User:Phlsph7/Ethics - Normative ethics

Normative ethics

Main article: Normative ethics

Normative ethics is the philosophical study of ethical conduct and investigates the fundamental principles of morality. It asks questions like "How should one live?" and "How should people act?". Its main goal is to discover and justify general answers to these questions. To do so, it usually seeks universal or domain-independent principles that determine whether an act is right or wrong. For example, given the particular impression that it is wrong to set a child on fire for fun, normative ethics aims to find more general principles that explain why this is the case, like the principle that one should not cause extreme suffering to the innocent, which may itself be explained in terms of a more general principle. Many theories of normative ethics try not only to provide principles to assess the moral value of actions but aim additionally to guide behavior by helping people make moral decisions.

Theories in normative ethics state how people should act or what kind of behavior is correct. They do not aim to describe how people normally act, what moral beliefs ordinary people have, how these beliefs change over time, or what ethical codes are upheld in certain social groups. These topics belong to descriptive ethics and are studied in fields like anthropology, sociology, and history rather than normative ethics. Another contrast is with applied ethics, which investigates right moral conduct within a specific domain rather than general moral principles studied by normative ethics.

Some systems of normative ethics arrive at a single principle that covers all possible cases while others encompass a small set of basic rules that address all or at least the most important moral considerations. One difficulty for systems with several basic principles is that these principles may in some cases conflict with each other and lead to ethical dilemmas.

Different theories in normative ethics suggest different principles as the foundation of morality. The three most influential schools of thought are consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. These schools are usually presented as exclusive alternatives but depending on how they are defined, they can overlap and do not necessarily exclude one another. In some cases, they differ concerning which acts they see as right or wrong. In other cases, they recommend the same course of action but provide different justifications for why it is right.

Consequentialism

Main article: Consequentialism

Consequentialism, also referred to as teleological ethics, holds that morality depends on consequences. According to the most common view, an act is right if it brings about the best future. This means that there is no alternative course of action that has better consequences. A key aspect of consequentialist theories is that they provide a characterization of what is good and then define what is right in terms of what is good.

Consequentialists usually understand the consequences of an action in a very wide sense that includes the totality of its effects. This is based on the idea that actions make a difference to the world by bringing about a causal chain of events that would not have existed otherwise. A core intuition behind consequentialism is that what matters is not the past but the future and that it should be shaped to result in the best possible outcome.

The act itself is usually not seen as part of the consequences. This means that if an act has intrinsic value and disvalue, it is not included as a relevant factor. Some consequentialists try to avoid this complication by including the act itself as part of the consequences. A related approach is to characterize consequentialism not in terms of consequences but in terms of outcomes with outcome being defined as the act together with its consequences.

Most forms of consequentialism are agent-neutral. This means that the value of consequences is assessed from a neutral perspective, i.e., acts should have consequences that are good in general and not just good for the agent. It is controversial whether agent-relative moral theories, like ethical egoism, should be considered as types of consequentialism.

Types

There are many different types of consequentialism. They differ from each other based on what type of entity they evaluate, how they determine whether a consequence is good, and what consequences they take into considerations. Most theories assess the moral value of acts. But consequentialism can also be used to evaluate motives, character traits, rules, and policies.

Many consequentialists assess the value of consequences based on whether they promote happiness or suffering. But there are also alternative evaluative principles, such as desire satisfaction, autonomy, freedom, knowledge, friendship, beauty, and self-perfection. Some forms of consequentialism hold that there is only a single source of value. The most prominent among them is utilitarianism, which states that the moral value of acts only depends on the pleasure they cause. An alternative approach is to hold that there are many different sources of value. According to this view, all sources of value contribute to one overall value. Traditionally, consequentialists were only concerned with the sum total of value or the aggregate good. A more recently developed view is that the distribution of value also matters. It states, for example, that an equal distribution of goods is overall better than an unequal distribution even if the aggregate good is the same.

There are various disagreements about what consequences should be assessed. An important distinction is between act and rule consequentialism. According to act consequentialism, the consequences of an act determine the moral value of this act. This means that there is a direct relation between the consequences of an act and its moral value. Rule consequentialism, by contrast, holds that an act is right if it follows a certain set of rules. Rule consequentialism uses considerations of consequences to determine which rules should be followed: people should follow the rules that have the best consequences in a community that accepts them. This implies that the relation between act and consequences is indirect. For example, if a prohibition to lie is part of the best rules then, according to rule consequentialism, a person should not lie even in a particular case where lying would result in the best possible consequences.

Another disagreement on the level of consequences is between actual and expected consequentialism. According to the traditional view, only the actual consequences of an act affect its moral value. One difficulty of this view is that many consequences cannot be known in advance. This means that in some cases, even well-planned and intentioned acts are morally wrong if they inadvertently lead to negative outcomes. An alternative perspective states that what matters are not the actual consequences but the expected consequences. This view takes into account that when deciding what to do, people have to rely on their very limited knowledge of the total consequences of their actions. According to this view, a course of action has positive moral value despite leading to an overall negative outcome if it had the highest expected value, for example, because the negative outcome could not be anticipated or was very unlikely.

Another difference is between maximizing and satisficing consequentialism. According to maximizing consequentialism, only the best possible act is morally permitted. This means that acts with positive consequences are wrong if there are alternatives with even better consequences. One criticism of maximizing consequentialism is that it demands too much by requiring that people do significantly more than they are socially expected to. For example, if the best action for someone with a good salary would be to donate 70% of their income to charity, it would be morally wrong for them to only donate 65%. Satisficing consequentialism, by contrast, only requires that an act is "good enough" even if it is not the best possible alternative. According to this view, it is possible to do more than one is morally required to do, a state known as supererogation.

One of the earliest forms of consequentialism is found in ancient Chinese philosophy where Mohists argued that political action should promote justice as a means to increase the welfare of the people.

Utilitarianism

Main article: Utilitarianism

The most well-known form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. In its classical form, it is an act consequentialism that sees happiness as the only source of intrinsic value. This means that an act is morally right if it produces "the greatest good for the greatest number" by increasing happiness and reducing suffering. Utilitarians do not deny that other things also have value, like health, friendship, and knowledge. However, they deny that these things have intrinsic value. Instead, they hold that they have extrinsic value because they affect happiness and suffering. In this regard, they are desirable as a means but, unlike happiness, not desirable as an end. The view that pleasure is the only thing with intrinsic value is called ethical or evaluative hedonism.

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are the founding fathers of utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism was initially formulated by Jeremy Bentham and further developed by John Stuart Mill. Bentham introduced the hedonic calculus to assess the value of consequences. Two key aspects of the hedonic calculus are the intensity and the duration of pleasure. According to this view, a pleasurable experience has a high value if it has a high intensity and lasts for a long time. Some critics of Bentham's utilitarianism argued that it is a "philosophy of swine" whose focus on the intensity of pleasure promotes an immoral lifestyle centered around indulgence in sensory pleasures. Mill responded to this criticism by distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures. He stated that higher pleasures, like the intellectual pleasure of reading a book, are more valuable than lower pleasures, like the sensory pleasure of food and drink, even if their intensity and duration are the same. Today, there are many variations of utilitarianism, including the difference between act and rule utilitarianism and between maximizing and satisficing utilitarianism.

Deontology

Main article: Deontology

Deontology assesses the moral rightness of actions based on a set of norms or principles. These norms describe certain requirements or duties that all actions need to follow. Examples are that one should tell the truth, keep promises, and not intentionally harm others. Unlike consequentialists, deontologists hold that the validity of general moral principles does not depend on their consequences. They state that the moral principles should be followed in every case since they express how actions are inherently right or wrong. For example, according to David Ross, it is wrong to break a promise even if no harm comes from it. In this regard, deontologists often allow that there is a gap between what is right and what is good. Many tend to follow a negative approach by holding that certain acts are forbidden under any circumstances.

Agent-centered and patient-centered

Agent-centered deontological theories focus on the role of moral agency and following one's duties. They are often interested in the motives and intentions for which people act and emphasize the importance of doing something for the right reasons. They are often agent-relative, meaning that the reasons for which people should act depend on personal circumstances. For example, a parent has a special obligation to their child while a stranger does not have this kind of obligation toward a child they do not know. Patient-centered theories, by contrast, emphasize the rights of the people affected by the action. An example is the requirement to treat other people as ends and not merely as a means to an end. This requirement can be used to argue, for example, that it is wrong to kill a person against their will even if this act would save the life of several others. Patient-centered deontological theories are usually agent-neutral, meaning that they apply equally to everyone in a situation, regardless of their specific role or position.

Kantianism

Main article: Kantian ethics

Immanuel Kant is one of the most well-known deontologists. He insists that moral action should not be guided by situation-dependent means-end reasoning to achieve some kind of fixed good, such as happiness. Instead, he argues that there are certain moral principles that apply to every situation independent of means-end relations. Kant uses the term categorical imperative for these principles and holds that they are non-empirical and universal laws that have their source in the structure of practical reason and apply to all rational agents. For Kant, to act morally is to act in accordance with reason as expressed by these principles. He sees immoral actions as irrational by going against the fundamental principles of practical reason.

Kant provided several formulations of the categorical imperative. One emphasizes the universal nature of reason and states that people should only follow maxims that could become universal laws applicable to everyone. This means that the person would want everyone else also to follow this maxim. Another formulation states that one should treat other people always as ends in themselves and never as mere means to an end. This formulation focuses on respecting and valuing other people for their own sake rather than using them in the pursuit of personal goals.

In either case, Kant holds that what matters is to have a good will. A person has a good will if they respect the moral law and form their intentions and motives in accordance with it. For Kant, actions motivated in such a way are unconditionally good, meaning that they are good even in cases where they result in undesirable consequences.

Divine command theory, contractualism, and discourse ethics

Main articles: Divine command theory, Contractualism, and Discourse ethics

Divine command theory sees God as the source of morality. It states that moral laws are divine commands and that to act morally is to obey and follow God's will. While all divine command theorists agree that morality depends on God, there are disagreements about the precise content of the divine commands and theorists belonging to different religions tend to propose different moral laws. For example, Christian and Jewish divine command theorists may argue that the Ten Commandments express God's will while Muslims may reserve this role for the teachings of the Quran.

Contractualists reject the reference to God as the source of morality and argue instead that morality is based on an explicit or implicit social contract between humans. They state that actual or hypothetical consent to this contract is the source of moral norms and duties. To determine which duties people have, contractualists often rely on a thought experiment about what rational people under ideal circumstances would agree on. For example, if they would agree that people should not lie then there is a moral obligation to refrain from lying. Because of its reliance on consent, contractualism is often understood as a patient-centered form of deontology.

According to discourse ethics, as formulated by Jürgen Habermas, moral norms are justified by a rational discourse within society.

Discourse ethics also focuses on social agreement on moral norms but holds that this agreement is based on communicative rationality. It aims to arrive at moral norms for pluralistic modern societies that encompass a diversity of viewpoints. A universal moral norm is seen as valid if all rational discourse participants do or would approve. This way, morality is not imposed by a single moral authority but arises from the moral discourse within society. This discourse should follow certain requirements characteristic of an ideal speech situation. One of its key aspects is that discourse participants are free to voice their different opinions without coercion but are at the same time required to justify them using rational argumentation.

Virtue ethics

Main article: Virtue ethics

The main concern of virtue ethics is how virtues are expressed in actions. As such, it is neither directly interested in the consequences of actions nor in universal moral duties. Virtues are positive character traits, like honesty, courage, kindness, and compassion. They are usually understood as dispositions to feel, decide, and act in a certain manner by being wholeheartedly committed to this manner. Virtues contrast with vices, which are their harmful counterparts.

Virtue theorists usually hold that the mere possession of virtues by itself is not sufficient. Instead, people should manifest virtues in their actions. An important factor in this regard is the practical wisdom, also referred to as phronesis, of knowing, when, how, and which virtue to express. For example, a lack of practical wisdom may lead courageous people to perform morally wrong actions by taking unnecessary risks that should better be avoided.

Different types of virtue ethics differ concerning how they understand virtues and their role in practical life. Eudaimonism is the classical view and draws a close relation between virtuous behavior and happiness. It states that people flourish by living a virtuous life. Eudaimonist theories often hold that virtues are positive potentials residing in human nature and that actualizing these potentials results in leading a good and happy life. Agent-based theories, by contrast, see happiness only as a side effect and focus instead on the motivational and dispositional characteristics that are expressed while acting. This is often combined with the idea that one can learn from exceptional individuals what those characteristics are. Feminist ethics of care constitute another form of virtue ethics. They emphasize the importance of interpersonal relationships and hold that benevolence by caring for the well-being of others is one of the key virtues.

Influential schools of virtue ethics in ancient philosophy were Aristotelianism and Stoicism. According to Aristotle, each virtue is a golden mean between two types of vices: excess and deficiency. For example, courage is a virtue that lies between the deficient state of cowardice and the excessive state of recklessness. Aristotle held that virtuous action leads to happiness and makes people flourish in life. The Stoics believed that people can achieve happiness through virtue alone. They stated that people are happy if they are in a peaceful state of mind that is free from emotional disturbances. They advocated rationality and self-mastery to achieve this state. In the 20th century, virtue ethics experienced a resurgence thanks to philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Martha Nussbaum.

Others

There are many other schools of normative ethics in addition to the three main traditions. Pragmatist ethics focuses on the role of practice and holds that one of the key tasks of ethics is to solve practical problems in concrete situations. It has certain similarities to utilitarianism and its focus on consequences but concentrates more on how morality is embedded in and relative to social and cultural contexts. Pragmatists tend to give more importance to habits than to conscious deliberation and understand morality as a habit that should be shaped in the right way.

Postmodern ethics agrees with pragmatist ethics about the cultural relativity of morality. It rejects the idea that there are objective moral principles that apply universally to all cultures and traditions. It asserts that there is no one coherent ethical code since morality itself is irrational and humans are morally ambivalent beings.

Ethical egoism is the view that people should act in their self-interest or that an action is morally right if the person acts for their own benefit. It differs from psychological egoism, which states that people actually follow their self-interest without claiming that they should do so. Ethical egoists may act in accordance with commonly accepted moral expectations and benefit other people, for example, by keeping promises, helping friends, and cooperating with others. However, they do so only as a means to promote their self-interest. Ethical egoism is often criticized as an immoral and contradictory position.

The practices of compassion and loving-kindness are key elements of Buddhist ethics.

Normative ethics has a central place in most religions. Key aspects of Jewish ethics are to follow the 613 commandments of God found in the Torah and to take responsibility for societal welfare. Christian ethics puts less emphasis on following precise laws and teaches instead the practice of self-less love, such as the Great Commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself". The Five Pillars of Islam constitute a basic framework of Muslim ethics and focus on the practice of faith, prayer, charity, fasting during Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Buddhists emphasize the importance of compassion and loving-kindness towards all sentient entities. A similar outlook is found in Jainism, which has non-violence as its principal virtue. Duty is a central aspect of Hindu ethics and is about fulfilling social obligations, which may vary depending on a person's social class and stage of life. Confucianism places great emphasis on harmony in society and sees benevolence as a key virtue. Taoism extends the importance of living in harmony to the whole world and teaches that people should practice effortless action by following the natural flow of the universe.

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