adopt their moral system is to appeal to emotion e.g. empathy. There is a basis behind morality, so morality is not arbitrary. Just as beauty is not aribitrary. However morality like beauty is subjective. Something which is objective should be indepedent of emotion. Can you argue for a particular moral system without appealing to emotion? Humans have evolved in such a way that we have the same emotional responses to certain situations. That is why we largely agree on what is morally right and wrong for many situations. Similarly humans tend to agree on what is beautiful despite the fact that it is subjective. E.g. majority of men would find Jessica Alba more attractive then a 99 year old woman, just as the majority of people would find rape "wrong". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redross Posted February 15, 2007 Author Share Posted February 15, 2007 Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Jauggy: Sure, your opinions are your opinions. However, if you believe that there is a morality (subjective or objective) then what sense does it make to say 'whatever you believe is wrong is wrong and whatever I believe is right is right'? Why have a moral code if it only holds salt for those that subscribe to it? You might as well say there is no morality, only opinions on the 'myth of morality'. Even if you believe morality is subjective (as I do) it is still possible to reach conclusions about what is right or wrong and, therefore, it is possible for people to be incorrect in their opinions about what is right or wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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