1. OUTLINE
•Why study ethics?
•What is ethics?
•Different approaches to ethics
-Ethics and Religion
-Ethics and Reason
•Ethical reasoning and arguments
-Fallacious Arguments
-Arguments
•Ethical theories
-Objective source of morality
-Subjective source of morality
•Why be moral?
•Conclusion

2. Why study ethics?
 How can we decide what is the right thing to do in any given
situation?
 Some decision are not ethical or moral
-e.g. move left foot after right foot when walking
-Walking away from an injured person-ethical
 Faced with many ethical decision everyday
-Rarely question why we do certain things
 Contemporary ethics teaches:
-what the most important philosopher have said on the subject
-Evaluate and debate ethical statements
 If a person cannot feel pain,how do you persuade them to stop
hurting someone?

3. What is ethics?
Ethics:a set of normative
values that determine  A branch of philosophy,also called moral
philosophy
whether any particular
action is good or bad
-Greek:philia=love or friendship,sophia=wisdom
-’love of wisdom’
-critical examination of the grounds for
fundamental beliefs and an analysis of the
basic concepts employed in the expression of
such beliefs
 Branches of philosophy:
-Epistemology:philosophy of knowledge
-Metaphysics:nature of reality
-Ethics:determining what is right or wrong
-philosophy of science
Philosophy of law
-Aesthetics:philosophy of art

4. What is ethics?
 Ethical and moral frequently interchangeable
-ethos(Greek):meaning character
Relates to individual characteristics of a person
-moralis(Latin) :meaning custom or manners
 Relates to relationships between people
 Ethical/moral associated with ‘good’, ‘right’
-Good:pleasure or happiness
 Malicious pleasure:e.g.sadism-consent issues
-Bad : unhappiness or pain
 Nonmoral: Sadism:a sadist derives
pleasure from hurting others
-e.g. a light bulb Nonmoral:does not involve
morality.
Immoral:goes agaist morality

5. What is ethics?
Excellence:most good things involve excellence
-e.g. 1-0 win is good, 5-0 is excellent
-displaying superior skills in a particular area
Harmony :
-Stopping a war is good: harmony
-Starting a war is bad: discord
Amoral Amoral:having no sense of what is
moral
- Sociopath:no remorse Excellence:the quality of displaying
superior skills in a particular area.

6. Different approaches to ethics
• Normative/Perscriptive ethics:
– “should”,”ought”…telling you what to do
– Deciding what is preferable in any give situation
• Used in medicine, law, politics…
• Metaetchics: older approach, exploring the
meaning of ethical terms
– E.g. what does “good” mean? What does fair mean?
What does “fair” mean?
Normative: conforming to or based on values
Prescriptive: that which defines what ought to be done

7. Different approaches to ethics
• Overlaps with other specialisations:
– Epistemology: knowledge – how do we know
something is good or bad
• Scientific/Descriptive
– No value judment: e.g. crime statistics
• Combination of approaches possible
– E.g. Capital punishment:
• Crime rate does not fall, therefore not
a deterrent
• Therefore it should not be practiced
• It is not ‘good’

8. Different approaches to ethics
• Not all evaluation are moral
– Manners/ etiquette close but not the same
• Moral judgements overide other normative
values
– Civil disobedience: morality over law
– Public nudity: morality over aesthetics
Etiquette: the proper conduct in social or official life.

9. Objective sources of morality
• Supernatural
– Impossible to prove, depends on faith
• Natural laws
– Scientific natural laws are descriptive and always
hold true
– Naturalistic moral laws are prescriptive and have
many example of exceptions
• Anthropocentric value
– How can politics or art have value without the
humans who created them?
Anthropocentrism: assessing everything in relation to humans.

10. Subjective sources of morality
• Moral value derives from humans alone
– No external sources
• Three variables for subjective and values
– The thing being valued, the thing of value
– The valuer, the conscious being who values
– The context where the valuing takes place

11. Morality
Customary morality
• From evolution of society and collective
historical experiences
– Religious, legal
– “That’s the way we’ve always done it”
Reflective morality
• Applying reason and interpretation of events to
decide upon morality
• Can be used to re-evaluate customary morality
– E.g. Slavery

12. “ All evil is ignorance-
Plato
 What does ‘evil’ mean? Does it
 What does this mean?
exist?
 in itself it is a value-laden term
 Are some things or people intrinsically
evil?
 Plato is suggesting that ignorance is
intrinsically evil, but it can be overcome
 Therefore evil itself is not
intrinsically evil?

13. Intrinsic:
belonging to the
essential nature
or constitution of
something
Evil: that which is
extremely morally
reprehensible

14. ETHICS AND RELIGION
 Most ethical/ moral systems derive from religions
 E.g: Thou shalt not kill; respect your eldest…
 Religion probably existed before separate moral and
legal systems – more than an ethical system
 Divine command theory:
 A moral system is right because it was ordained by divine
powers
 Arbitrary, should we kill in the name of a (non-existent)
God?

15.  Who determines what the divine wants?
 How to reconcile different believers?
 Reason and experience to develop ethical
systems
 Not exclude religious moral systems, but has to be
sustainable for other reasons that for faith alone
 Non-religious people have morals too.
Most satisfactory ethical system incorporates all
people of all persuasions.

16. ETHICS AND REASONS
 Ethics demands reasons for particular standpoints
 “Why did you steal that bread?”
 Ethical arguments develop through reason
 But not need ‘objective rationality’
 Subjective feelings of pleasure may support a reasonable
argument
 But not sufficient: E.g: need to explain why pleasure is
always good
 Give reasons for argument

17. Objective: objective knowledge is based on evidence
that can be observed through the senses and
independently verified.
Rational: That which is developed through reason and
is not influenced by emotions, prejudices, etc.

18. Ethical reasoning and arguments
 Sound arguments vs. false/ weak arguments
 Premise:
 “Lying is wrong…”
 can be a value judgement, an empirical statement…
 Argument:
 “…because if everyone lied all the time then society would
break down…”
 Based on supporting and conflicting empirical and/ or
logical evidence
Uses value judgements and evidence
But you can’t use your original premise to prove your
argument
E.g: the red dress doesn’t suit you because it’s red

19.  Conclusion:
 “…so you should not have lied to the
policeman.”
 There should be one logical conclusion
 There can be more
 Which is similar to having none in a way
 Depends on how you weigh up the different
conclusions.

20. F A
A R
L G Circulus in probando
L U
Ad hominem reasoning A M “ Women are stupid because
“Whatever the Pope C E they are not clever”
says must be wrong!” I N
O T Circular Argument
U S
S

21. RATIONALISM
It was right to gamble because I won
money!!
FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTS
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
“After the sun came up it rained; therefore the sun caused the rain”

22. Conceptual matters
“Did he mean to kill the An explanation is not a
man?” justification
Intention
Analogy
Factual assertion
“Killing animals is as bad as Supported by
killing people because they Verifiable evidence
all feel pain

23. Arguments
• Analogy
-using a similar case to argue for similar conclusions
* if things are alike in some respects then they are likely to be in other
respects
• Concept
-Abstract and systemised idea generalised from particular instances
• Factual assertions
Statements that are empirically verifiable
• Ad hominem
- Rejecting an argument because of the person saying it
• Circular argument
-using a conclusion to support itself
• Rationalisation
-reasons given after the event that are not the true reasons
• Post hoc ergo propter hoc
-coincidental correlation

24. Ethical Theories
Deductive
Theory principles judgements
 Decide on basic ethical values
 Derives principles
 Conclusion: Such-and-such an action is wrong
Inductive
Judgements principles theory
 Lots of people kill other people
 Why? Can I kill others? What does killing serve?
 Theory: Killing is OK when done for good reasons
Motive, act, or consequences

25. Responsibility
Only human can be held to be normally responsible
Consequentialist
• a.k.a Teleological
•Ends justifies the means
 Judge actions by their outcome
• e.g. Utilitarianism
 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832
 “greatest happiness of the greatest number”

26. Non-consequentialist
• a.k.a Deontological
• Judge the actual action, regardless of the
consequences
- e.g. Pacifism
• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
- judged actions by whether they conform
to requirements of rationality and human
dignity

27. Naturalistic ethical theories
• Human nature as the source of what is right of wrong
- The instinct to survival is the strongest, therefore it is wrong to
commit suicide.
• Either teleological (similar to consequentialist- judged by the
end result) or deontological (similar to non-consequentialist- the
act is judged in itself, not according to the result)
- E.g: ‘shallow ecology’ vs. ‘deep ecology’
For example:
# Shallow ecology evaluates the results of pollution
# Deep ecology tries to assign value to nature itself

28. Theories of Care
 Feminism
-Classic ethics is patriarchal worldwide
-But also criticised by feminists – said to imply that
women should always do the caring
Emphasize contingency, consensus and care
-As opposed to generalised impersonal theories
-” he stole the bread to feed his family “

29. Why be moral?
• Ethical egoisme
-It’s in my interest to be ethical, because it will help me to get what I
want
‘ ‘Enlightened self-interest’
-I won’t steal because if everyone stole there would be too many
problems,and I’ll be punished if I do.
• Because everyone else will be happier
-Difficult to persuade someone not to do something that they want to
do it
• “Because that’s the way your mother did it”
Encourages blind obedience
• Moral laws help to ensure everyone’s needs are met

30. Conclusions
• A branch of philosophy
- About human relationships
- Trying to identify what is ‘good’
*A dynamic social force that promotes human well
being
• Uses argument to determine moral valiues
- Based on theories
*Consequentialist,deontological,naturalist,feminist
-Observations,reason,logic
• Religion needs morality,but moral system doesn’t need
religion