social ethics questions

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-an-introduction-to-ethics-and-its-historical-origins 1/12

Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-an-introduction-to-ethics-and-its-historical-origins 2/12

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5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-an-introduction-to-ethics-and-its-historical-origins 3/12

This week we will launch off into a brief history of ethics which will also function as an introductory background to Aristotle’s virtue ethics framework. We will discuss how ethical discourse first arose in ancient Greece as a way of referring to objective standards of the Good over against the moral relativism of market relations. My Week One Lecture Notes (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034398/download?wrap=1) (https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/files/68034398/download? download_frd=1) provide further historical background to the historical beginnings of philosophy and ethics, and it might be best to look it over before doing the readings and then return to it as a possible aid when answering questions for the readings. After reading MacIntyre and the lecture notes, move on to George McCarthy’s piece. This will provide a general introduction to Aristotle’s virtue ethics and its historical context within the fledgling democracy of ancient Athens, highlighting especially the communal nature of virtue ethics in its reflection on the common good.

Grasping the history of ethics is key in order to show that ethics began as not only reflection on a common way of life but its forms of reasoning grew as a public affair with political significance: it was a matter of engaged citizens collectively reasoning about the common goods they all share in the pursuit of realizing our full humanity, rather than a private concern solely with asserting self-interest. Philosophers do not live in a vacuum of space and time but rather develop their ideas within real historical contexts in which they are trying to meet real social needs. We will see that some of the first philosophical reflections on ethics focused not simply on abstractly determining the “right” thing to do, but rather what is it concretely “good” to be. Within these readings then, I want you to focus on the historical evolution of the term “the good”, how it developed and what it referred to in terms of real life social needs and their objective standards of fulfillment. Was the good originally a term of simple private preferences and tastes or did it have a social function and an objectively qualitative point of reference?

What is Ethics?

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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Before we dive into the history of ethics, let’s first start with a somewhat basic textbook primer on how to understand the distinctiveness of ethical discourse—what is ethical language trying to do? This is merely an initial launching off point for getting the wheels turning.

The Basics of “Moral Judgments”

A moral judgment is a particular kind of statement. So a good place to begin is to think about statements in general. There are four main kinds:

1. Description 2. Question 3. Expression 4. Prescription

A question is a statement that requests information or asks about purpose, while an expression is a statement of personal preference. A descriptive statement is an attempt to state how the world factually is. In contrast, a prescriptive statement is an attempt to state how the world should be according to a purpose. This is why prescriptive statements use words of value, such as “good,” “bad,” “right,” “wrong,” “should/not,” “ought/not.” Many prescriptive statements are not seemingly moral in nature in any obvious way. For example, “You should drink Pepsi rather than Coke” or “You should eat tacos tonight rather than pizza”. Without knowing any further context, it would be odd to find someone who insisted that those statements were robustly moral ones. However, most of us believe that certain prescriptive statements are obviously moral, such as “You should not murder,” or “slavery is wrong” or “it is good to care for our planet.” So the definition of a moral judgment is a prescriptive statement that is morally binding in a universal or objective way. The important thing to note at this point is that making a moral judgment is to make a claim to something that is more than an expression of immediate feelings or a mere factual description of a situation. But the truth of the prescriptive statement needs to be reasoned about.

The Basics of “Ethical Reasoning”

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-an-introduction-to-ethics-and-its-historical-origins 5/12

A quick (and somewhat narrow) definition of ethical reasoning: the attempt to give a justification to the prescriptive statements of 'moral judgments’ by appeal to a universal or objective standard. Justification means exactly the same as it does in the case of propositions (descriptive statements): giving reasons that make the conclusion justified or right. So a justification is a set of reasons that will take the form of premises. How do we justify the statement that ‘Socrates is mortal?’ You support that statement with a valid argument and true premises: 1) Socrates is a human, 2) All humans are mortal, 3) Therefore Socrates is mortal. The statement that 'Socrates is mortal' is now justified. The project of justification is not very controversial with descriptive statements, as demonstrated above. But how about with prescriptive statements? Ethical reasoning is the attempt to justify certain prescriptive statements – the ones we call ‘moral judgments’ by concluding with an objective referent or what some philosophers call a “normative claim” of what one ought to do beyond the whims of private preferences. When an ethical theory makes a normative claim as to what one ought to do in a given situation, it has operative in the background a presupposition about the normative form of human nature—this will be the key premise to look for as we proceed to analyze the various ethical frameworks:

The normative presupposition in the above descriptive proposition about Socrates was that "all humans are mortal" The aspect of mortality is a bare descriptive fact shared by all other living life forms. But ethical reasons presuppose a normative form distinguishing humanity beyond this mere fact of bare mortal life:

Here are some examples of ethical presuppositions about the normative forms that potentially make the human distinctive:

all humans are inherently social all humans are inherently creative all humans have an innate capacity for reason

Each premise is not referring to a merely descriptive quantifiable fact about humanity, but rather they refer to a normatively objective quality or capacity that attempts to distinguish humanity beyond brute animality and the basic features we share with all other life forms.

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-an-introduction-to-ethics-and-its-historical-origins 6/12

Ethical reasoning is then fundamentally about judgments on how to fulfill the presupposed normative qualities of what it means to be human: what ought to be done in order to remain true to, to preserve, or perfect and realize those normative qualities beyond brute nature. This is the most important premise/presupposition to grasp in understanding the normative ethical theories we will encounter: if an ethical framework views what it means to be human differently than another framework, then it will reason from different premises and normative claims as to what we ought to do. The key moving forward is to ask which ethical framework has the most comprehensive account of those normative qualities that seem to objectively define human nature (not just, which framework adds up every possible feature displayed by human nature, but rather which accounts for the most distinctive qualities that distinguish us as truly human)

Here it is important to see that within a heavily commercialized society, such as ours, in which so many decisions about value come down to mere consumer preference, there is often a conflation of ethical values with an assertion of private individualistic preferences, as if just another consumer option. This market standpoint uncritically assumes that the normative form of human nature is that we are all merely private self-seeking consumers with no common good or shared values.

But an assertion of private subjective preferences is merely a descriptive and expressive statement and not yet a prescriptive claim on what we all should do. You might express current feelings about what you seem to want in the moment, but ethical reasoning often asks the bigger question of whether those current wants are really good for you or truly needed for fulfilling our qualitative nature together—and this question alone implies a different normative form of human nature than mere consumerism. Philosophers call the view that values are exclusively private assertions or preferences emotivism: the reduction of morality to mere assertions of private feelings without further explanation and so not yet a true form of ethical reasoning, since it remains expressive/descriptive and thus collapses into moral relativism. Emotivism is unable to say why something like sweatshops, or racism, or sexism, or exploiting our planet is objectively a bad thing: instead, it can only say I personally happen to like or dislike those things, without reasoning as to

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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whether those likes or dislikes are good, true, right, or just as to what it means to be human and therefore binding for others. But ethical reasoning aims at making a judgment that is binding on us all. Some examples:

Asserted Judgment: Sweatshops are bad. Ethical reason why: because they dehumanize the laborers by using their labor against the development of their normative form of humanity as creative and social beings.

Asserted Judgment: Racism or sexism is bad. Ethical reason why: because it violates the universal dignity we all share as equally rational, social, and creative beings, regardless of whether someone has a private preference/bias for certain races or sexes over others.

Asserted Judgment: Abusing our planet is bad. Ethical reason why: because it is a common good of universal interest that we all depend on. The good of the planet has objective standards of excellence for its care and cultivation regardless of our private preferences about it -- treat it poorly and objectively we will all suffer.

The Basic “Ethical Theories”

In this course we will begin developing and/or refining our ethical reasoning skills, appealing to normative standards beyond market relativism. We will do this by working through three basic normative ethical theories that have been influential throughout history: virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology. Here is then our first introduction to the ethical theories that we will explore throughout the first half of the quarter:

Virtue ethics: focuses on asking “what is it good to be?” Prescriptive statements refer to those normative social capacities and creative qualities that make us distinctively human rather than brute animals. Claims about the good then refers to those objective criteria or real needs--that which is good for fulfilling these normative capacities/qualities in their most holistic form. Utilitarianism: focuses on asking, “what maximizes the most pleasures for the most people?” Unlike virtue ethics it does not ask about what meets real needs

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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for realizing our highest qualities, since it presupposes that we are normatively private consumers and society is nothing more than a mere aggregate of such self-seeking individuals. Therefore, its claims about the good refer to whatever the majority finds pleasing at any given point in time and not about whether certain pleasures/goods fulfill real needs regardless of majority rule. Deontology: focuses on asking, “what is the right thing to do for its own sake?” Unlike the previous two theories it does not make claims about what it is good to be or to do, but rather about the right principles to obey according to our inherently rational nature, regardless of consequences and outcomes--it focuses on the purity of intentions and not pleasures.

The latter two ethical theories, utilitarianism and deontology, are distinctively modern forms of ethical reasoning, whereas virtue ethics denotes an older and more comprehensive sense of ethical reasoning. Our exploration will then begin with elaborating virtue ethic's historical context and then examining the historical shifts that led to the other two normative theories in our modern period. Remember, we will want to ask, what does each ethical theory normatively presuppose about what it means to be human?

What is Society and Economy? But, before we begin exploring the historical origins and ethical theories, we need to also provide some basics about understanding the "economy" and “society”. This is important for understanding ethics since what each ethical theory presupposes about humanity is often the product of how their society and economy is structured and understood. And, in turn, to apply ethics to society and its economics in any meaningful way requires grasping such structures according to a normative form or purpose of what society's economy should be fulfilling. But what is a good starting point for understanding society, socio-economic structures, and their purpose, especially considering the diversity of societies throughout history? We can start with the historical fact that we are historically evolving beings precisely because we are highly social beings, whose economic activity is always social to a degree:

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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Here are a few sociological facts of history that we will have continual reference to throughout the quarter as we do economic analysis:

Amongst the historical record of diverse human populations, there are nevertheless some relative constants that distinguish human societies from mere aggregates of herd animals. Every human society in the historical record, from hunter and gatherer societies on forward, is distinguished from other animals by some degree of advanced and reflexive tool use for inventing new tools. On this innovative basis every human society develops around, to a certain degree, a capacity for culture (as evidenced from the earliest cave paintings), and with it the development of ever more complex language and cultural mediations generationally passed on and successively added to.

Every human society thereby shows, more or less, a degree of creative freedom to change its natural circumstances, culturally passing on technologies, knowledge, and new emergent qualities for how to transform any environment in more humane ways, rather than relying solely on the slow, given biological evolutionary processes of genetically transmitting adaptable traits.

Yet any society characterized by the invention of advanced tools and cultural mediation, the creative diversity of which we find so important in distinguishing humans from mere animality, is only possible by way of producing a social surplus (or common wealth)—a surplus of goods and time is needed, beyond mere subsistence, to take up the advanced labors required for any kind of technological and cultural mediation (even the tools, resources, skills, greater awareness and time for something seemingly “primitive” like cave paintings!). No specifically human society is therefore possible without (to some degree no matter how minimally) producing, sharing, and distributing a common wealth for its advanced collective activities! But—and here is the key fact moving forward—no production of a social surplus is possible without this being a social process that not only relies on highly cooperative and creative capacities, but in turn reinvests the surplus back into continuing and advancing these qualities throughout the whole social body (failure to reinvest the social surplus back into maintaining and advancing, to some degree, our socially creative qualities has not been a good survival strategy for human societies throughout history).

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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Thus the distinctive trait of cultural freedom within human societies, in relation to their ability to change given circumstances and determine history, is always a collective project socially coordinated and reliant upon complex socially creative qualities to greater or lesser degrees—it seems then that the historical development of distinctively human societies presupposes certain defining or normative human capacities and qualities for socially creating together.

And indeed, throughout the historical record, we find as a fact that the common wealth of any society that makes any degree of freedom possible is always socially produced by many hands working together. The giant problem in history is that while every society has relied on socially producing and sharing an abundance together, we find too many societies structured so as to obscure this social fact and its required qualities in order to unevenly accumulate and distribute that wealth upwards away from the producers.

The main way to critically analyze any society and its economy is then to ask how it structures the production and sharing of its social surplus, which is basically to ask how it produces and reproduces its existence together:

Does it produce the right kinds of surplus that meet humanity's social needs for continuing and advancing itself, and does it reinvest that social surplus back into advancing the cooperative and creative qualities of the essential primary producers and reproducers that made it possible in the first place? Or, does it funnel the common wealth into the unproductive luxury consumption and military-colonial endeavors of those elite classes who have become far removed from the social body of producers/reproducers? Or, in other words, does it socially organize its economic activity as a means to serving the holistic development of its social life together? Or, does it commercially organize its social life as a means subordinated to economic accumulation for a few.

The growing inequality of our modern capitalist society suggests it is structured more along the lines of the latter, and we will want to ask later in the course whether modern ethical theories that presuppose humans as nothing more than private consuming individuals simply mirror the dominant social structures of a highly commercialized society that obscure our commonly shared, socially creative nature.

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

https://seattleu.instructure.com/courses/1603225/pages/launchpad-an-introduction-to-ethics-and-its-historical-origins 11/12

We will begin with virtue ethics in ancient Athens because it significantly attempted to recall the former communal structuring of society around holistic flourishing in the face of rising commercial imperatives for privatizing the common wealth.

Here are some critical patterns and big ideas that we should focus on in looking at the history of ethics:

Ethics in Ancient Greece began in community and as a communal affair reflecting on how to use the social surplus for the common good. When communities closely work together and share together for their mutual aid, then they will more organically reason together as to those ends, purposes, goals, and ideals worthy of investing the community's collective energy and surplus. The common good referred to real communal needs; if a society has no real sense of community then its ethics will often reflect this by also lacking a sense of the common good, being more individualistic. The common Good is a key big idea in thinking about the original sense of ethics in ancient Greece compared to our modern senses of ethics, which often attempt to articulate a sense of either “rights” or a sense of basic "goods" for meeting bare physical necessity yet without a notion of a substantive “Good” of humanity's higher qualitative needs.

Do humans have higher objective needs beyond mere consumption and survival?

As we will see for Aristotle, the common Good refers to what is good for building up a community of active citizens flourishing together around the development of our higher capacities. But more importantly, while ethics is about realizing our common Good, the purpose of politics and economics according to Aristotle is to serve this social and individual pursuit of the common Good.

For Aristotle the economy is a communal endeavor and its ultimate purpose should be the common Good of meeting the real needs for community building rather than making money in order to maximize private profit.

5/4/22, 1:20 AM Launchpad: An Introduction to Ethics and its Historical Origins: UCOR 2910 02 22SQ Ethical Reasoning in Business

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The key focus of this week then is to see how ethics arose as a reflection on the common Good as that ultimate purpose of political and economic activity, especially for a fledgling democracy: it was born out of a sense of politics and economics as a moral science if democracy is to survive.