Ethics: A Study of Morality and Right Action
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that encompasses the study of morality, virtue, duty, happiness, and good living.[1]
The word ethics comes from the Latin Ethicus and from the Greek ??????. Etymologically, the words ethics and morality have the same meaning, with moral deriving from the Latin (mos) and ethics from the Greek (ethos). Accordingly, ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy. Today, however, it is said that morality is one of the objects of study of ethics.
Ethics examines what is moral, how to rationally justify a moral system, and how it should be applied to various fields of social life. In everyday life, it is a reflection on morality, the rationale for the use of one moral system or another.
Some have characterized the study of ethics as the art of living well, which does not seem accurate, since if all the rules of good conduct are gathered without accompanying discussion, they form an art, but not a science.[2]
Ethics is one of the main branches of philosophy, as it requires reflection and argumentation. This field is the set of general assessments of human beings living in society.
The study of ethics goes back to the very origins of philosophy in ancient Greece, and its historical development has been wide and varied. An ethical doctrine develops and verifies certain assertions or opinions. An ethical ruling, moral judgment, or policy statement is a statement containing words such as “good,” “bad,” “right,” “false,” “mandatory,” “possible,” etc., referring to an action or decision. When using ethical judgments, moral values are applied to people, situations, things, or actions. Moral judgments are established where, for example, it is said, “that politician is corrupt,” “this man is unpresentable,” “your presence is commendable,” and so on. In these statements, the words “corrupt,” “unpresentable,” and “laudable” involve moral evaluations.
Definition and Purpose
The concept of ethics as a philosophical discipline was introduced by Aristotle. He said that ethics is the scientific study of customs and habits, but Socrates had already moved ethics into the center of philosophy during his time. While the Sophists represented one perspective, Aristotle believed that it was inappropriate for humans, as rational beings, to have their actions monitored solely by conventions and traditions. Aristotle was convinced that human practice is always rational and more solid than theoretical reflection and accessible. Thus, for Aristotle, ethics is a philosophical discipline that has the full range of human activities as its theme, and this theme undergoes a normative evaluation using philosophical methods.
Ethics, in general, is now understood as a philosophical discipline whose task is to establish criteria for good and bad actions and an assessment of their motives and consequences. It is the fundamental discipline of applied ethics, which deals with individual ethics, social ethics, peace, and ethics in fields with regulatory problems specific to their area of life. Ethics as a philosophical discipline is based on the principle of reason. This is different from the very classical theological ethics, which bases moral principles on God’s will, accepts faith in general, and thus presupposes a Divine revelation. Especially in the twentieth century, however, authors like Alfons Auer developed theological ethics as largely autonomous.
The goal of ethics is the development of universal standards and values. It is distinguished from descriptive ethics, which does not make moral judgments but describes the actual moral life of a society using empirical means. Meta-ethics, which developed as a discipline in the early twentieth century, reflects on the general structures of logic, semantics, and pragmatics of moral and ethical discourse and therefore provides the basis for descriptive and normative ethics.
The philosophical discipline of ethics is also called moral philosophy. It seeks answers to the question of how to act in certain situations – that is, “How should I behave in this situation?” The simplest and most classic formulation of this question is from Immanuel Kant: “What should I do?”
Its findings are applicable in ethics (or morality) and rules, including that under certain conditions, certain actions are required, prohibited, or permitted. When simple answers to the question of right action are reached in ethics, the question that arises is the possibility of universal standards of ethics and their justification. This discussion of the basics of ethics, criteria, and methodologies is an important part of this philosophical discipline, also known as meta-ethics.