Ethical Theories: A Comprehensive Overview
2) Another important problem is the different types of pleasures. It seems that humans give more value to some pleasures than others, so perhaps it should be necessary to establish a classification of the different types of pleasure according to their quality.
John Stuart Mill tried to solve the problem of the quality of pleasures. His personal contribution to utilitarianism is his argument about the qualitative separation of pleasures. He argues that intellectual and moral pleasures are superior to physical forms of pleasure. He distinguished between “happiness” and “satisfaction” and shows that not all pleasures are desirable, either personally or collectively.
g) Kant’s “ethics of duty”
• Material ethics have a moral content, that is, principles, values, and norms which are external to us and tell us what we should do and what not. These ethical theories assume the existence of a final or “supreme good” (happiness, pleasure, utility…) and, from this purpose, they derive their moral content. So, they will be considered as “good” those actions that lead to the achievement of that end, and as “bad” those actions that separate ourselves from it. Therefore, it is said that material ethics are “heteronomous” because the moral rule or law that guides our behavior is external to the subject.
• Formal ethics lack moral content. These ethical theories defend that our obligations, nothing, and nobody tells us what we must do, but we give us our own rules. Therefore, it is said that formal ethics are “autonomous”. Kant adopts a completely different point of view: formal ethics. Formal ethics does not point or make depend the moral good on any content, or tell us what to do and what not. An action is morally good when the subject’s intention is good. A good will is one that acts from duty in accordance with the universal moral law. This law obliges everyone to treat humanity. Kantian ethics is based on duty, understood as the obligation to carry out an action following the law that the will gives itself autonomously.
h) Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist ethics, representative of existentialism, takes as its center of reflection the concepts of “being” and “existence.” Sartre’s reflection on the distinction between two types of beings. On the one hand, the being-in-itself, its essence precedes its existence. When it begins to exist, being-in-itself already has a fixed, predetermined nature. All things and all living beings (except the human being) are a kind of being-in-itself.
On the other hand, the being-for-itself is that one in which the existence precedes the essence and, therefore, it begins to exist without having a predetermined essence. This is the case of the human being because we begin to exist without knowing what we are. The human being is a “project of being.”
Human existence is pure freedom. For that reason, Sartre argues that the human being is defined by his actions and we are “condemned to be free.” Thus, freedom is not understood as a good, but as something responsible for our actions.
Realizing that we are free and therefore responsible for our actions, we feel anguish, because if we are free, nothing determines us to act, but the decision falls solely upon us.
i) John Rawls’ “theory of justice”, focusing on the concept of “distributive justice.” Rawls tries to show how the alleged conflict between freedom and equality is actually a fictitious conflict. In fact, Rawls’ ultimate intention is to show how both notions can be integrated under a single concept of “Justice as Fairness.” To explain how this is possible, Rawls proposes an experiment, “the Original position.” This is a hypothetical scenario in which a group of people have the task of reaching an agreement about the fundamental principles that will govern the economic and political. Each individual has to deliberate, explain, and defend their ideas from behind what Rawls calls a “veil of ignorance.” This “veil” is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves so they cannot propose principles to their own advantage. According to Rawls, ignorance of these details about oneself will lead to principles that are fair to all.
1) The First Principle of Justice: principle of freedom.
Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.
2) The Second Principle of Justice: principle of social justice.
Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that:
a) They are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society.
b) Offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.