Understanding Ethics: Nature, Problems, and History
The Philosophical Nature of Ethics
The general view of ethics is that it is a philosophical discipline. Several thinkers have weighed in:
- Aristotle: Ethics is the science of ultimate causes.
- Karl Marx: Ethics is the spiritual quintessence of its time, and its function is to criticize forms of human alienation.
- Scheler: Philosophical knowledge is of the essence in order to gain access.
- Existentialism: Philosophy is the theory of existence.
These definitions aim to understand philosophy as a way to investigate fundamental issues in any field.
Philosophy: A set of theories and systematic studies of the fundamental problems of a field.
Morality: A set of rules and conduct for conscious and free acts.
Ethical Problems: These are vital in morality and universal within it.
Ethics: Comes from the Greek word ethos. Ultimate designations: “way of being an individual” and “customary and obligatory.” It is the science of the mode of being of humans.
The Nature of Ethics
Ethics is a philosophical discipline (object of study: fundamental problems of morality) and is axiological (all addressing of problems revolves around moral goodness). It has two aspects:
- Utens: Formulation of moral judgments and decisions.
- Docens: Reflective or studied ethics.
Socrates and the Core Problems of Ethics
Socrates is considered the founder (father) of ethics. Platonic Dialogues, a work written about Socrates, proposes and discusses key issues on moral grounds. The four problems highlighted in Socrates’ text are:
- What is justice?
- What is duty?
- What is virtue?
- Why are laws enforced?
The Subject of Morality: Man
Man is the subject of morality. Different perspectives include:
- Religious Views: Understands man in close relationship with a supreme center of every religion.
- Naturalist Conception: Explains man according to natural forces.
- Immanentist Conception: Based on something that man carries within himself.
- Transcendental Conception: Coincides with religious elements, taking into account something outside the human being.
Historical Conceptions of Man
- Classical Philosophy: Greek ideas are preserved; the human body and soul are perfected if state laws and the church are obeyed.
- Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things; things are for you as you look like they are and for me as I seem.”
- Socrates: The essence of man is his soul, understood as reason.
- Plato: Man consists of soul and body, where the body is the prison and tomb of the soul, and the soul belongs to the world of ideas.
- Aristotle: The soul and body are not separate but united (hylomorphic theory).
- Christianity: Retains the classic concept.
- St. Augustine: Defines man as being for love.
- Scholasticism: Old mainstream media (represented by Thomas Aquinas).
- Renaissance: Man is a natural being within the forces of nature and against nature’s forces in general.
- Karl Marx: Man is a natural being alienated from his own power.
- Ernst Cassirer (Kantianism): Man is a symbolic animal.
- Herbert Marcuse (in his book “One-Dimensional Man”): Man, in the technological world, lives in a society structured with a single dimension: technological progress.
- Structuralism: The structure is a set of laws that define a field of objects by establishing relationships between them and specifying their behavior (represented by Lévi-Strauss).
- Existentialism: Man is an individual being who bears a problem.
- Patristics: Qualified individuals with intellectual excellence and integrity, who promoted and preserved the faith of Christians.
Life, World, and Related Concepts
- Life: Immanent movement.
- Biological Aspect: Comprises the operations that the living can execute by their very nature as living beings.
- Psychological Aspect: Comprises the phenomena related to consciousness.
- Socio-cultural Aspect: People with power and capability will to surpass themselves.
- World: Entity or group of entities studied by science as a set of directions and relationships centered on the individual.
- Circumstance: Limited set of possibilities among which the individual has to decide.
- Situation: Role each individual plays in a given circumstance.
- Sanction: Promise of reward or threat of punishment for those who observe or infringe the law.
- Legal Rules: Rules designed to protect justice.