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Problems with ethical language
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The Ethical Goodness or Badness about an Action
To make a statement on the ethical goodness or badness about some action can be neither true nor false due to the fact that this statement is merely an opinion of mine and not actually based on facts. This opinion is an extension of my expression that this action performed is wrong. I can express my opinion in many different ways such as body language or speech but none of these will make the opinion I have, or in this case the statement I make, true or false. There are also those statements in which we express our moral standards to others.
A large part of morality involves assessing people's conduct and pronouncing judgments, such as "Ted is a good person," "Bob did the right thing," and "Feed the starving." When we make these assessments, we rely on key terms such as "good," "right," "ought," and "should." Sometimes we use language to describe things, such as "the door is brown." Other times we use language to accomplish something, such as "get away from that hot stove!" This is also the case with moral utterances such as "We should all feed the starving" which attempts to describe the notion of giving, and also attempts to accomplish something, such as to motivate us to feed the starving.
Lets say for example I see a homeless person on the street and the friend I am walking with tosses him a dollar. I turn to my friend and say, " it is right to feed the starving". By making this statement I am implying two things: 1. I am expressing my personal feelings of approval that it is ethically right to feed the starving, 2. That others ought to feed the starving. ," you are describing the starving being fed as a good thing. You might also be describing feeding as the kind of act that makes people happy, or that increases the quality of your life. In either case, though, you are describing feeding by linking it to some quality.
This view is that of a subjectivist. "Subjectivity" is a term used to denote that the truth of some class of statements depends on the mental state or reactions of the person making the statement. In this case my opinion on the starving. When applied to ethics, subjectivism is the view that statements about a person's character or their actions are not reports of objective qualities inherent in those things.
The question of what constitutes morality is often asked by philosophers. One might wonder why morality is so important, or why many of us trouble ourselves over determining which actions are moral actions. Mill has given an account of the driving force behind our questionings of morality. He calls this driving force “Conscience,” and from this “mass of feeling which must be broken through in order to do what violates our standard of right,” we have derived our concept of morality (Mill 496). Some people may practice moral thought more often than others, and some people may give no thought to morality at all. However, morality is nevertheless a possibility of human nature, and a very important one. We each have our standards of right and wrong, and through the reasoning of individuals, these standards have helped to govern and shape human interactions to what it is today. No other beings except “rational beings,” as Kant calls us, are able to support this higher capability of reason; therefore, it is important for us to consider cases in which this capability is threatened. Such a case is lying. At first, it seems that lying should not be morally permissible, but the moral theories of Kant and Mill have answered both yes and no on this issue. Furthermore, it is difficult to decide which moral theory provides a better approach to this issue. In this paper, we will first walk through the principles of each moral theory, and then we will consider an example that will explore the strengths and weaknesses of each theory.
An action is morally good if and only if it promotes my personal happiness and it is morally wrong if and only if that action hinders my personal happiness.
Ethical judgements limit the methods available in the production of knowledge in both the arts and the natural sciences. Discuss.
What makes actions right? For some philosophers it is their consequences, like the pleasure or happiness that they produce. However for a deontologist like Immanuel Kant, rightness is the action itself and the obligation to perform it. His ethics is a theory of how a person should act, the actual action and morality of the action. It entails that as long as a person acts in a moral way then the consequences of the actions do not matter. “For Kant, doing the right thing is not a matter of one’s character or disposition or circumstance – all of which are or might be beyond one’s control. Instead, it is the matter of duty, acting out of respect for the moral law.” (Stangroom, J. & Garvey, J. 2005, p.79) Moral Laws are a system of guidelines for controlling human behaviour; like society laws. The Ten Commandments set by Moses are moral laws with the commands of a divine being, moral laws can be a set of universal rules that everyone should abide by. Kant argues that: “The moral law cannot be hypothetical in nature, cannot be of the form, ‘if you want such and such, do so...
Ethics is defined as values relating to human conduct with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. It represents the core value system and the moral precepts held, or rules of conduct followed by individuals, institutions, or societies while making choices in the course of everyday problem solving. They create a framework for determining “right” versus “wrong”. (Journal, n.d.)
Ethics is a topic that can be confusing. It covers the concepts of good and bad. While people aim to be “good” a majority of the time it is still an area that needs to be studied. Ironically, while moral correctness is something society tries to strive for, it is still unclear what is morally correct or where it came from. An ethical theory attempts to define those rules in a subject that is highly difficult to pin down and definitively answer what moral correctness entails.
Many people may think that a being a paralegal is just like being a lawyer, but that is not the case. In fact, there are different types of paralegals just like there are different types of lawyers. These are some of the different types of paralegals that are out there: intellectual property (“IP”) paralegals, family law paralegals, and bankruptcy paralegals (“What Are The Different Types Of Paralegals?” n.d.). According to, “What Do Paralegals Do? (n.d.),” the duties of a paralegal are, “Conduct client interviews and maintain general contact with the client, locate and interview witnesses, conduct investigations, statistical and documentary research, conduct legal research, draft legal documents, correspondence and pleadings, summarize depositions, interrogatories and testimony, attend executions of wills, real
It is hard to pinpoint the true definition of ethics. Although it could be defined, in simple terms, as what the society approves of right and wrong, defining ethics as simple as that is “unethical”. In fact, since centuries, several philosophers have disputed with the definition of ethics and several have come up with their own philosophical ideas of ethics. But, for the time-being, the definition of ethics can be expanded to “well-founded standards of right or wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues” (Velasquez et. al). Because the definition of ethics is so confusing and conflicting, at times, it arose to a branch of ethics that investigates
Actions are either classified as right or wrong with no allowance for a gray area. Furthermore, the strict guidelines tend to conflict with commonly accepted actions. For example, lying is always considered morally wrong--even a “white lie.” Therefore, one must not lie even if it does more good. In our society although individuals accept lying as being morally wrong, “white lies” have become an exception.
Each individual’s ethics and beliefs are founded on their personal lifestyle and opinions. However, opinions are not always correct and acute scrutiny of such serves to classify opinions as unreliable or viable. Ruggiero once again explains how opinions in moral debates are often far more intricate than they seem: “Questions of right and wrong are presumed to be completely subjective and personal. According to this notion, if you believe a particular behavior is immoral and I believe it is moral, even noble, we are both right. Your view is “right for you” and mine is “right for me.” This popular perspective may seem eminently sensible and broadminded, but it is utterly shallow. Almost every day, situations arise that require reasonable people to violate it. (61-62)”. Following this statement, numerous examples of scenarios are given, such as how pedophilia is against the law, yet the accused may believe that their acts are moral in their own standards. Morality and ethics are a gray area in which standards vary for each individual. Some are more problematic than others, but in a class where ideas among peers are shared and discussed, students will able to make sound judgement and draw their own conclusions in what most believe to be the correct ethical
Some of the deficiencies in the way cultural relativism addresses moral problems, according to Holmes; are that they remain impractical, they are subject to change depending on where you live, and that people tolerate the different cultures. As a professional business person, I agree with Holmes analysis. Allowing others perceptions or beliefs to get away with our own personal beliefs would be contradicting ourselves. It is important to stand up for our beliefs, and help educate others on ethical issues. Over time we can make a difference in the world by modeling moral beliefs and ethics.
All human societies and communities have basic ethical principles that constitute certain moral codes. People formulated these principles and rules many centuries ago; they are fundamentals that structure human behavior and as such are included in all major religious and ethical systems. One of these basic rules is “do not steal”, something children are taught from their very early age. In our rapidly developing and dramatically changing contemporary world, ethical issues and problems are becoming ever more important and urgent. Maintaining basic ethical principles in a variety of settings and conditions requires more than accepting major moral values; it calls for courage, commitment, character, and strong and flexible reasoning and judgment. Ethical principles have been developed by different philosophical teachings and theories that analyze and structure worldview principles including, as one of their basic parts, ethical issues. In their everyday life, people often use words “good” or “bad” defining by them what they understand as ethical, or moral behavior or that which is immoral or unethical. They normally make no discrimination between ethics and morality, although the former “seems to pertain to the individual character of a person or persons, whereas morality seems to point to the relationships between human beings” (Thiroux Jacques P.20). The simple definitions of “good” and “bad”, however, turn out to be complicated and even controversial when we try to formulate consistently the principles that underpin them or define standards for judging and evaluating these norms.
The Problems with the Meaning of Ethical Language Ethical language uses words, terms and phrases from normal language, but they normally do not have the same meaning. Words such as; ‘good’ have a variety of meanings in the normal everyday use, but also have several different meanings when used in moral philosophy. For example, the dictionary gives the following definitions of the word good; ‘having the right or desired qualities, satisfactory, adequate, efficient, competent, reliable, strong, kind, benevolent, morally excellent, virtuous, charitable, well-behaved, enjoyable, agreeable, thorough, considerable.’ Then ‘good’ can be used to mean the following in moral philosophy; an inherent quality which is widely beneficial, the opposite of bad or evil, something one or more persons approves of, useful in that the good action/concept/attitude enriches human life, or
Every day we are confronted with questions of right and wrong. These questions can appear to be very simple (Is it always wrong to lie?), as well as very complicated (Is it ever right to go to war?). Ethics is the study of those questions and suggests various ways we might solve them. Here we will look at three traditional theories that have a long history and that provide a great deal of guidance in struggling with moral problems; we will also see that each theory has its own difficulties. Ethics can offer a great deal of insight into the issues of right and wrong; however, we will also discover that ethics generally won’t provide a simple solution on which everyone can agree (Mosser, 2013).
Nearly all of mankind, at one point or another, spends a lot of time focusing on the question of how one can live a good human life. This question is approached in various ways and a variety of perspectives rise as a result. There are various ways to actually seek the necessary elements of a good human life. Some seek it through the reading of classic, contemporary, theological and philosophical texts while others seek it through experiences and lessons passed down from generations. As a result of this, beliefs on what is morally right and wrong, and if they have some impact on human flourishing, are quite debatable and subjective to ones own perspective. This makes determining morally significant practices or activities actually very difficult.