- #1
superwolf
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Ethics are our theories on morals, and morals are what we should do. But why do we need ethics? The human being is a living organism, and we have to choose between life and death. Maintaining life depends on certain actions. It is the existence of life that gives rise to values, because it is only for living entities that things can be good or evil.
Values express our relationship to things that benefit or hurt a living organism. To say that something is of value for an organism, is to say that it maintains the life of an organism. For instance, when we say that water is valuable for a plant, we are saying that water supports the life of the plant, which is an undisputable fact.
Ethics therefore have a fundament in empiri. The sphere of values is therefore not separated logically from the sphere of facts. Normative considerations can therefore be derived from facts. Several specific sciences care about normative considerations. In medicine, for instance, prescribes those actions that should be carried out to maintain health. But for the decisions of the doctor to be vaild, they must be bassed on objective knowledge, facts about human nature though physiology, anatomi, etc. Ethics is therefore a normative science.
A normatiive consideration is to say that we must act in a certain way to obtain a given target. A doctor should do X if he wants to cure his patient. In the same way, ethics are theories about what we should do to obtain Y. We therefore have to find what this target is that we want to obtain. What should we value more than anything? If we don't know this, we get a problemm motivating actions, solving conflicts, something Immanuel Kant knew perfectly well.
Happiness is the ultimate goal. I have therefore proven that those actions that lead to less suffering and more happiness, relative to other choices, are the moral ones. Utilitarianism is true.
It is important to note that this is not only about the consequence of the action for the external environment, but also for the very person that acts. Ethical theories are therefore objective.
Values express our relationship to things that benefit or hurt a living organism. To say that something is of value for an organism, is to say that it maintains the life of an organism. For instance, when we say that water is valuable for a plant, we are saying that water supports the life of the plant, which is an undisputable fact.
Ethics therefore have a fundament in empiri. The sphere of values is therefore not separated logically from the sphere of facts. Normative considerations can therefore be derived from facts. Several specific sciences care about normative considerations. In medicine, for instance, prescribes those actions that should be carried out to maintain health. But for the decisions of the doctor to be vaild, they must be bassed on objective knowledge, facts about human nature though physiology, anatomi, etc. Ethics is therefore a normative science.
A normatiive consideration is to say that we must act in a certain way to obtain a given target. A doctor should do X if he wants to cure his patient. In the same way, ethics are theories about what we should do to obtain Y. We therefore have to find what this target is that we want to obtain. What should we value more than anything? If we don't know this, we get a problemm motivating actions, solving conflicts, something Immanuel Kant knew perfectly well.
Happiness is the ultimate goal. I have therefore proven that those actions that lead to less suffering and more happiness, relative to other choices, are the moral ones. Utilitarianism is true.
It is important to note that this is not only about the consequence of the action for the external environment, but also for the very person that acts. Ethical theories are therefore objective.