Copyright 2000 by Neal R. Wagner.
(Material adapted in part from writings by Myles McNally.)
Can ethics be taught? The theory of ethics can be taught, but we cannot and do not want to make anyone behave according to some ethical theory. Ethics refers to a person's moral values, to their beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. The word ethics also refers to the study of moral beliefs. Descriptive ethics refers to the study of moral beliefs that people do in fact have and why they have them. Normative ethics is the study of the moral beliefs that people should have.
Here is a list of different ethical theories:
This theory holds that the moral correctness of an action depends on whether or not it produces in us secondary feelings of pleasure or of uneasiness, according to whether the action is right or wrong. In this theory we have a moral sense, a basic ability to tell right from wrong.
The theory was put forward by David Hume, A Scottish philosopher of the 18th century. He thought that this moral sense was innate in everyone, just as we have a sense of sight or hearing. It may be defective in some, just as some people have defective vision.
Morality is not based on any rational calculation or decision but on the senses and passions. The moral worth of an action is measured not on its outcome, but on our reaction to the outcome.
Hume felt that the moral sense was "built in", just as some people feel that the human capacity to master a language is. Thus the moral sense could be an innate capacity to tell right from wrong. One can hold that we just have the capacity for a moral sense built in, or that we have built in the actual moral beliefs.
Another possibility is that the moral sense is not built-in, but totally learned. Morality is then like a learned emotional reaction. If the moral sense of an action were learned, then it would be relative to the individual or group judging that action. Such an ethical theory is called a relativist theory, in which an action may be moral to one person and not to another. Hume attempted to avoid the charge of relativism by emphasizing the innate nature of the moral sense, to produce an absolutist theory.
An egotist is someone who thinks primarily of his or her own needs and desires. Ethical egoism is the theory that each individual should do that which is in their own best interest. So the moral correct action by someone is that which leads to the best outcome for that individual.
A theory called psychological egoism holds that people always do what they think is in their own best interests. Actions which appear to show sympathy and concern for others, such as charity and benevolence, are always done for some self-regarding reason. Perhaps for the tax write-off, or to feel important or loved or just to feel good.
Variations of ethical egoism are found in libertarianism, an in the "triumph of the individual" found in the writings of Ann Rand.
This theory holds that the rightness or wrongness of an action can be determined from the goodness or badness of its consequences. The main variant holds that an action is right if it produces the most happiness (pleasure) for the most people.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John S. Mill (1806-1873) were the main early proponents of utilitarianism. There are four variations of utilitarianism:
The idea that the moral worth of an action can be determined by its consequences is at first appealing. It is an absolutist theory, with the right action the one with the highest score on the hedonistic calculus. To deny it is to say that sometimes the morally correct action leads to more, and not less, suffering.
One must ask what is meant by "goodness" and "badness." One can use pleasure and pain, as Bentham did, or one can use more abstract measures, including "higher pleasures." (For example, Mill thought that intellectual pleasures were superior to sexual pleasures.)
Other problems are with quantity versus quality. How can one compare a large number of small pleasures with a single great pain? One also needs to know if we are minimizing the bad or maximizing the good.
Utilitarian philosophies can stray close to the "end justifies the means," and this troubling maxim has been used to justify all manner of evil, including the Nazi holocaust.
Intentions and not consequences are the foundation of the Kantian theory. The moral worth of an action comes from the intention of the individual to act morally and not in the purpose to be attained. Moral rules are those which can be made universal, and moral action follow these rules.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) put forward this philosophy. One variant is the maxim: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but one might use any number of other similar rules. Kant saw morality as the outcome of one's rationality.
Perhaps morality is just convention, just an agreement between individuals to behave in certain ways. The Social Contract Theory begins with the thought that all individuals begin life with certain basic rights, usually called natural rights. Morality is a substructure of social convention built up from this basis.
The social contract theory of ethics has been influential since before the time of Plato, and had its first major statement in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. The most important figures in the history of the social contract theory are Thomas Hobbs, Jean-jacques Rousseau, and John Locke. Their writings appeared just before and during a period of great change in political thought in Europe. Locke's variation in particular became the social and political theory of the times. It passed into France, and through Rousseau into the French revolution. It passed into America, and through Thomas Jefferson and Samual Adams into the United States Constitution:
... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...
Hobbs made a compelling case for the social contract theory by imagining a world before morality, before a social society exited. In such a world, an individual has the right to do anything he or she wants. Driven basically by the desire for self-preservation "every man has a right to every thing, even to another's body." In such a world, there would be no security for any person, no matter how strong or wise. Life would be constant fear. Consequently, Hobbs thought that all men would attempt to seek peace and "to lay down his right to all things and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow against himself." Thus morality is generated by the laying down of rights. If everyone has the right to murder, I could get killed, so it is in my own self-interest to give up my right to murder. The general statement of this theory is: The rightness or wrongness of an action depends on its conformance with the social contract, those principles which organize and make possible our living together in a society. We, implicitly or explicitly, agree to abid by the social contract (the laws) by being a member of society. If there was no contract, our lives would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Here are four variations of the social contract theory:
How can one evaluate ethical theories? Two important measures are consistency and conformity. A theory is inconsistent if it contradicts itself. For example, the theory might imply that a certain action right and is also wrong. Consistency is a logical requirement that most ethical theories pass.
One also requires that a moral theory conform to our most basic moral intuitions. For instance few people would accept a moral theory that would require an innocent person to be punished or killed. A common criticism of utilitarianism is that it violates our ethical intuitions in just this way.