In order to evaluate the claim that the possession of knowledge carries ethical responsibility, it is important to understand ethics and knowledge in the general sense To put it simply, ethics is moral philosophy, or rationalization of conduct as either right or wrong. Normative ethics is the study of determining a moral course of action. The two most prominent ethical guidelines are Kantianism and Utilitarianism. Immanuel Kant suggested that ethics revolve around duty, rather than emotions. All actions are related to an underlying principle.
As a further definition, Mackie posits that an objective moral value has the quality of ‘ought-to-be-pursued-ness’, it is something one should or ought do because it contains an inherently normative aspect. If Mackie’s argument is to succeed, it must prove that this supposed normative aspect has no existence within any act in itself, but has its origin in the agent of said act, and as such, all moral claims are false. Mackie’s exposition of moral relativism comes in the form of two main arguments, the first being his ‘argument from relativity’, the second, his ‘argument from queerness’. It is with the argument from relativity that I shall be here concerned. The argument from relativity is based around the purely ‘descriptive’ idea that it is an empirically observable fact that there seems to be
Sinnott defines consequentialism as: Consequentialism, as its name suggests, is the view that normative properties depend only on consequences. This general approach can be applied at different levels to different normative properties of different kinds of things, but the most prominent example is consequentialism about the moral rightness of acts, which holds that whether an act is morally right depends only on the consequences of that act or of something related to that act, such as the motive behind the act or a general rule requiring acts of the same
Duty theory is a moral theory, especially connected with Kant, according to what actions are right or wrong because of their inherent content, and the motive from which they are done. Stealing is wrong principally because we can't make taking property a universal law. In general, philosophers usually call duty-based ethics deontology. It focuses on the act and not its consequence. The morally binding nature of a deontological norm derives from the person’s obligation to perform some act in some specified manner, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes it is not.
I Definition This section will provide definitions of ethical theories, such as Deontology, Egoism, Utilitarianism, and Virtue Theory. Deontology (Kantianism) theory stipulates that people must decide for themselves what is rational. Personal desires outside of one’s principles are thought of as outside forces with the potential to thwart rationality. One who acts as a Kantian must be completely unwavering of these principles. Egoism is the ethical theory that people are largely consumed with their own self-interests, and all acts are pursued primarily out of self-interest and personal desires.
This theory allows an individual to make a decision that may increase suffering, as long as the consequences are justified (Rawls, 1999). It praises the law over personal morals of the individual. On the contrary, deontological ethics has a classification of a person’s devotion to moral duty. According to Rawls (1999), a deontologist does what they say they will do and mean what they
Therefore, deontologists follow the belief that certain actions are inherently good if they follow the stated rules even if the action has bad consequences, it can still be defined as moral. In contrast, teleological ethical systems focus completely on the outcomes and consequences of an act. Teleology is a theory of ethics according to which the rightness of an act is determined by it's end. Also known as consequentialism, actions that result in what can be considered as a good consequence must be good and so the end result will justify the reason that the act was committed in the first place. Both deontological and teleological ethical systems use opposing ethical guides yet they both have the same aim, to help people make moral decisions.
In this lens it is taught to focus on the processes, and the systems needed for an ethical organization. The difference between the first two lens discussed is that the Right and Responsibility Lens, and the Results lens focused on the individual, the Relationship lens focuses on the community. However in the relationship lens it has a few more concerns, such as how to protect the basic liberties of all people. These liberties are broken down into rights such as; The right to notice, The right to voice, not to veto, The right to have contracts honored. The Relationship Lens helped influence my decision by giving us a process by which basic liberties can be protected.
One of the principal aims of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, especially of the Doctrine of Virtue, is to present a taxonomy of our duties as human beings. The basic division of duties is between juridical duties and ethical duties, which determines the division of the Metaphysics of Morals into the Doctrine of Right and the Doctrine of Virtue. Juridical duties are duties that may be coercively enforced from outside the agent, as by the civil or criminal laws, or other social pressures. Ethical duties must not be externally enforced (to do so violates the right of the person coerced). Instead, the subject herself, through her own reason and the feelings and motives arising a priori from her rational capacities -- the feelings of respect, conscience, moral feeling and love of other human beings, must constrain herself to follow them (MS 6:399-404).
There are three major types of theories among ethics, utilitarian, deontological, and virtue ethics. In this paper I will discuss the differences and similarities among these three types of ethical theories. Virtue ethics dates back to Aristotle. Aristotle believed virtue ethics had to do with justice and bravery. Every so often virtue ethics are communicated through ones actions.