Quotes from Scott B. Rae

Ethics are important because they give direction to people and societies who have some sense that they cannot flourish without being moral.

Morality is primarily concerned with questions of right and wrong, the ability to distinguish between the two, and the justification of the distinction.

Most people use the terms morality and ethics interchangeably. Technically, morality refers to the actual content of right and wrong, and ethics refers to the process of determining right and wrong. In other words, morality deals with moral knowledge and ethics with moral reasoning.

descriptive ethics is a sociological discipline that attempts to describe the morals of a particular society, often by studying other cultures.

normative ethics refers to the discipline that produces moral norms or rules as its end product.

metaethics is an area of ethics that investigates the meaning of moral language, or the epistemology of ethics, and also considers the justification of ethical theories and judgments.

aretaic ethics is a category of ethics that focuses on the virtues produced in individuals, not the morality of specific acts.

Fourth, although a bit more difficult to do than the previous three considerations, you should attempt to evaluate the character of the moral actor. Character is the tendency of a person to act in predictable ways over time. Virtue theorists have led the way in insisting that any ethic that does not concern itself with character and virtue is incomplete and reduces ethics to merely a preoccupation with actions, specifically moral dilemmas that people do not often face.

Ethical systems may be classified as either action-oriented systems or virtue-based systems. Under these two major divisions are three subcategories by which ethical systems may be further classified: deontological systems, teleological systems, and relativism.

First, deontological systems are systems that are based on principles in which actions (or character, or even intentions) are inherently right or wrong. There are three primary deontological systems: (1) divine command theory, (2) natural law, and (3) ethical rationalism. The Christian will tend to be more deontologically oriented

teleological systems are systems that are based on the end result produced by an action.

relativism refers to an ethical system in which right and wrong are not absolute and unchanging but relative to one's culture (cultural relativism) or one's own personal preferences (moral subjectivism).

With the current emphasis on multiculturalism and appreciation for the cultural diversity that exists in much of the world, and the importance of a culture's values in its self-definition, it should not surprise us that there is a movement toward accepting all cultures' values as equally valid, which is the definition of cultural relativism.

Ethical egoism is the theory that the morality of an act is determined by one's self-interest.

When deliberating about blowing the whistle, many employees become ethical egoists, using their own self-interest as the determining factor for what they should do in the situation.

Some have even suggested that the Bible is entirely egoistic and simply changes the categories of what constitutes a person's self-interest. However, that is too strong a statement. While the Bible never condemns self-interest, it does require that it be balanced with concern for others (Phil. 2:4). It is one thing to occasionally appeal to rational self-interest as the Bible does, but quite another to claim that egoism is a sufficient ethical system, as do thoroughgoing ethical egoists.

Believers are called to be servants, and that invariably involves periodically putting others' needs ahead of our own and in rare circumstances can involve laying down one's life for another. It does not, however, obligate believers to neglect their legitimate self-interest.

One should remember that at times even Jesus separated from the crowds to seek solitude with his heavenly Father. Hence the Bible seems to suggest that self-interest has a legitimate place, but it needs to be balanced by a compassionate concern for the interests of others.

A final criticism of Kant is that his categorical imperative is only a procedural morality and does not offer any guidance in terms of the content of morality.

The Appeal of Utilitarianism

Although utilitarianism has appeal, especially in a secular society, it also has shortcomings. The most common charge against utilitarianism is that it cannot protect the rights of minorities, and sometimes it can even justify obvious injustices when the greater good is served.

Reducing morality to matters of opinion or feeling is at the heart of Hume's project. The reason his theory is important is that it is widely followed today. Morality is becoming increasingly subjective and is losing its propositional nature as people in our culture insist that judgments of right and wrong are merely individual subjective feelings or opinion.

Emotivism does give us something positive, a reminder that moral language is emotionally charged and can be used improperly to manipulate people under the guise of getting them to do the right thing. Unfortunately, because moral language is so emotionally charged, people often dismiss it today as too divisive or incapable of verification.

Emotivism maintains that the only statements capable of having meaning are those that are empirically verifiable, but this underlying principle is itself not empirically verifiable.