ethic is an area of philosophy which seeks to problematize issues related to customs and morals of a society, without resorting to common sense. Ethics tries to establish, in a moderate way and with a questioning view, what the right and wrong and the often fine line between the good and evil. Ethics is closely linked to morals and is an important tool for the good relationship between people and for the proper functioning of relationships and social institutions.
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ethic versus moral
The ancient Greek language had two words of similar spellings and meanings: ethos, which means habit or custom, and ethos, which means character, individual layout and slope. The word mores, of Latin origin, it was just a translation for the words derived from ethos, also meaning habit or custom.
Latin did not differentiate the customs of character in its translation, which caused further confusion: many scholars considered ethics and moral the same thing. However, the
distinction What seems to explain the difference between the terms in the best way is this: moral is habit and custom, while ethics is a philosophy of morals, an attempt to make a moral “science”.
While the moral expresses the habits and customs of a society, a place, a community located in space and time, in addition to designating the individual conduct of people, the ethic it is the one that tries to identify, treat, select and study morals (or the various morals) in an impartial, secular, rational and organized way. It is the role of ethics, therefore, to understand morality and judge it through the scrutiny of reason, establishing whether it is correct or not. To go deeper into this issue, read: Difference between ethics and morals.
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What is ethics for philosophy?
More than a simple corrector of people's attitudes and attitudes, ethics is a ancient knowledge linked to philosophy. When the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates began his philosophical journey, it gave rise to the so-called In the anthropological or Socratic period of Greek philosophy, philosophical attentions left nature and gives cosmology and began to focus on human actions and what results from them. After Socrates, philosophy became interested in themes related to life in society, politics and morals.
With the problematization of people's morals and coexistence, the so-called philosophymoral, which would later become known as ethics. Ethics was first systematized by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who formulated an ethical theory based on a kind of moral guide of actions that always aimed, in the philosopher's view, the reach of happiness.
Hellenistic philosophers, like epicureans,cynicaland stoics, they also presented views of life that can be recognized as ethical models, but they are models of practical ethics, as such theorists overcame the intellectual speculation of philosophy and moved towards a practical view of ethics, focused on everyday actions.
During the scholastic, the question of human action for philosophy should be subordinated to the will of God, and, for a long time, there was no major change in studies on ethics. WasNicholas Machiavelliwho marked the Rebirth in relation to ethics and morals, by proposing a theory of power that, in practice, dissociated ethics from politics.
Studies on ethics only gained new momentum at the end of the Modernity, at the Enlightenment period of Europe, in which political issues returned to the center of the debate and ethics came as a necessity to control people's actions in the midst of so many revolutions in society.
It is during this period that the German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote your book Metaphysical foundation of morals, presenting an ethical theory carefully thought out: a complex system based on duty, since an action is only ethical if it is in accordance with the duty and is committed by the duty.
The Kantian ethical system did not admit any deviation from the norm as a morally valid action, and the guide to finding the morally correct action was what the philosopher called the categorical imperative. For Kant, the human being must do an exercise before acting. This simple exercise consists of to think if that action can be considered good or correct in any situation in which it is engaged. If the answer is yes, then it is a morally right action. If the answer is no, it is a morally reprehensible action.
Other ethical theories emerged in the nineteenth century to explain the issue of morals and ethics, including the utilitarianism, created by English philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham and finalized by English philosopher John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism claims that morality of an action is not in the action itself, but in its purpose. and in her results. In this sense, actions that, in principle, are morally reprehensible, such as lying and theft, can be considered morally acceptable if they are practiced for a greater good.
What is it to be ethical?
Even with the distinction between ethics and morals, being ethical often means acting in accordance with morals. However, morals are not always correct, being ethics the one that can verify the validity of moral actions. People expect ready-made formulas that present in a chewed way what it is to be ethical. However, ethics consists of several elements and several rules that need to be weighed and evaluated for the ethical individual to be recognized.
Being ethical, in the end, is Actgood, seeking to do the right thing, not misrepresenting and not causing harm to others. In order to start thinking about what it means to be ethical, we just need to pay attention to our actions and their impact on the environment. Does my action harm others? Does my action harm the collective to the detriment of my individual and personal side? Is my action correct in relation to local regulations? A person's moral “scale” is his ethical sense, which is able to tell whether his actions are reprehensible or not.
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professional ethics
In this case, as it is a specification of ethics in relation to a section of society, it is easier to define what we are talking about. If ethics is a set of knowledge that seeks to define what is right and wrong based on the analysis of morality, professional ethics is the application of this knowledge in the field of professional activity, that is, those who exercise professions.
In this sense, professional ethics can (and should) be applied, for example, by doctors, teachers, salespeople or any other professionals in the exercise of their duties. Applying ethics, in these cases, means acting with integrity, respecting the laws, the specific codes of the profession, and maintaining an unblemished conduct, not harming others through their professional practice. nor acting solely for self-interest.
Ethics in the history of Philosophy
You ethics studies (as we know it today, that is, a field of philosophical knowledge that studies morality and then determines how society should act) emerged even in classical antiquity, precisely with Aristotle, in your book Ethics to Nicomachus. However, another Greek thinker is considered of extreme historical importance for the emergence of ethics, Socrates, the eternal questioner.
it is known that Socrates he went out on the streets of Athens questioning people about what would be the values of everyday life, and often these questions were related to moral values, such as “good” and “virtue”. His conclusions were always predictable: people didn't know the truth about such values, because they always ended up responding unsatisfactorily and contradicting themselves.
Everything that the Athenian citizens knew came from the socially inherited cultural morality, which characterized a knowledge somewhat dogmatic, unquestioned, prejudiced, and often irrational.
ethics suffered several changes throughout history, which culminated in different perspectives for dealing with morality and also resulted in different ethical currents. Of these, the three fundamental to a high school ethics course are the eudaimonism (or eudaimonia), a deontology it's the utilitarianism, and in this text there is a little about each of these themes.
→ Eudaimonism
In Aristotle, we notice very interesting peculiarities that outline the general outline of his moral philosophy, namely, first of all, introduction of praxis (practice), which differs from previous studies in that it is not linked only to a rational plan, but must resort to human practical action (this is present in ethics and in politics).
Second, because its ethical system is teleological|1|, which opens the door for us to use the notion of eudaimonia to characterize his moral work. Before we scratch our heads and wonder what this is, I'll explain that concept. eudaimonism or eudaimonia is a word of Greek origin formed from the word Daemon (god, or genius, intermediary between men and the superior deities and who should guide the way of men) and concerns a doctrine that preaches happiness as the ultimate end of life human.
According to Aristotle, happiness is a principle and it is with a view to happiness that we act. The search for happiness, however, does not give man full freedom of action, as this must be in accordance with the happiness of others. To be precise, we must understand what the philosopher means by happiness.
Happiness must conform to the good life and this is nothing but the contemplative life, or the philosopher's life. Not only for Aristotle, but for all Greeks, the work was not considered a good thing, therefore, in the Greek social organization, it was reserved for non-citizens (women and slaves) and citizens of lesser importance (artisans).
In this hierarchy, just above those who worked, were the soldiers; then the politicians; and finally, above all, was the philosopher, that he should concentrate all his energy on the activities of contemplation of the intellect, of the human spirit, that is, should focus on knowledge. For this reason, we can call Aristotelian eudaimonism intellectualist, as it placed the search for the contemplation of knowledge as the purpose of human life.
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→ Deontology
At modernity, we have thinkers who followed the teleological basis of Aristotelian thought, but the big news came in the 18th century, with the german philosopher Immanuel Kant and yours ethics of duty, later referred to as deontology|2|.
To start with this author, we have to analyze the title of his main book on the subject: Metaphysical foundation of morals. It is a study of the origin or foundation of something transcendent, which lies outside the physical plane, therefore, on a purely rational level that is independent of the practical situations of everyday human customs morals.
From this analysis, we have already deduced that Kantian ethics does not open a loophole for interpretations of practical moral actions aimed at ends, imposing a system that exists in everyday life, but independent of it, as it is a universal system of duty that is on a purely rational plane is that clearly defines what is right and what is wrong.
Kant named this plan of ethics the practical reason. Here individuals must act out of duty, as duty enables an action to be morally correct. This duty must be allied to freedom, that is, the will, making it clear that every morally correct action must contain a will to practice the duty (the will to do what is right).
This also implies that moral actions must always think of humanity, having as an end a good for humanity, if otherwise (if you use humanity or any human being as a means to another end), the action will not be morally correct. This is called categorical imperative, and all this apparatus offered by Kant determines, for example, that the lie cannot be morally correct in any situation. The Kantian categorical imperative can be formulated as follows: act in such a way that your action becomes universal, that is, it applies to everyone in any situation, without exceptions.
→ Utilitarianism
Always act in order to produce the greatest amount of well-being is the main utilitarian maxim. As an ethical doctrine, the utilitarianism, ethical current created by the English philosopher, jurist and economist Jeremy Bentham and by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, proposes a entirely practical sense for ethics, in the sense that, before acting, the author of a moral action must analyze the situation and develop a kind of utilitarian calculation.
Such calculation aims to provide the agent with an answer to the question: which action will cause the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people and the least harm to the least number of people? The answer to that question should then guide moral action, making utilitarianism a consequentialist ethics, that is, it focuses on the consequences of actions, not the actions themselves. Utilitarianism, as an ethics of consequences, reject the Kantian notion of ethics based on the categorical imperative and aimed only at the end, at the consequence of a moral action.
Grades
|1|Teleological refers to telos, word of Greek origin that means end, purpose. In this case, we can say that Aristotelian ethics proposes practical actions that point to a purpose of moral action.
|2| Deontology, from the Greek deon, duty and logos, rational organization, science.
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor
