Understanding Core Ethical Theories and Principles
Ethics and Morality: Core Distinctions
Today, morality is often associated with the expression of moral standards (the content of morality), while ethics is considered the philosophical reflection on the criteria of justification for those standards.
Ethics and Law: Defining Boundaries
While ethics is the philosophical reflection on the criteria for justifying various actions, law refers to the established legal framework. It dictates what is permissible or impermissible, regardless of individual ethical considerations.
Material vs. Formal Ethics: Foundational Principles
Material ethics proposes a specific ethical principle, such as happiness, utility, or pleasure, as the basis for moral good. In contrast, formal ethics, rooted in justice, focuses on clarifying the formal conditions and procedures for moral justification, rather than a specific outcome.
Key Differences Between Material and Formal Ethics
- Material Ethics: Focuses on morality from a personal dimension.
- Formal Ethics: Focuses on morality from a social dimension.
- Material Ethics: Establishes criteria to guide and morally justify personal decisions.
- Formal Ethics: Establishes criteria to guide and morally justify rules of coexistence.
- Material Ethics: Often proposes an ideal of human excellence that individuals should strive to achieve.
- Formal Ethics: Often proposes a societal ideal (utopia) that communities should strive to realize.
- Material Ethics: Orders aspects of private life.
- Formal Ethics: Primarily orders public life, with implications for private conduct.
- Material Ethics: Basic concepts include virtues, duties, and values.
- Formal Ethics: Basic concepts include justice, rights, duties, and rules.
Hedonism: The Pursuit of Pleasure
In hedonism, the moral good is defined as pleasure. Therefore, actions that produce pleasure or free us from its opposite, pain, are justified. Hedonists advocate for calculating pleasures and their implications, sometimes choosing a lesser immediate pleasure to prevent greater future pain. It is essential to enjoy delights while maintaining independence from them, avoiding addiction that can deprive one of reason and freedom. Natural and simple pleasures are often preferred over sophisticated or artificial ones. Furthermore, mental pleasures are valued above bodily pleasures, as they are more accessible and durable. Among mental pleasures, none are considered greater than friendship and philosophy.
Eudaimonism: The Path to Happiness
Eudaimonism posits that the ultimate good to which all human beings tend is happiness. Thus, happiness serves as the moral good and the criterion for justifying human behavior: an action is morally good if it brings us closer to happiness, and bad if it leads us away from it.
According to Aristotle, acting properly involves avoiding extremes and cultivating a predisposition to behave in a way governed by the principle of the mean. This means escaping vicious extremes, whether by deficiency or by excess. The only way to acquire virtues, as Aristotle suggests, is through consistent practice and the repetition of virtuous acts.
Utilitarianism vs. Rawls’s Theory of Justice
While utilitarianism advocates for the idea of utility, aiming for the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, even if it means some minority groups do not enjoy the same amount of happiness, John Rawls’s theory of justice proposes the difference principle. This principle asserts that the greatest benefit should be provided for those in the least advantaged social positions, prioritizing fairness and equity over mere aggregate happiness.