Ethics and Morality

All of us sometimes think about what we should do. Should we try to make more money, to develop better friendships, to acquire more material wealth, to be more charitable, or to promote justice?

By Prof. L. C Asiegbu

Parents, friends and religious leaders may tell us very different things. One friend may tell us that it's most important to get ahead at any cost, while another may tell us that it's our moral obligation to promote well-being of all people. How do we figure out what we should do? Ethics and Moral philosophy are the branches of philosophy that rationally investigate questions about the best way to live.

Ethics and Moral philosophy are about the best way to live. They are concerned with the sort of goals a person should have and with how we should treat other people. Every society has its customs and normal ways of life. The society teaches its children to act according to its customs, and people in the society expect and require that other people behave according to those customs and standards. These customs can be considered to tell people how to live, what to do, what sort of person to be, and how to evaluate other people. Acting and living in these ways is considered within the society to be the best way of life.

If person learns how to live and what to do from his society, (i) what do ethical and moral issues arise? (ii) why does anyone ever think about questions of ethics?

There are many factors that lead people to think about the best way to live. Here are some of them:

Individual Resistance: There are times when individuals do not want to adopt some of the customs of their society. For instance, children may not want to eat only what they are supposed to eat, or teenagers may want to engage in sexual activities that are forbidden, or adults may not want to obey the authorities in the society. Customs and morals always place restrictions on satisfying desires. For that reason, it is inevitable that people ask why they should follow the societal customs and standards rather than do something else.

Conflict and Resolution: People may have different social roles in any society. The requirements of one social role may conflict with those of another. What a man should do as a father of his children may conflict with what he should do as a statesman. Even when a direct conflict has not occurred, people have to think about balancing their roles. A person has to determine which goals and requirements should take precedence over other goals and requirements, and in which circumstances. For example, a person will have to decide how much time and energy to devote to his studies, and how much time and energy to devote to personal relationships. To combine and balance customs and to resolve conflicts, people have to think about which combinations and alternatives would be best.

Choice among societal ways of life: In some traditional society, a person has no choice about his occupation or way of life. Authorities or his circumstances decide these issues for him. But it is necessary that people should decide for themselves what to do with their lives. People must also decide whether to get married, be involved in a religious group, and perform community service. To make these decisions, people have to think about the best way of life.

Social change: The customs and values of any society may change over time. There have been many changes in the last fifty years like woman's work outside the home. Many factors contribute to societal change, but ultimately people in the society must accept and live by the new standards if any change is to occur. To decide whether to continue the traditional ways of life or to adopt changes, people have to think about the best way to live.

Societal pluralism: Our current society does not have one uniform set of customs and values. There are many different standards, and some of these standards contradict others. For example, some people emphasize individual success even if it requires abandoning one's background to move ahead. Others insist on the importance of family or group identity and on conserving a traditional culture. Individuals have to think about ethical issues in deciding which customs and standards to follow and how to evaluate people who follow other standards.

Being responsible for standards: Some people want to be responsible for themselves. Just to absorb standards and ways of life passively from one's society is not enough. They feel that the customs and values that an individual receives from society are not really their own until they have explicitly chosen them. To make standards their own in the fullest requires that they think about them and have reasons for living by one set of standards rather than another. This is what Socrates meant when he taught that "the unexamined life is not worth living"

Having true standards: Most people think that there is an objective good. They think that some goals and some ways of treating other people are objectively good and others are objectively bad. Morality is not a matter of personal opinion or societal tradition. Personal and societal views can be true or false. If one believes in objective goodness, he has reason to want to be sure that the standards by which he lives are the true ones. He should be ready to revise his standards and moral positions to make them agree with what is objectively good, if that is necessary. In order to determine that their standards are true, people have to think about ethical questions.

Any question about what to do is ethical question in most general sense. However, many everyday decisions are not very important. Studies in ethics cannot consider everything that we do. Studies in ethics focus rather on major issues about goals to pursue and how to treat other people. They focus on general standards that apply to many people and to large parts of their lives. Differences, between types of people, such as between men and women and between more capable and less capable people, are included in some theories about the good life and the right way to treat people, but many ethical positions say little about differences between individual people. They do not deny that there are many individual differences, but they think that differences do not affect general ethical claims. Differences make a difference only in the application of more general ethical positions to individual cases.