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| That which describes the actual content of what we see as right and wrong, good and bad. A system of Morality is the end result, or conclusion, of ethical deliberation. |
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The process of deliberating about right and wrong in order to reach the outcome of determining and distinguishing right and wrong. (It is the process of figuring out what is the good and what is the bad).
Ethical reasoning leads to the development of a moral system. |
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The period of time in the ancient world before 500 BC (before the rise of Greek philosophy and theorizing about the nature and foundations of morality).
Summary: (A) Most ancient cultures agreed that the nature of morality was absolute. (B) Most cultures had generally the same standards of morality. (C) The source of morality comes from above (from the divine world) and governs all humans. |
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| (469-399 BC) He is the first of the Greatest Three of ancient Greek philosophers. Ethics was primarily a question of character and not a question of acts or actions. He approached ethics by asking, "Who is the good person?" "What is involved in being a good person?" Thus, he was also one of the earliest thinkers to treat the area of virtue, or the moral character of persons. (Taught Plato). |
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| (429-347 BC) Student of Socrates (teacher of Aristotle). Wrote a number of works in which Socrates is the main philosophical character. His ethical theory focuses on what makes someone a good person; essentially it is the virtue "justice" where the soul of a person is in harmony - when a person's reason is properly directing his affections and emotions. He presents his theory of ethics as originating in the transcendent world above - not from this world or from human beings themselves. |
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| (384-322 BC) Student of Plato for 20 years. He focused his ethics in human character but, unlike Plato, he believes that ethics are not from transcendent world above but from this world, to be discovered by an analysis and study of human nature itself. |
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| Taught that "the world is independent of our will" and consequently that a life detached from the natural events of life will be calmer and less troubled than a life bound up with false desires for worldly things. |
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| It taught that all humans by nature seek a pleasant life and that the best way to the pleasant life is through a life of moderate satisfaction. Epicurean Ethics involves the therapeutic process of achieving ataraxia (freedom from fear) in the soul and freedom from bodily pain. This freedom from disturbance is achieved through argument and sayings aimed at correcting/treating the pupil's false view of things. |
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| The most basic division of philosophy; the study of the first principles, the fundamental nature of reality and the nature of existence; connected with epistemology as the basis of what there is to be known. |
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| The study of knowledge, how knowledge is possible, the ways in which we know, theories of truth, and the justification of our knowledge claims. |
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| This category of ethics locates the ultimate nature of ethics within the human experience and human nature alone (not in anything outside of human beings) so that the ultimate authority of ethics lies with human beings, and what human beings determine to be moral and right. |
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| ETHICS - HUMANLY DISCOVERED |
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| This category of ethics locates the ultimate nature of ethics outside of human nature and human experience. Ultimate principles of ethics are found in the nature of reality above and beyond what is only human. |
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| Refers to the Golden Age of Greece and the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. |
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| The approach to ethics which looks at the actions of human behavior, along with the motivation for those acts, to determine if the act itself is good, or if the outcome of the action is good, as the basis of morality. |
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| The approach to ethics which looks at the character of human beings to determine who is a good person; assumes that the choices, actions, and pursuits of the good person will be according to what is good for all persons. |
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- The leading Christian thinker of the first 1000 years of Christianity (after the close of the NT).
- Saw ethics as divinely given.
- Emphasized the nature of evil as a deprivation and departure from what is good.
- Because of man's fallen character, God's grace working in man is necessary in order for any man to have right action or virtue in relationship to God and others.
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- The leading Christian thinker of the high middle ages.
- Sought to synthesize the philosophy and ethics of Aristotle with the Christian theology of Augustine.
- Developed his ethics around a complex four-fold understanding of law.
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| In the ancient world, the process of becoming Greek in form or culture. The conquering Roman Empire became Hellenized, adopting the language, mythological gods, architecture, and literature of the Golden Age of Greece. |
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| literally "world-city," "worldly," or meaning "composed of many parts from all over the world." The Roman Empire was cosmopolitan, an empire composed of many parts of the known world, united by Rome's great military might. |
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| Right action and virtue are defining in relationship to God first and foremost; and then in relationship to others, as given in the Two Great Commandments. So any action, (speech or thought too) that conflicts with having a right relationship with God - lacks loving God supremely - is ethically wrong (sin). What is ethically right is obedience and submission to God out of love for God. |
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| The purpose of law is to help shape basically good people. While God's grace is one way of attaining virtue, as with Aristotle, virtue can be developed by education and training. |
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| Major proponent of Ethical Egoism, where the morality of the act is determined by one's own self-interest. A basic assumption: ethics comes from the human mind (Aristotle & rationality) without needing God's input for the process. Ethics is centrally a matter of determining what is in one's own rational self-interest, fixed to Appetites and Aversions. Reason is the determiner. |
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| Political dimensions of ethics: The forming of the social contract: people will give up certain freedoms in society in order their self-interest in the long run - thus people will form a "social contract." But to rule over society, there must be a Leviathan, a powerful dictator, who must keep people accountable to the social contract. |
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| The theory that one's own self-interest determines the morality of an act, and the only moral duty one has is to one's own self-interest. Ethical Egoism maintains that as people pursue their own self-interest, they will not ignore the interests of others, since it is in their best interests to treat others well. Cooperation is in everyone's best interest, thus in one's own best interest. This is essentially the system of Thomas Hobbes. |
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| The approach where the consequences of the proposed ethical actions determine what is good or evil. If the outcome was good, the action was good; if the outcome was bad, the action was bad. This theory also known as "consequentialism." (Utilitarianism would fall under this system of ethics). |
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| In ethical theory, the judge of whether any act or any aspect of ethics is of ethical value depends on factors outside of the act or subject involved. This is to say that the ethical value of anything (including human beings) is connected to the use or function or purpose of that which is being evaluated. Extrinsic value is contrasted with what is valuable in itself, simply by its very existence. |
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| In ethical theory, the judgment that an act or aspect of something under evaluation has its value in the very fact of its existence, without regard for external circumstances or usefulness. It is of value in itself. |
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| The most common teleological ethical system, where the primary rule is to base one's current actions on what the outcome of those actions will be. It is by the moral goodness of the purposed and actual outcome of our actions that we determine what our present actions should be. This theory says that the value of an action isn't in the action itself, but it is the usefullness (utility) of that action for producing something else that is deemed good. The value of moral actions, then lies, not so much in the actions themselves, but in their product, in their ability to produce benefit, to produce something good. Ethical decision making is rooted in estimating or calculating what the outcome of any action will be. That which is calculated to produce the best outcome is what is the morally right thing to do; however, only a good outcome actually validates whether the present action is good. |
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| Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) |
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| One of the founders of classic utilitarianism. Bentham considered pleasure and pain to be what ruled over human desires and conduct. Happiness to Bentham involved the maximizing of pleasure and minimizing pain, or achieving the greatest balance of pleasure over pain was good -aka "hedonistic utilitarianism." socially and politically, actions and laws should be directing to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. |
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| John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) |
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| The second of the founders of utilitarianism. Mill's theory attempted to remove the religious and theological grounding of ethics. He distinguishes pleasure of which there are several types, and happiness. He maintained that an action was morally right if it produced a greater balance of good consequences over harmful ones. He also believed that moral actions are those which produce the greatest good and happiness for the greatest number, but he did not equate happiness with pleasure. |
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| The approach where the action itself, or the rule itself, is considered morally right or wrong, regardless of what the action or rule brings about. This ethical approach sees that what is morally right or wrong lies in the nature of the very act, or rule, itself, without consulting the outcome of the action, without considering whether positive or negative consequences occur. Deontological ethics holds that morality is an objective and fixed feature of reality. |
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| His ethics begins with the basic notion of the "good will." This is the only unqualified good -doing good for the sake of doing good, doing what is right, simply because it's the right thing to do. Motive matters: purity of motive is necessary to doing the good. To do good in order to secure some self-benefit, some payoff for oneself, falls short of a "good will." |
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| Kant's Categorical Imperative |
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| Act in such a way that your behavior could become the universal norm. -OR- act in such a way that you could wish all men to act in this way. -OR- If all men acted this way, could you wish it? This admits of some kind of expected universal norm in behavior not humanly decided or created |
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| view of ethics which asserts that morality is an expression of how a person or society feels about actions and behaviors in terms of approval/disapproval. Basically, moral language is about a person's emotions concerning a subject and therefore cannot be either true or false. This theory has its roots in Hume's moral philosophy. |
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