What is ethics all about?
Contents:
Many discussions about ‘ethics’ begin with a flourish only to grind to a halt as people encounter disagreement about the answer to a fairly fundamental question, “What is ethics all about?”.
The disagreement flows from the fact that most people only have a partial understanding of the basic questions that are addressed in the field of ethics. The most commonly held views include a mixture of the following:
- Ethics is the same as morality
- Ethics is about rules for behaviour (‘soft laws’ if you like)
- Ethics is to do with theory (part of the useless species of things dreamed up in ivory towers)
While each view is severely limited, it is easy to see how it can be held as most people tend to see only part of the overall picture. Those wanting to capture the broader perspective may be best assisted by returning to what is regarded to be the founding question in ethics.
Few will be surprised to learn that the basic question of ethics has an ancient pedigree. Indeed, it can be traced back to a Greek philosopher who lived and taught in Athens during the fifth century BC. Socrates asked:
"What ought one to do?"
Ethics is a matter of practical concern
It should be obvious that this is an immensely practical question which confronts all of us whenever we have a choice or decision to make.
It is also a question that is extremely difficult to avoid. Indeed, the only sure way to escape this question is to be a creature of unthinking habit who goes about life doing things “because everyone does it” or because “that's just the way we do things around here” or because “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. This sort of unthinking custom and practice can be seen as being the enemy of an 'examined life'.
Ethics is not the same as morality
If ethics is about practical rather than purely theoretical matters, it should also be understood that it encompasses a general conversation about how people should live a ‘good’ life. This helps to explain the difference between ethics and morality.
The distinction can be demonstrated by using the analogy of a conversation.
If one imagines that the field of ethics is a conversation which has arisen in order to answer the question, “What ought one to do?”, then moralities (and they are various) are the different voices in that conversation.
Each voice belongs to a tradition or theory that offers a framework within which the question might be contemplated and answered. So in the conversation there can be a Christian voice, a Jewish voice, an Islamic voice, Buddhist voice, Hindu voice, Confucian voice and so on. Each voice has something distinctive to say - although they may all share certain things in common.
There are, in addition to the moralities that flow from the worlds’ religions, the voices that represent the various attempts to found moral systems on the thinking of secular philosophers and others - for example utilitarianism, humanism, feminism and many others.
Learn more about ethics and its relationship to morality.
Ethical decision-making
However, no ethical theory or morality (from the West) has found a way to answer Socrates’ question in a way that completely avoids the countless ethical dilemmas that seem to be a persistent feature of what might be called the ‘ethical landscape’.
One simple example may suffice as an indication of the type of dilemma that might be encountered. Most people would agree (possibly for quite different reasons) that people ought to tell the truth. These same people will hold that one ought to avoid causing harm. But what happens when to tell the truth will cause another person harm?
Each principle seems to be valid on its own account, but when put in combination with other values an irreconcilable tension may arise.
This is not a trivial point. It reminds us that the ethical landscape is painted in shades of grey and not black and white. Sometimes we need to accept the limits to certainty when trying to decide how best to proceed. Sometimes our range of choice is reduced to picking the least bad alternative. Sometimes we may have nothing more than a well-informed conscience to guide us through the maze of ethical decision-making.
Learn more about ethical decision-making, including some useful decision-making frameworks.
Ethics is about relationships
In all this discussion one crucial point has been left unsaid: that ethical considerations involve an essential social element.
Whether one seeks to move from religious or secular conviction, or from a position in which one seeks to generate consequences in which pleasure is maximised and pain minimised, or from the point of view in which other persons are seen as being members of the ‘kingdom of ends’, the result is the same: a consideration of ethical questions involves a consideration of the quality and nature of relationships with other people.