Lecture
Ethics – is an area of philosophical knowledge. Its content is determined by the very subject of study and includes two main components. One of them is connected with the study and theoretical substantiation of the origin and historical development of morality, with the understanding of various forms and trends of ethical teachings. The other covers the whole range of problems that make up the content of ethics, or the general theory of morality. This is a systematized philosophical understanding of the essence of morality, the laws of its functioning and development, and its role in the life of the individual and society. Despite the qualitative distinctiveness of its historical types and the multiplicity of ethical teachings, the development of morality is integral and continuous within a single historical process.
Depending on adherence to one or another ethical school, and on the tasks facing ethics as a science and an academic discipline, ethics is structured in different ways. A number of blocks are distinguished: the history of ethics and morality, describing the process of development of ethical teachings, as well as the genesis and evolution of morality from deep antiquity to the present day; here one can also distinguish descriptive ethics, which identifies the socio-historical types of morality (chivalric morality, bourgeois morality, and others);
+The structure of ethical knowledge is determined by the set of basic theoretical concepts that ethics operates with. These maximally general concepts are called, in ethics as in any science, categories. The system-forming element, its movement within the various systems of ethics –– wisdom –– on which ethics is based, is historical in character. This makes ethical knowledge specific. Correlated with the free creative activity of the individual, they manifest themselves differently at different historical times. This inner contradiction of ethics people have tried and continue to try to overcome. The good is only called the same thing in name, but means different things.
The following blocks are distinguished within the structure of ethics:
The history of morals and ethical teachings describes:
Moral theory
Normative ethics provides the substantiation of moral principles and norms, and helps a person work out a strategy and tactics for a virtuous life.
Applied ethics, based on normative ethics, performs the practical function of teaching people correct behavior in specific situations and in particular areas of their activity. Applied ethics includes:
The connection of ethics with other sciences. Ethics was formed within the bosom of philosophy, and therefore it is connected with all its main branches - ontology (the study of being), epistemology (the theory of knowledge), axiology (the study of values), and praxiology (the study of the existential, practical being of man). In clarifying the meaning of life, ethics is compelled to arrive at fundamental ontological problems, in particular the being of man as a person. As a normative science determining the behavior of the individual in specific cases, ethics is primarily interested in potential being, the world of the ought-to-be. However, it also pays attention to the actual moral relations of people, that is, to morality. The affinity of ethics with epistemology is due to the need to comprehend the nature, essence, structure and functions of morality, raising moral conceptions that usually belong to everyday consciousness to the level of scientific concepts. Ethics is connected with axiology through the analysis of the nature and essence of absolute, unconditional values, foremost among which is the good. It also addresses ethical and praxiological problems, in particular, creating exemplary and practical models of human relations and ways of implementing them, offering concrete recommendations. It is therefore a practical philosophy, organically connected with praxiology, which investigates the active, effective, practical relation of man to the world, the possibilities, methods and limits of his activity, in particular the problem of freedom and necessity and the various ways of resolving it - fatalism (the domination of man by inescapable forces); voluntarism (the proclamation of freedom as the fundamental principle and creator of reality); and conceptions in which the extremes of fatalism and voluntarism are overcome. As a science of the ought-to-be, ethics is interrelated with futurology (from the Latin futurum, "the future," and the Greek logos, "word, teaching") - the science of the future of humanity. In addition, it interacts with aesthetics, psychology, pedagogy, history, ethnography, cultural studies, art criticism and other sciences that study man. However, only ethics can coordinate moral research.
The educational, didactic, moralizing function of ethics. «Love for one's neighbor».
The function of normalizing morality and behavior in society.
The function of categorically prohibiting moral and physical violence against the individual and society.
The function of positive, mutually beneficial communications.
The function of extreme tolerance toward others' merits and shortcomings (tastes, ideals, etc.)
The function of the unity of morality and the diversity of mores.
The function of reasonable tolerance toward others' religions, rites, customs, mores.
The function of ethical evaluation. The paradox of moral evaluation depending on different levels of education, upbringing, culture, sympathies, antipathies, etc.
The paradox of moral behavior. Even people commonly regarded as notorious villains strive to pass off the evil they commit as good, and their crimes as just deeds.
Attention. Obedience. The cognition of unhurried wisdom.
Being a practical, moral philosophy describing correct and worthy behavior, ethics is at the same time a system of knowledge about the nature and origin of morality. This determines the existence of its two main functions — the moral-educational and the cognitive-enlightening one, and therefore within ethics two areas can be distinguished — normative ethics, oriented toward the art of living, and theoretical ethics, which cognizes morality. This division into distinct, though interconnected, disciplines took shape in the second half of the 20th century .
Theoretical ethics is a scientific discipline that regards morality as a special social phenomenon, and clarifies what it is and how morality differs from other social phenomena. Theoretical ethics studies the origin, historical development, laws of functioning, social role and other aspects of morality and morals. Its methodological basis consists of the knowledge, concepts and ideas pertaining to the scientific cognition of morality.
There exist scientific disciplines besides ethics that study morality as part of their subject matter:
The results of research obtained by these sciences, insofar as they relate to the essence, origin and functioning of morality and morals, are used and generalized by theoretical ethics .
Metaethics
A trend in analytical ethics that analyzes ethics itself as a scientific discipline, as well as the origin and meaning of ethical categories and concepts by the methods of logico-linguistic analysis[10]. The ethical research of the early and middle 20th century is associated with metaethics. The first study in the field of metaethics is considered to be the work of George E. Moore, «Principles of Ethics». Questions about the subject, structure and purpose of ethics in dictionaries, reference works and textbooks are in fact dealt with by metaethics[11].
Non-cognitivism, as a trend within metaethics, calls into question the cognitive status of ethics, that is, the knowability of ethical concepts in view of their indeterminacy, and, accordingly, the very fact of the admissibility of ethics existing as a science. Striving to adequately investigate diverse ethical conceptions and to sort out the arguments of cognitivism and non-cognitivism, metaethics made use of the concepts and ideas of general philosophy and axiology, general and social psychology, sociology, biology, and so on. The cognitivist approach is not confined to the field of ethics alone; it is one of the most important methodological principles of the philosophy of mind as a whole. Thus knowledge is understood not in the narrow sense of the word (as a reflection of reality), but also includes human values, goals, norms, preferences, interests, will, affects, and so on. In actual fact, cognitivism has historically dominated the history of philosophy; it appeared self-evident and immediate, not requiring justification or formulation[11].
Normative ethics carries out the search for a principle (or principles) regulating human behavior, guiding people's actions, establishing criteria for evaluating moral good, as well as a rule that could serve as a general principle for all cases[11].
Normative ethics sets itself the goal of maintaining fundamental moral values in society, and sets norms of behavior for everyday life situations. Appealing to reason, normative ethics makes use of proof, argument, and reasoning; in this, unlike moralizing, it is attractive to the critically thinking individual and forms moral convictions. Reasoning that meaningfully substantiates the tenets of morality transforms moral norms, which are external to the individual, into internal feelings that motivate behavior .
The indisputability of the status of moral concepts and evaluations is achieved in two main ways — by imparting to them either a supernatural, mystical, divine meaning, or a naturally objective meaning .
Normative ethics can be considered from two positions: the cognitivist and the non-cognitivist. From the non-cognitivist standpoint, normative ethics is regarded as an element of moral consciousness, and descriptive ethics, as knowledge about morality, is contrasted with it. From the cognitivist standpoint, normative ethics is not distinguished from morality and, thus, is itself the object of study, so that the concepts of morality and of knowledge about morality become intermingled[11].
The historical trends of normative ethics — Stoicism, hedonism, Epicureanism; the contemporary ones — consequentialism, utilitarianism, deontology.
Applied (practical) ethics studies particular problems and the application of moral ideas and principles formulated in normative ethics to specific situations of moral choice. Applied ethics interacts closely with the socio-political sciences.
There exists a large number of diverse ethical systems, differing in their content and justification. Conceptions of heteronomous ethics hold that morality has a law external to the human being, given from without, for example by God. Religious ethics, including Christian ethics, substantiates morality authoritatively, whereby God personifies the Good, and the norms of morality act as divine commandments and are therefore unconditionally binding. Since God often controls the observance of his laws, rendering to each according to his deserts, the intrinsic value of the Good and of other moral values is lost, and is replaced by the threat of punishment or the promise of reward . Autonomous ethics assumes that the human being creates his own morality, either as formal ethics or as material ethics of values. Absolute ethics (moral absolutism) holds that moral values exist independently of their recognition, while relative ethics (moral relativism) regards moral values as dependent on human activity. Depending on the subject's aims, ethics is eudaemonistic, hedonistic, utilitarian, perfectionist[12]. Social ethics — the study of moral relations and obligations connected with life in society[13]. Contextual ethics holds that the making of a moral decision in a given specific situation depends not on general principles and norms of morality but on the conditions of that situation, that is, on the context.
Comments