Ethical Debate

[Prospero]

Okay, so I'm curious about everyone's general ethical theory. I have descriptions of the major schools of thought below to assist you in determining which more accurately describes your views.

Utilitarian ethics was formulated first by Jeremy Bentham in 1781, and later championed and elaborated by the philosopher John Stuart Mill. This ethic states that the rightness of an action entirely depends on the value of its consequences, and that the usefulness can be rationally estimated. (As opposed to, say, the intentions behind it, the social acceptability, or the historical/religious principles of ethics that might disagree.) The value of said consequences are measured by the Greatest Happiness Principle, which states that each person's happiness counts for exactly the same as every other's, and that value of an action is positive if and only if that action increases the total happiness in the world.

Meta-ethics seeks to understand the nature of ethical evaluations. Thus, examples of meta-ethical questions include:
What does it mean to say something is "good"?
How, if at all, do we know what is right and wrong?
How do moral attitudes motivate action?
Are there objective values?
A meta-ethical theory, unlike a normative ethical theory, does not contain any ethical evaluations (notice that an answer to any of the above four questions would not itself be an ethical statement).

Normative ethics is the branch of the philosophical study of ethics concerned with classifying actions as right and wrong without bias, as opposed to descriptive ethics.

Descriptive ethics deal with what the population actually believes to be right and wrong, and holds up as ideals or condemns or punishes in law or politics, as contrasted to normative ethics which deals with what the population should believe to be right and wrong, and such concepts as sin and evil. Society is usually balancing the two in some way, and sociology and social psychology are often concerned with the balance, and more clinical assessments and instruments to determine ethical attitudes.

I think those are the predominant schools of ethical thought, though I haven't really encountered anyone that really spent serious effort on meta-ethics, which I find to be a great topic of conversation. Regardless, which appeals the most to everyone's sense of reason and, to make things interesting, what's wrong with others' ethical systems?

 

[Hal 2001]

I am pretty much a modern utilitarian. As I seek to maximize the overall amount of utility in society.

I often use it in my field of study, that is Law and Economics, when I make economical studies of the consequences of different forms of legal regulation.

Mss Hal

 

[ceo_esq]

What about virtue ethics? Many people would distinguish it from rule-based normative ethics.

 

[Dancing David]

Other_ ethics are based on not abusing power and knowledge, not sure how to vote.

 

[Prospero]

There are obviously more than the 4 schools of thought I listed above. I meant those to be starters for people that might not be familiar with the idea that there are subsects of ethics. Those that have a different set than those I listed, please feel free to mention them and maybe give a brief explanation.

 

[Yahweh]

I couldnt bring myself to be concede to just one word to describe my idea of Ethics:

A very brief description my sound like "While I'm very much interesting in the consequences of an action, I think they should be properly balanced by the intention and the means to achieve them". I havent found a word yet to describe it, I'll make up my own word: Mywayism Ethics.

 

[Duncan]

Mostly utilitarian. I base my ethics on what is going to make me happy, however, the whole "only if that action increases the total happiness in the world" thing is a crock of poo to me. In fact, there are times when I am happy solely because somebody else who I detest is miserable. Perhaps I am selfish. So be it. Nonetheless, I conduct myself based on this Greatest Happiness principle and what consequences await me. I just don't care if the rest of the world is happy with me.

 

[roger]

What does "classifying actions as right and wrong without bias" mean? I.e. what are the criteria for choosing right and wrong? Utilitarian defines a method for choosing right and wrong, for example.

I don't see how these are different categories of ethics. The sentence "I am a Utilitarian" makes sense, but the sentence "I am a "meta-ethicist" doesn't, does it?

 

[roger]

Now, to answer the question, limited by my understanding of it (documented in the post above), I assume I am a kind of Utilitarian, but not in the way it is described. I don't accept the Greatest Happiness Principle.

For example: 5 patients are in the emergeny room, each dying. One needs a new heart, another a liver, another kidneys, etc. Killing me and harvesting the organs could arguably increase the happiness level in the world. Nonetheless, I am opposed to the action

Factors such as individual rights are more important than world happiness, in my view.