Divine Command theories that do not rest on Natural Law might make trouble for the schema, but one might also think that such theories rest instead on a confusion, since they seem to entail that God might have made it immoral to act beneficently.
As one gives more substance and detail to the general notions of endorsement, rationality, and the relevant conditions under which rational people would endorse morality, one moves further from providing a definition of morality in the normative sense, and closer to providing an actual moral theory. And a similar claim is true for definitions of morality in the descriptive sense, as one specifies in more detail what one means in claiming that a person or group endorses a system or code.
In the following four subsections, four broad ways of making the definitions of morality more precise are presented. They are all sufficiently schematic to be regarded as varieties of definition, rather than as theories. Rather, they explicitly recognize the existence of significant variation in what rules and ideals different people put forward as morality in the normative sense.
And they doubt that this variation is compatible with moral realism. Consequently, they need to offer some unifying features of these different sets of rules and ideals, despite variation in their content. As a result of this pressure, some expressivists end up offering explicit accounts of a distinctively moral attitude one might hold towards an act token or type.
These accounts can of course be taken to underwrite various forms of morality in the descriptive sense. But they can also be taken to provide the basis of one form of moral realism. Gibbard holds that moral judgments are expressions of the acceptance of norms for feeling the emotions of guilt and anger. To endorse a code in the relevant way, on this definition, is to think that violations of its norms make guilt and anger appropriate. In fact, reference to praise and blame may be more adequate than reference to guilt and anger, since the latter seem only to pick out moral prohibitions, and not to make room for the idea that morality also recommends or encourages certain behaviors even if it does not require them.
For example, it is plausible that there is such a thing as supererogatory action, and that the specification of what counts as supererogatory is part of morality—whether in the descriptive or normative sense. But it does not seem likely that we can account for this part of morality by appeal to norms for guilt and anger, and it is not at all clear that there are emotions that are as closely linked to supererogation as guilt and anger are to moral transgression.
On the other hand, it seems plausible that norms for praising action might help to pick out what counts as supererogatory. Another version of the present strategy would replace talk of praise and blame with talk of reward and punishment.
This view would take morality to be a system that explained what kinds of actions are appropriately rewarded and—more centrally—punished. On this view, the notion of endorsing a code is unpacked in terms of the acceptance of norms for reward and punishment.
It is certainly plausible that it is appropriate to feel guilt when one acts immorally, and to feel anger at those who act immorally towards those one cares about. So norms for guilt and anger may well uniquely pick out certain moral norms.
And similar claims might be made about norms for praise and blame. However, it is not equally clear that morality is properly defined in terms of emotions or other reactions to behavior. For it may be, as Skorupski emphasizes, that we need to understand guilt and anger, and praise and blame, in terms of moral concepts.
This worry about direction of explanation seems less pressing for the notions of reward and punishment. These responses to behavior, at least in themselves , might simply be understood in terms of the meting out of benefits and harms. One way of understanding the notion of endorsement is as advocacy.
Advocating a code is a second- or third-personal matter, since one advocates a code to others. Moreover, it is consistent with advocating a code, that one does not plan on following that code oneself. Just as asserting something one believes to be false still counts as asserting it, hypocritical advocacy of a code still counts as advocacy of that code. When endorsement is understood as advocacy, it can be used in definitions of morality, in the descriptive sense, as long as it is the morality of a group or society.
And advocacy can also be used as an interpretation of endorsement when providing a definition of morality in the normative sense. Of course those who accept a definition of morality in any of these senses—as the code that a group or society endorses, or as the code that would be universally advocated by all rational agents under certain conditions—do not hold that the advocacy would necessarily, or even probably, be hypocritical.
But they do hold that the important thing about a moral code—what picks it out as a moral code—is that it would be put forward by all the relevant agents, not that it would be followed by all of them. Mill , in addition to offering a moral theory, takes pains to explain how morality differs from other normative systems. For him, norms that simply promote utility are norms of expediency. In order to qualify as morally wrong, an act must be one that ought to be punished.
It is worth noting that hypocrisy is, for Mill, not only a possibility, but—given the present sorry state of moral education—virtually unavoidable.
That is because being motivated to advocate punishment for a certain kind of act is quite different from being motivated to refrain from that same kind of act. And for Mill what determines what a person will advocate, and how a person will act, are the foreseeable consequences for that person.
Gert offers the following two conditions as those under which all rational persons would put forward a universal guide for governing the behavior of all moral agents. The first condition is that they are seeking agreement with all other rational persons or moral agents.
The second condition is that they use only those beliefs that are shared by all rational persons: for example, that they themselves are fallible and vulnerable and that all those to whom morality applies are also fallible and vulnerable.
The second condition rules out both religious beliefs and scientific beliefs since there are no religious beliefs or scientific beliefs that all rational persons share. This condition is plausible because no universal guide to behavior that applies to all rational persons can be based on beliefs that some of these rational persons do not share. Another way of understanding the notion of endorsement is as acceptance.
Unlike advocating a code, accepting a code is a first-personal matter. One cannot hypocritically accept a code. Indeed, hypocrisy is simply a matter of advocating a code one does not accept. Paradigmatic views in the natural law tradition starting with Aquinas hold both that the laws of morality have their source in God, and that these laws constitute the principles of human practical rationality Finnis ; MacIntyre Views in this tradition may be seen as using the basic schema for definitions of morality in the normative sense, understanding endorsement as acceptance.
Members of this tradition typically hold that all rational persons know what kinds of actions morality prohibits, requires, discourages, encourages, and allows. This is why Aquinas holds that knowing what morality prohibits and requires does not involve knowing why morality prohibits and requires what it does.
Those who belong to the natural law tradition also hold that reason endorses acting morally. This sort of endorsement of course has a cognitive component. But it is also motivational. Aquinas does not hold that knowledge of morality is always effective: it can be blotted out by evil persuasions or corrupt habits. But if reason is not opposed by such forces, any rational person would not only know what was prohibited and required by morality, but would follow those prohibitions and requirements.
So, for natural law theorists, endorsement amounts to acceptance. The lack of an explicit and widely accepted definition of morality may partially explain the resilience of act-consequentialist accounts of morality.
Without an explicit definition, it may be easier to ignore the fact that act-consequentialist theories are not particularly concerned with interpersonal interactions, but typically apply just as well to desert island scenarios as to individuals who live in societies. In any case, it has been recognized that in order to combat consequentialism, it would be helpful to have something like a plausible definition of morality that made it clear that the subject matter of morality is something different from simply the goodness and badness of consequences.
Scanlon , , applying this strategy, suggests that the subject matter of morality—what we are talking about, when we talk about morality—is a system of rules for the regulation of behavior that is not reasonably rejectable based on a desire for informed unforced general agreement.
But Scanlon also places very heavy emphasis on the fact that if he is right about the subject matter of morality, then what compliance with moral norms allows us to do is to justify our behavior to others in ways that they cannot reasonably reject. Indeed, the ability to justify ourselves to reasonable people is a primary source of moral motivation for Scanlon see also Sprigge This might seem to suggest a somewhat different definitional claim about morality: that morality consists in the most basic norms in terms of which we justify ourselves to others.
For, if morality is the system of norms that would be endorsed in this way, we can justify our actions to others by pointing out that even they, were they reasonable, would have endorsed rules that allowed our behavior.
Darwall claims that morality is a matter of equal accountability among free and rational beings. On his view, I behave morally towards you to the degree that I respect the claims you have authority to make on me.
Darwall also holds that I will respect those claims if I acknowledge certain assumptions to which I am committed simply in virtue of being a rational, deliberating agent. Specifically, it includes the recognition of the reasons provided by the authoritative demands of other people. And that recognition is positively motivational. But Darwall builds a responsiveness to second-personal reasons into the relevant notion of rationality, while Scanlon simply makes the empirical claim that many people are motivated by a desire to justify themselves to others, and notes that his definition of morality will yield rules that will allow one to do this, if one follows them.
The sort of definition described in section 5. The definitions described in sections 5. But on any plausible account of rationality a code that would be advocated by all moral agents will govern interpersonal interactions, and will include rules that prohibit causing harm without sufficient reason.
Only the definition offered in section 5. Is Morality Unified Enough to Define? Implicit and Explicit Definitions in Allied Fields 4. Variations 5. For example, Greene claims that morality is a set of psychological adaptations that allow otherwise selfish individuals to reap the benefits of cooperation, 23 and Haidt claims that moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible.
Implicit and Explicit Definitions in Allied Fields Philosophers, because they do not need to produce operational tests or criteria in the way that psychologists, biologists, and anthropologists do, often simply take for granted that everyone knows what belongs, and does not belong, to the moral domain.
He and his co-authors suggest that morality is essentially represented by a cognitive template that combines a perceived intentional agent with a perceived suffering patient.
Mill himself explicitly defines morality as the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which [a happy existence] might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured.
Variations As one gives more substance and detail to the general notions of endorsement, rationality, and the relevant conditions under which rational people would endorse morality, one moves further from providing a definition of morality in the normative sense, and closer to providing an actual moral theory. We all try to be ethical people. If we are public servants, we have an enormous responsibility to operate with high ethical standards. It starts with obeying ethics laws and rules.
These laws do not make a lawmaker ethical, however. Ethics are much more than that. Ethics are the standard of what is right and wrong, and they are based on our values. Ethical behavior takes courage and has to be practiced. Public officials feel added pressures. Every once in a while, however, we face a decision that has us stop and ask: What should I do? Although you may occasionally be tempted, these right-versus-wrong dilemmas are usually solved quickly.
Do I vote to put more money into education or health care? Do I keep my word to vote for a bill, even if I change my mind?
In these examples, there may be no clear distinction between right and wrong. Whatever decision we make is an ethical one, based on our core values.
Ethical dilemmas involve choices among competing values. At various times, we may rank these values differently, based on the circumstances. Rather than following rules the decision maker should follow a desire to seek the best for the people involved. There are no moral rules or rights - each case is unique and deserves a unique solution. Some philosophers teach that ethics is the codification of political ideology, and that the function of ethics is to state, enforce and preserve particular political beliefs.
They usually go on to say that ethics is used by the dominant political elite as a tool to control everyone else. More cynical writers suggest that power elites enforce an ethical code on other people that helps them control those people, but do not apply this code to their own behaviour. One of the big questions in moral philosophy is whether or not there are unchanging moral rules that apply in all cultures and at all times.
Some people think there are such universal rules that apply to everyone. This sort of thinking is called moral absolutism. Moral absolutism argues that there are some moral rules that are always true, that these rules can be discovered and that these rules apply to everyone. Immoral acts - acts that break these moral rules - are wrong in themselves, regardless of the circumstances or the consequences of those acts. Absolutism takes a universal view of humanity - there is one set of rules for everyone - which enables the drafting of universal rules - such as the Declaration of Human Rights.
Moral relativists say that if you look at different cultures or different periods in history you'll find that they have different moral rules. Therefore it makes sense to say that "good" refers to the things that a particular group of people approve of. Moral relativists think that that's just fine, and dispute the idea that there are some objective and discoverable 'super-rules' that all cultures ought to obey.
They believe that relativism respects the diversity of human societies and responds to the different circumstances surrounding human acts. Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so.
This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Ethics guide. Ethics: a general introduction. On this page What is ethics? What use is ethics? Ethics and people Are ethical statements objectively true?
Four ethical 'isms' Where does ethics come from? Are there universal moral rules? Page options Print this page. What is ethics? Ethics covers the following dilemmas: how to live a good life our rights and responsibilities the language of right and wrong moral decisions - what is good and bad? Approaches to ethics Philosophers nowadays tend to divide ethical theories into three areas: metaethics, normative ethics and applied ethics.
Meta-ethics deals with the nature of moral judgement. It looks at the origins and meaning of ethical principles. Normative ethics is concerned with the content of moral judgements and the criteria for what is right or wrong.
Applied ethics looks at controversial topics like war, animal rights and capital punishment Top. Ethics needs to provide answers. However, ethics does provide good tools for thinking about moral issues. This is known as the Sunlight Test. Imagine if your decision — and the reasons you made it — were public knowledge. Would other people agree, or at least understand, why you did what you did? Is there a rule that any reasonable person should apply to this situation regardless of the consequences?
Some rules are unbreakable, even when the stakes are high. For instance, we should never act in ways that undermine the equality and dignity of all people — ourselves included. The rules are often associated with duties — some of which we create ourselves, like when we make a promise. We often think about ethics in terms of consequences.
Consequences are an important part of ethical decisions, but are they everything? Are we violating an important principle? Are we compromising our own values? If so, have we considered these facts when balancing harms and benefits?
Would you be happy if your reason for action was used by everyone in the same circumstance?
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