ethics 3

Understanding Ethical Theories

Unit  Objectives

This week there is no Quiz but a Mid-Term Exam will post on June 4, 2020 at 9am

 

There is only one assignment this week a Discussion Board#3 

*Complete Discussion Board #3 Relativism and Situation Ethics(this week's question under Collaboration/Forums) is due  JUNE 4, 2020 at 11pm

 

Absolutism and Relativism,

Cultural Relativism, Cultural Absolutism

Natural Law, Situation Ethics

Egoism and Utilitarianism

Absolutism and Relativism

Absolutism

Absolutism is making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules. It maintains that some things are always right and some things are always wrong. They are fixed for all time, places and people. ex. Ten Commandments

Cultural Absolutism and Cultural Relativism

Cultural Absolutism is the idea that there are set values and that some things are objectively right or wrong regardless of the circumstances or differences between countries. For  example, all countries have some form of religion, family life ,formal marriage, love of children,communication using language, developed legal systems . Countries and cultures have more in common they they are different

Cultural Relativism is the theory that because of the diverse range of cultures and customs in the world this means that morality cannot be absolute. They would say countries have more differences than shared human experiences,

Advantages of Absolutism

· It allows moral rules to be evaluated critically.

· It is fair as people are treated the same as the rules are the same for everyone.

· If a moral rule is right, then there would be no need to have different rules for different people because the absolute rules are universal.

Disadvantages of Absolutism

· Sometimes it is not appropriate to treat people the same due to circumstances that arise due to situations.

· Life is not simply 'black and white' and as this is the case, it is simply not right to make everyone live by the same rules.

Relativism

Relativism says that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong everything is subject to change including moral imperatives and Ethics.  ex. Abortion, Euthanasia,

It is popular in the present day because there is a belief that everyone should be tolerant towards others' beliefs and views; this idea for freedom of speech implies that there are no ‘real’ absolute truths.

Some believe that all human circumstances are different and therefore there is a need to have different moral rules for different groups of people.

Cultural Relativism

· says that different countries - or even areas within a country - have different values, for example, Muslims expect women to cover up (at least some of) their bodies.

· It affirms the idea 'when in Rome do as the Romans do'.

· It allows there to be variety in different cultures.

· However, as there are no overriding standard to compare cultures to, noone can say that one culture is better than another because of what they believe - this could be either an advantage or a disadvantage.

· Moral truths are no more than subjective feelings about behaviour which can therefore never achieve the status of fact as they are the result of ways of life and opinions which vary from culture to culture or person to person depending on circumstances.

Historical Relativism

· This says that what was right one hundred years ago may not be right in the present day because times and society have moved on.

· 100 years ago, women did not have the vote but due to changing opinions in society they now do and hold principal positions in parliament, etc.

· Society also accepts the need to change sets of rules which used to be sufficient in previous times.

Advantages of Relativism

· It allows for the diversity that is present in the world.

· It understands that life is not black and white.

· Cultures may believe that their practices are more justifiable than other cultural practices, but by using a relativist approach, this will allow for acceptance between different peoples.

Disadvantages of Relativism

· Just because there are different moral views, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all of equal value. For example, the Nazis believed that they were right to kill millions of Jews, homosexuals and disabled people: surely it would be wrong to say that this had the same worth as other moral views. Cultural Relativists would not be able to criticise the Nazis as they believe that all cultures have views of equal worth.

· Cultural Relativism also ultimately reduces the meaning of what is ‘good’ to ‘what is socially acceptable’. For example if a culture allows wife-beating, then cultural relativism would also have to say that wife-beating is morally acceptable.

· It may be more difficult to decide when the rules need changing in different circumstances.

Absolutism versus Relativism

Ethical Absolutists can condemn practices such as the Nazi persecution of the Jews because Absolutist views give definite guidelines as to what is right and wrong in terms of human conduct.

Relativism can take into account the reasons why something happens. Absolutists would have to condemn a mother who steals food for her starving children because in their eyes all stealing is wrong, whereas Relativists can say stealing is wrong usually but as the mother needed to feed her children, what she did was right and should therefore not be condemned.

Absolutists can appear to be intolerant to views of others, for example, if they are against cruelty of animals, they would be against the Islamic practice of sacrificing lambs, but Relativists would be able to see the religious significance and the importance of that practice to the Islamic community and will therefore not condemn it.

ne else’s interests. It is thus a normative or prescriptive theory: it is concerned with how we ought to behave. In this respect, ethical egoism is quite different from  psychological egoism , the theory that all our actions are ultimately self-interested. Psychological egoism is a purely descriptive theory that purports to describe a basic fact about human nature. Human beings will always act in their own self-interest.

Situation Ethics

Situation ethics was most famously championed by Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991).

He believed that we should follow the rules until we need to break them for reasons of love.

It is based on agape love (Christian unconditional love), and says that we should always do the most loving thing in any situation.

Fletcher rejected following rules regardless (legalism) and also the idea that we should not have any rules (antinomianism) and said that we need to find a balance between the two.

Six Fundamental Principles

There are six fundamental things that underlie Fletcher's Situation Ethics:

1. Love is the only absolute (it is intrinsically good)

2. Christian decision making is based on love

3. Justice is love distributed

4. Love wants the good for anyone, whoever they are

5. Only the end justifies the means

6. Love is acted out situationally not prescriptivally

Advantages of Situation Ethics

The key advantage is that it uses rules to provide a framework but allows people to break rules to reflect life's complexities.

Disadvantages of Situation Ethics

It does not provide a clear definition of what love actually is.

Some might say it is too subjective – because decisions have to be made from within the situation. Humans do not have a bird’s eye view on a situation so have difficulty in seeing what the consequences will be.

Agape love is too much to aspire to and may be polluted by a selfish human tendency.

It is human nature to love family more than strangers.

We do not know whose rules to follow.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism focuses on the idea of the greater good. Essentially, this ethical theory intends to maximize good for the the most people. The moral worth of any action is judged by how much good results for all sentient beings. While some individuals may suffer from these actions, utilitarianism holds that the conduct may still be ethical if it does more good for a greater number of people than it harms.The individual must sacrifice their own desires and goals in every situation for the greater good of family, friends, groups. The greatest good for the greatest number of people is always the guiding principle.

What is Egoism  https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=aaplw&p=video+on+egoism#id=10&vid=b1f21d7858dd37d6c9c66ee8340a0b9b&action=view