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Ethical Traditions and Approaches
See also Power Point presentation on the traditions.
Borrowed and embellished from Human Happiness and Morality: A Brief Introduction to Ethics by Dr. Robert Almeder
KINDS OF THEORIES
I. In ethics, you can hold to, at any one moment of time, one or the other of the following mutual exclusive views:
Consequentialist (teleological) theories
The morality or immorality of an act (and hence the rightness or wrongness of an act) is a function solely of the consequences of the act, and the natural tendency of those consequences to produce one or another of the following: pleasure or pain, or goodness, or happiness, in some degree and in some way.
Deontological theories
The morality or immorality of an act has basically nothing to do with the consequences, but resides within the nature of the act itself.
"Self-Realization" theories
Morality and immorality reside within the "well-developed," "actualized," "self-realized," or fully mature human being.
That is, morality and immorality is determined and resides not in the acts, human behavior, or consequences,
but in the development of the human character and person.
THE TRADITIONS
II. Assuming that some acts are and can be known to be RIGHT or WRONG, how do we determine which are right or wrong? In other words, what is the answer to this question:
"An act is right, if and only if, _______________________ ."
The history of ethics has the following theories or traditions, which can be characterized
in the response to the above question as:
Consequentialist
(a) Ethical Egoism: the act tends, more than any alternative open to the agent at the time, to produce the happiness of the agent. (Ayn Rand, Max Stirner)
(b) Ethical Hedonism: the act tends, more than any alternative open to the agent at the time, to produce the greatest amount of pleasure for the agent. (Epicurus)
(c) Act Utilitarianism: the act tends, more than any alternative open to the agent at the time, to produce the greatest amount of good or pleasure for the greatest number of all those affected by the act. (Jeremy Bentham)
(d) Rule Utilitarianism: the act tends, when adopted as a rule, more than any alternative open to the agent at the time, to produce the greatest good or happiness for the greatest number of all those affected by the act. (John Stuart Mill)
Deontologicalist
(e) Ethical Relativism: the act is generally judged to be right by one's culture or group. (various cultural anthropologists and sociologists)
(f) Kantianism: the agent willing the act could at the same time will that the maxim of the act be universal law. (Immanuel Kant)
(g) Ethical Intuitionism: the agent, in virtue of an innate knowledge or special ability, and in the absence of any known inferential process or discernment of the effects of the act, judges that the act is right in virtue of some nonnatural property or goodness that the act has and which the agent immediately apprehended without reasoning. (Plato, Descartes, W.D. Ross)
(h) Theologism: the act, more than any other alternative open to the agent at the time, is most consistent with what God wills, or commands, either directly or indirectly. (Diverse Religious Traditions)
Self-Realization
(i) Virtue Ethics: nothing is right or wrong, but we should act virtuously. (Aristotle)
(j) Developmental Ethics: Ethics is determined not by the act, but by human development. The will of the fully mature, and therefore more fully ethical, human being becomes increasingly less self centered and more aligned with and motivated by larger and larger concerns.
Based on a variety of developmental theories.
"No" Ethics
In addition, there are other approaches to the above fill in the blank exercise:
(k) Ethical Nihilism: there are no right or wrong acts, only perhaps prudent and imprudent acts. (Nietzsche)
(l) Ethical Skepticism: there may be right or wrong acts, but there is no way to know which are which. (Pyrrho)
(m) Emotivism (Noncognitivism and Logical Positivism): the question is meaningless; it merely expresses one's emotions, or disapproval or approval, but has not substance in reality. (A. J. Ayer & the Vienna Circle)
Other Theories
In addition to the ethical theories above, other philosophers divide ethics in a different, though overlapping, manner. See Alternate Divisions of Ethical Theories and Approaching Ethics. For this class, we will focus on viewing ethics through the ethical paradigms discussed above, but if you go to the preceding link, you will gain an awareness of this slightly different perspective.
More Information on Ethics
See also Links & Resources for websites to more information on ethical theories (in particular) and philosophy (in general).
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