Six Ethical Theories

Six Ethical Theories
There are many different moral perspectives, but these six theories are some of the most important that we will explore over the course. It is a good idea from the start to have a basic understanding of these theories before we go on to look at them in detail.

 
Christian Ethics
This is the ethical beliefs of Christianity, which is the traditional religion of our country, and which has had a great effect on our moral outlook. Even if you are an atheist it is still true to say that the moral teachings of Christianity will have had some influence on forming your personal moral views.

Christian Ethics is mainly based on the teachings of the Bible, but it is also based on the teachings of religious leaders as well as saints and thinkers. The Bible sets down both rules and principles for believers to live by. The most famous set of rules are the Ten Commandments: (1) You shall have no other gods, (2) You shall not make idols, (3) You shall not take God’s name in vain, (4) Keep the Sabbath holy, (5) Honour your mother and father, (6) You shall not murder, (7) You shall not commit adultery, (8) You shall not steal, (9) You shall not bear false witness, (10) You shall not covet. The first four of these commandments tell believers how best to respect their god, whilst the other six concern the right treatment of other people. The tenth commandment is particularly interesting as it forbids certain feelings rather than actions, it forbids believers to desire and lust after the things that belong to others, whether it be their property or wives; this is because it is often our desires and jealousy which lead to immoral actions such as violence and stealing.

There are many other rules in the Bible, indeed there are 613 commandments in the Pentateuch (the first 5 book of the Bible, known by Jews as the Torah) alone. There are also many principles in the Bible, such as Stewardship (caring for the environment properly), loving other people, forgiveness, and charity. One of the most famous teachings is the Golden Rule in which Jesus tells his followers to treat other people the way they want to be treated. Many Christians believe that the most important moral principle in the Bible is love. Jesus commanded people to love one another, and it can be easily seen that if you acted towards others in a loving way then you would help them and never do anything to harm them.  

There are many problems in establishing moral rules on the Bible, for instance there are contradictions. The Old Testament commands people not to eat pork, but the New Testament says that it doesn’t matter what people eat, what is important is how they act. Also, passages can be open to interpretation, for instance, St Paul stated that a person should not consume blood, and so some Christians (in particular the Jehovah’s Witnesses) have come to the conclusion that blood transfusions are wrong. For this reason they refuse transfusions even if it leads to death, and in many cases the children of Jehovah’s Witnesses have died because of this. There are also many teachings in the Bible which are found to be problematic in today’s society, such as its support for slavery, holy war, and the death sentence, its condemnation of homosexuality, and its teachings on female subservience. Finally, there can be problems some moral issues aren’t actually mentioned, for example, medical abortion didn’t exist at the time the Bible was written and so nothing is said about it.
 
Different Christian groups have come to very different conclusions based on the Bible and their own reasonings about moral issues. The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong no matter what, whereas the Church of England teaches that abortion can be right in limited circumstances, such as if the mother was raped or could die from the pregnancy. Most Christian groups support Just War Theory, which says that war can be right as a last resort to fight injustice and evil, but the Quakers are pacifists and argue that all violence is wrong. The Catholic Church and Orthodox Church are against having female priests, but the Church of England allows women to join the priesthood. Some Christians support euthanasia because they see it as an act of mercy and loving kindness, but almost every Christian Church sees it as wrong because it destroys life and only God, the creator of life, has the right to do that.
 

Buddhist Ethics
Buddhism is a non-theistic religion, which means that it is not based around the worship of a god, indeed, most Buddhists believe that there is no god. The key focus in Buddhism is the attempt to remove pain and suffering from the world. The Buddha argued that suffering is part and parcel of human existence and that we are all seeking to escape suffering and pain. Often this pain is caused by our desires; we desire something and harm others to get it, or we desire something and then feel miserable because we can’t get it, and if we do get it we always want more or soon become dissatisfied with it.

Buddhists are meant to, as far as possible, avoid causing harm to other people and to challenge the suffering of others through charity. Quite famously they have the Five Precepts as key moral rules: (1) abstain from harming living things, (2) abstain from taking the not given, (3) abstain from sexual misconduct, (4) abstain from false speech, (5) abstain from intoxicants. These are similar to some of the Ten Commandments in Christianity and Judaism. The last is an important one because Buddhists argue that people need to have clear minds in order to understand the world and act appropriately, especially to allow for meditation, so Buddhists believe that alcohol and drugs are wrong.

Buddhists are expected to live by ‘The Middle Way.’ When the Buddha was young he was a prince in a palace and had every pleasure, but he found it unsatisfactory. He left the palace and saw the suffering of the world and decided to become a holy man instead. Holy men of that time tried to transcend the physical world through denial of their desires, they would starve themselves, abstain from sex and friendship, and so on. The Buddha also found this unsatisfactory, it did not get rid of the pain and suffering of humanity. Thus he found the middle way where a person satisfied their needs but avoids excess. As an example, a person should eat what they need to survive and be healthy, neither starving themselves nor eating to greedy excess. The Middle Way is all about moderation and being satisfied with what you have, for instance, being happy with your three bedroom house instead of desiring a five bedroom mansion with a swimming pool. The Middle Way stands opposed to the greed which seems to rule the modern world.

Buddhists believe in rebirth and karma. They believe that after you die your personality, with all its desires and feelings, will be reborn into another person, and that the way you have acted will affect your future lives. If you are a good and kind person then in your next life it will benefit you and you will be better off, but if you are a bad person then in your next life you will be made to suffer in some way. Through many lives you will learn the truths of the world and become a better person and eventually become ‘enlightened’, reaching spiritual perfection.

The Dalai Lama is an example of a famous Buddhist leader and he is respected for his moral teachings. He has spoken widely on moral issues arguing that people should be more spiritual in the sense of caring for others, he has spoken on the need to respect our environment and care for the environment, he has spoken out against materialism and the damage that it does to people, and has even endorsed Marxism because he believes that people should share and help one another rather than seeking their own personal wealth and pleasure.


Ethical Egoism
According to this theory a person’s only duty is to look after themselves and their own long term interests. This means that when they are making moral decisions they should not consider the impact that their actions will have on other people, only the impact their actions will have on themselves. Egoism is essentially an endorsement of selfishness. Suppose I really desire a certain computer game and I know that getting it will bring me pleasure. Whilst many moral theories would simply state that stealing is wrong and they might talk about respecting the possessions of others, Ethical Egoism might actually recommend stealing it. Egoism says that I should not concern myself with the negative impact this stealing might have on the shopkeeper, I should only think about the consequences for me. If there is a good chance that I’ll be caught and punished then I shouldn’t steal it, but otherwise, go ahead.

Ethical Egoism does not mean that you should run around simply doing what you want all the time, upsetting others for example, or stealing things that you want but can’t afford. If everybody did that then there would be anarchy and that would be bad for everyone. Instead it recommends that people think long term and think wisely and with prudence. If you help other people then they will help you back, whereas if you hurt others your own life will get difficult. Ethical Egoists tend to recommend cooperation and sharing because making life better for everyone will also make life better for you: you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. But of course, if you can get away with doing bad things to others and benefit from them, there is no reason not to.

 
Utilitarianism
The name ‘utilitarianism’ comes from the word ‘utility’ which means ‘usefulness.’ Utilitarianism says that an action is good if it is useful to the human race as a whole. The catchphrase here is “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Utilitarians argue that each person is governed by their wish to achieve happiness or pleasure and to avoid pain and misery, and that the best actions are those which allow the greatest number of people to achieve happiness. The theory stands against selfishness and says that you should view the happiness of another person as equally important as your own happiness. In Utilitarianism each person counts just the same as any other person, it has a sense of equality to it. The simple idea is that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

Utilitarianism has two goals, firstly to make as many people happy as possible, and secondly, to destroy as much misery and suffering in the world as possible. Arguably Utilitarian thinking has brought much good to the world, for instance, in the past governments were largely concerned with what was in the interests of the rich minority, whereas today they are expected to do what is best for everyone. It was Utilitarian thinking which brought in things such as universal education and healthcare. Utilitarians like Bentham argued against the death penalty and slavery, and JS Mill argued powerfully for female equality. We might think that lying is wrong, but a Utilitarian would say that if lying can save lives or make people happy then lying is the best thing to do.

A key idea in Utilitarianism is that sometimes the minority must suffer for the sake of the majority. If you are building a brand new airport this may well disrupt the lives of thousands of people who live near it and create a lot of stress and unhappiness for them, but a Utilitarian may argue that the benefits to millions of other people who will use the airport outweighs the harm done. Our government heavily taxes the rich in order to provide social security, healthcare, and education for those less well off, and so the majority are being benefitted at the cost of the minority. In war thousands of soldiers will be sacrificed, but this may be seen as necessary for the desirable goal of achieving freedom, peace, and prosperity for millions of others. In Utilitarianism the goal is to create a net gain in happiness, and sometimes in order to achieve this a certain amount of pain and suffering must be inflicted: the end justifies the means.

It is not difficult to see moral objections to Utilitarianism. A Utilitarian will probably argue that it is fine to acceptable to torture a terrorist in order to find out where he has placed a bomb and save hundreds of lives, but others would say that torture is absolutely wrong and that it should never happen and can’t be justified. And must the needs of the many always be put first? What if we said that 1% of the population should be enslaved and forced to do all of the horrible and boring jobs so that the other 99% could have happier and easier lives. Would that really be the right thing to do? Of course, Utilitarians do have potential responses to objections such as these, but we will need to look at the theory in more detail before considering them.
 

Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant’s morality is basically a complicated rationalised version of the Golden Rule found in most religions: treat other people the way you want to be treated. His more complicated formulation of this is “act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” This is called the Categorical Imperative. What this basically means is that before I do x I should ask myself “would I be happy to allow everyone to do x?” If the answer is ‘no’ then I shouldn’t do it either. Suppose I want to steal a video game that I can’t afford I must ask myself “if I was in charge of the world and could set its rules, would I allow everyone to steal or no one to steal?” The answer seems quite obviously that I would not want to allow everyone to steal, and so I cannot do it myself.

A key point in Kantian Ethics is that we are all equally rational and the same. If it is possible for me to say “I can steal” then it is just as possible for others to think they can do it. If it is possible for me to say “I am justified in killing my enemies” then it is just as possible for others to say the same. No I don’t want to live in a world where people can steal from me or kill me, and I don’t want these things to happen to my friends or family either, so I will have to say that no one should be allowed to do them.

Kant’s morality tends to be very absolute and inflexible. Kant says that actions such as lying, stealing, killing, and breaking promises cannot be ‘universalised’ so they can never be allowed. As far as Kant is concerned you should never lie, never break your promises, and so forth. Many people believe this is an unrealistic moral theory because there are difficult situations when lying or stealing would be the best things to do. As far as Kant is concerned, however, we should forget about the consequences and just follow the rules.

Some Kantians modify the Categorical Imperative so that instead of basically saying “would I allow everyone to do this action?” we should instead ask “would I allow everyone in this situation to do this action?” For example, instead of asking “would I allow everyone to kill?” I should instead ask “would I allow everyone to kill in self-defence?” and “would I allow everyone to kill for personal financial gain?” This interpretation of the universalisation test allows for morality to be more practical and relevant to the particular situation, but at the same time could open the gateway for all kinds of actions to be justified, even killing or lying or torture, so long as the situation merits it.

Kant offered a second formulation of the Categorical Imperative which states that you should never treat other people purely as a means to an end, but instead as an ‘end in themselves.’ What this means is that you can’t use or abuse other people to achieve some desirable goal (end). It is normal to use people as a means to an end, for instance, when you buy a newspaper at a shop you are using the shopkeeper as a means to the end of reading the news, however, this is normally mutual and you would respect the shopkeeper enough to pay him for the paper, after all, he has his own goals in life such as paying his rent. However, you should not use other people purely as a way of getting what you want and without any concern for their own goals or wishes, e.g. stealing the paper. Slavery is a key example of using someone purely as a means to an end as slaves are forced to work hard for the benefit of another person without any respect for what they want. Slaves are treated like objects, not people. Essentially what Kant is getting at here is the idea that people have worth and value and you have to respect that. There are strong links to conceptions of human rights here.

A final important factor for Kant is the idea of duty. You must do the right thing because it is the right thing and not for personal gain, or because you happen to enjoy doing the right thing, or to impress other people, or to please God. You must do the right thing even if you don’t want to, and even if it has bad consequences for you.
 

Virtue Ethics
Virtue Ethics is less focused on the specific actions that people perform and whether they are right or wrong, and instead is focused more on people’s characters. A virtue is a skill or an excellent character trait that a person should seek to develop in themselves. The approach from Virtue Ethics is to say that people should try to have virtues such as courage, patience, benevolence, temperance (self-control), honesty and modesty. In contrast to virtues there are vices, which are character flaws. Vices include things like greed, dishonesty, a tendency to exaggerate, a lack of control over your temper, cowardice, being mean (uncharitable), etc.

The Virtue Ethics approach often doesn’t just aim at producing people who are morally good but often has a broader scope and aims to make people who lead good lives in every sense, so things like a sense of humour and people skills are often viewed as virtues and Aristotle argued that intelligence was a virtue: intelligence is something that makes you a more successful and useful person.

In some ways Virtue Ethics can be linked to following role models. If you take any person who you view as good or have respect for you will be able to point out things about them which made them a good person. Martin Luther King Jr. for example had traits such as a sense of fairness, courage, and eloquence in speaking, all of which contributed to his greatness. Those who follow Virtue Ethics aim to develop these skills and traits in themselves and so to become better people who are more likely to do the right thing.

In some ways Virtue Ethics is very similar to other more rule based forms of ethics, after all, saying “be honest” isn’t much different from saying “tell the truth” and “don’t lie”, however, Virtue Ethics does help to place an emphasis on intentions and motivations. A person might give money to charity, but only do so because they are told to and it is expected of them, they might even hate giving to charity but do it anyway to look good. Meanwhile, Virtue Ethics would tell people to actually be charitable or benevolent and this doesn’t just mean giving to charity, but also involves the generosity and kindness that should go with it.

Plato argued that there were four key virtues which were most important for any individual to have, wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Wisdom is the intelligence to make good judgements and courage is what allows a person to actually stand up and do the right thing. Temperance is self-control which is particularly important because it allows for people to resist the temptations of things like power, wealth, sex, too much food, alcohol, and so on. Temperance was also linked to suffering in Plato’s view, it was the ability to put up with things you don’t like and carry on doing your duties. Plato’s notion about justice is largely about balance and people being aware of their position in society and doing their duties to make society work properly.

The most famous Virtue Ethicist was Aristotle who argued that virtues are necessary in order for a person to achieve ‘eudaimonia’ which roughly translates as happiness, but would be better translated as ‘flourishing’ or ‘success.’ Aristotle’s idea of the good life includes things like health, having children, pleasure, wealth, friendships, doing duties to your society, and knowledge and wisdom. A balance of all these things is required but Aristotle views duty to society and knowledge as the most important things for a person to achieve. For Aristotle each moral virtue is a mean between deficiency and excess; cowardice is a vice and it is down to a lack of confidence, but it is also possible to have too much confidence and so be foolish and take stupid risks. A lack of charity is a vice, but it is also a vice to be too generous and leave yourself poor. To be virtuous a person must learn balance and what is appropriate.
 

Tasks

(1) Describe each theory in your own words.

(2) Do some research to find out what these theories say about issues such as war, abortion, euthanasia, poverty, inequality, the death penalty, drugs, and the environment.

(3) What are the strengths of each theory?

(4) What problems can you think of for each theory?

(5) Which theory do you like the most and why?

(6) Which theory is your least favourite and why?

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