Ethics is also responsible for determining what can be described as the sense of human existence, the deeper meaning of the ethical and existential life of the individual and the cosmos that includes it. This is also why it is customary to differentiate the terms 'ethics' and 'morality'. Another reason is that, although they are often used interchangeably, it is preferred to use the term 'moral' to indicate the association of values, norms and customs of an individual or a particular group of people. It is preferred to reserve the word 'ethics' to the rational intent (i.e. philosophical) to found the moral as a discipline not subjective.
The question posed by the meta-ethics on the justification of moral principles, is needed to unravel the tangle of motives and principles that are the foundation of the same moral conflict. The meta-ethics therefore wish to make a conceptual clarification in order to resize the claims camped by particular moral perspectives. It defines the scope of ethics with respect to the various expressions of the ethos.
The practical philosophy reacts against the claim of neutrality requested by analytical metaethics. In fact, while giving up its own scientific foundation, it can not, according to the practical philosophy, demand ethics the same rigor and the same accuracy that require mathematics. Demonstrations of mathematics are always valid, ethical ones are mostly. So, ethics is not a science for its own sake, but wants to direct the practice.
As to whether priority is good or just, there are several theories:
• ‘liberalism’ recognizes a certain autonomy of the just in respect to the good, so it is a must that action conforms to a right norm and it is necessary to choose based on the principles of justice. This theory sees its birth in Locke and Kant, and a recovery in the twentieth century, due to many authors, for example: John Rawls, Robert Nozick.
• to communitarianism, justice is not a matter of rules and procedures, but something that concerns people's behavior in relation to their peers; justice is a virtue of the person.
• Philosopher Charles Taylor, however, believes illusory to imagine that the ‘right’ can disregard the reference to the good. He sees, then, a primacy of the ‘good’ on the right, where for good is not intendent: profit, but "anything that stands out over the other things on the basis of a qualitative distinction." Morality is not only concerned with just obligations and public rules, but first with all qualitative distinctions.
• Axiology, or the study of the value or quality. The theory of values is mainly the nature of value and goodness in general.
Utilitarianism holds as the ultimate criterion of the principle of utility, so the moral purpose to be found in all we do is the ‘largest remaining possible of good over evil’. In this case we speak, obviously, of good and evil non-moral. There are three basic types of utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism of act. The basic principle is always that of the remaining balance of good over evil, and it becomes important to stress particularism, namely that the question to ask is what I should do in this particular situation and not what everyone should do in certain kinds of situations. So the remainder that is searched is referred immediately to the single subject and is not a remnant of the general good.
General utilitarianism. This is based on two fundamental characteristics:
• The basic principle of utilitarianism
• the principle of '' 'universalizability'.
Then while acting, each one must ask what would happen if everyone acted in such a cases. The idea behind general utilitarianism is related to the fact that, if it is right that a person in a certain situation makes a certain thing, then it is right that that action is made by any other person in similar situations
Utilitarianism of the rule. It highlights the centrality of rules and says that generally, if not always, we have to determine what to do in particular situations, appealing to the norms. It differs from ‘deontologism’ because it adds to this the fact that we always have to determine our policies wondering which standard will promote the greatest general good for all. So the whole issue, in the utilitarianism of the rule, revolves around the question: which standard is more useful to more people?
At the base of each conception of ethics is the notion of good and evil, of virtue and a certain vision of man and of human relationships. These ideas are often related to a particular religion, or at least to an ideology.
Discussion diverse. Let me choose advanced typical habits of most people. These habits are typical and for me as well. So, we are talking about the majority of people. Exceptions - only prove the rule:
1. Hypocrisy, that is a lot of people try to look in the media, in movies, in society - better and differently than the person really is.
2. Selfishness - modern man suffers from narcissism. Love for others is in the background.
3. Summary of the dominant life - enough to eat, to survive in extreme situations, reproduce themselves (physically or ideologically).
4. The primitive dreams about the future (reflected in paragraph 3 of my answer).
5. Have a positive note in the assessment. Some of the majority of people just do not prevent develop creative individuals, most dominant of which is aimed at improving the modern society. Of course, lack of political figures among these positive people (all political figures in Nos. 1-3).
In many countries today, moral and ethical norms are being reconsidered; national traditions, differences in nation and culture are being erased.
--- Vladimir Putin
after the revolution of pragmatism especially in education (that is also the practical area like ethics) why should we stuck to those three ethical theories that each has an assumption of reality and causes dilemmas any way? what if ethics is beyond reality or has nothing to do with reality so with theory? What promotes life today is a "would be a nightmare" of future or "was a nightmare" of yesterday we should look not to promote our lives but search for how to promote or should we promote?
Dear Gianrocco
Yes alas Utilitarianism has overcome Ethics in our days this is caused by the all-widening gap caused by the disassimilation of the advance of technology with respect to human values(norms)
"Schweitzer regarded as good all what promote life and bad is the opposite."
Not all life is good, not all death is bad, e.g. being kept on futile life support, in distress, when one's situation was terminal at the end of a full and long life. Or strenuous efforts to maintain the biological life of an anencephalic baby.
A more common yardstick therefore would be to promote human flourishing. 99% of the time "life" is a necessary precondition for this, but even then is not enough in itself.
This is of course the starting point of Aristotle and Virtue Theory, hence Virtue Ethics.
Dear David,
your intervention contributed in inspiring what I am going to say and that I believe is somehow related to the spirit of your message.
Man has become short-sighted, sees only what is near because he closes more and more in his own selfishness; he does not know how to look beyond himself, to the invisible and the interiority of things and where is the unifying element of the relations between men.
In the details of this story, having grown accustomed not to talk very often to my colleagues of RG, I started talking to myself not using direct language, but speaking metaphorically, as a man in need of finding more meaning in life. This reminds me of the figure of the 'finder' that Bergson called "a supplement of soul" to whom - in my imagination - I wanted to restore certainty to free him from the spiritual restlessness.
I remember the mysteries that surround the Little Prince by Antoine de Sain-Exupéry that wrap now my soul surrounding it in the secrete care of values. I think I'm at peace with myself because I tried to spend my life in promoting the respect, the affection and loyalty of the men "new" in freedom, that is not anarchist subversion in discipline and sacrifice
Do you remember the words of the fox to the little prince: "If you come, for example, every afternoon at four o'clock, from three o'clock I shall begin to be happy? With the passage of time the memory increases my happiness. When the four o’clock arrives, I will start to get excited: I’ll find out, then, the price of happiness. "So is for me in the afternoon when I devote myself to think, no longer disturbed by the chores of daily life.
Of this figure in the guise of a little prince and his fantastic stories I keep warmth in my soul. I realize, soon, that after all the stories he tells are not adventures of the fantasy that start and end in themselves, but that branch off as many journeys of the soul, perhaps in search of a lost world and to be found, or a world that does not exist yet and I try to build. As for the author of The Little Prince, the thread that ties together the experiences, the trials of life, adventures, ideals, dreams and illusions of life is the passionate research with which the prince seeks himself in a perpetual anxiety to tell the world all that he is discovering in the various stages of his spiritual evolution.
Thank you for listening, Gianrocco
Dear Gianrocco
thanks for a very interesting reflection.
"Man has become short-sighted, sees only what is near because he closes more and more in his own selfishness; he does not know how to look beyond himself, to the invisible and the interiority of things and where is the unifying element of the relations between men..... I started talking to myself not using direct language, but speaking metaphorically..."
this, and your comments about scientific knowing versus other modes of knowing, are incredibly reminiscent of Kierkegaard, e.g. "So, then, subjectivity, inwardness, is truth."[1].
Kierkegaard also comments on the relative importance of objective and subjective truth. He states "In a mathematical proposition, for example, the objectivity is given, but therefore its truth is also an indifferent truth."[2] Kierkegaard is saying that objective truth is valid is a valid category, but does not have any deep significance for me as a self aware human.
Of subjective truth, as exemplified in uncertainty, he says "an objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person."[3]
Much of Kierkegaard's writing can be seen as an attack on Hegel's system and claim to objective (what we would now see as scientific) truth. "What the philosophers say about reality is often as deceptive as when you see a sign in a second-hand store that reads: Pressing Done Here. If you went in with your clothes to have them pressed you would be fooled; the sign is for sale."[4]
Sorry for long quotes, but Kierkegaard has much to commend him for scientists!
best wishes
David
[1] Kierkegaard S. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Trans Hong H & Hong E. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992: p207.
[2] Kierkegaard S. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Trans Hong H & Hong E. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992: p204.
[3] Kierkegaard S. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. Trans Hong H & Hong E. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992: p203.
[4] Either/Or, a fragment of life. Kierkegaard S. Trans Hannay A. London, Penguin, 1992: p50.
The notions of good and right presuppose an option. This option is binary . The action is good or bad, right or wrong . But human life is triadic , while narrative.
Morality has to do with personal biography . Ethics has to do with the history of peoples . In turn, in the narrative triad " beginning, middle , end" the moral is closer to the beginning; and ethics are closer to the ending. To find a correlation between the binary structure and triadic structure , it is a sort of " squaring the circle "
Discussion diverse. Let me choose advanced typical habits of most people. These habits are typical and for me as well. So, we are talking about the majority of people. Exceptions - only prove the rule:
1. Hypocrisy, that is a lot of people try to look in the media, in movies, in society - better and differently than the person really is.
2. Selfishness - modern man suffers from narcissism. Love for others is in the background.
3. Summary of the dominant life - enough to eat, to survive in extreme situations, reproduce themselves (physically or ideologically).
4. The primitive dreams about the future (reflected in paragraph 3 of my answer).
5. Have a positive note in the assessment. Some of the majority of people just do not prevent develop creative individuals, most dominant of which is aimed at improving the modern society. Of course, lack of political figures among these positive people (all political figures in Nos. 1-3).
Normal/normality is used to describe individual behaviour that conforms to the most common behaviour in society (known as conformity).
Normality is the state of being normal. Behaviour can be normal for an individual (intrapersonal normality) when it is consistent with the most common behaviour for that person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normality_%28behavior%29
In order to answer the question - which norm is more useful to the greatest number of people? Not sure it can be answered directly - perhaps we need to perform some surveys or even some qualitative studies based on different moral philosophies in different contexts. Reason being besides utilitarianism as explained by some scholars in this post, different people might subscribe different moral philosophies like Kantianism (duty to the moral law), Natural Rights Theory (life, liberty & property for man's natural rights), Religious Ethics (Christian ethics, Hindu ethics, Islamic ethics etc).
Human is created in order to improve. And, at the same time, people are improving the world around us. In this world there are many people who, unfortunately, there is no possibility to improve. Therefore, it is necessary to create conditions for the improvement of all equally.
Norms as seen to pertain to set rules of behavior within social and economic environments in an evolutionary and utilitarian context
For a scientist, a norm is what usually occurs, what’s normal or typical, not necessarily what should occur. For a philosopher, on the other hand, a norm says what ought to occur, not necessarily what does. Paradigmatically norms in the philosopher’s sense apply to what we say, do and think. Epistemic norms in this sense govern what we ought to say, do orthink from an epistemic point of view, from the point of view of promoting true belief and avoiding error.
Strategies for explaining why people comply with social norms are (1) Rational choice theory uses the model of Homo economicus. It explains behavior in conformity with social norms as the product of the strategic interactions of instrumentally rational, self-interested individuals. (2) Evolutionary theory uses models of biological or cultural evolution. It explains conformity to social norms as the expression of heritable genetic or cultural traits that have differential success in replicating themselves due to some selective process. (3) The third explanatory strategy uses models of Homo sociologicus-what I shall call here “social” or “cultural” rationality. It explains conformity to social norms in terms of the normativity of norms, and grounds that normativity in the ways individuals see norms as meaningfully expressing their social identities, their relationships to other people, or shared intentions and values.
Evolutionary theory takes a point of view external to the agent. A norm could spread because of selective pressures that work independently of whatever their adherents see as binding them to obey it. Social rationality explains social norms from the adherents’ own point of view. On this view, most people have internalized the norm and will obey it because of its normativity, apart from the sanctions attached to it. Rational choice theory represents individuals as taking a more alienated posture toward social norms. Although they may see that general conformity to a norm would be desirable, this does not provide them with a reason to conform, so long as personal conformity is, on net, costly to each agent.
Amartya Sen argues that these three explanatory strategies are complementary, not mutually exclusive. A norm could be followed both because of its perceived intrinsic merits and because of incentives. Its perceived intrinsic merits could include both prudential and impersonal goods. It could even have been established by the forces of both mindless selective pressures and deliberate institution.
The theory of conventions explains the emergence of norms in coordination games. In such games there are at least two rules such that each agent prefers that if all but one person follows a given rule, then the remaining person follow it too. The problem is to fix the rule by which everyone will cooperate.
Dear Constantine,
your contribution gave me the opportunity to expand what I have expressed about norms. Specifically, I’d say that the norm does not derive its validity from being followed or not, but only by having to be expressing intrinsically.
We talk sometimes of transcendence of the norm with reference to situations which it regulates. In this case we want to emphasize the independence of the norm from its effective application. Namely, there are norms that can be considered valid even when they are not respected.
As an example: there are many rules to follow to avoid the waste of energy resources. If we followed all these rules we could obtain concrete results. If nobody were to follow them, they would still be valid.
What rules express, even in their transcendence, is nothing, then, that the most appropriate discipline of certain activities, in view of giving them greater efficiency and accuracy. In this case, the norm may also be seen as a mere procedure that ensures the effective performance of a specific activity.
What is significant to point out is that the norm in the current linguistic usage rules human behavior in the way of prescribing conduct deemed good, right, desirable, as in the sense of education for the achievement of a predetermined regulation. In the first meaning it is characterized as central category of moral and legal experience and, by extension, as a privileged object of study of practical philosophy.
The affirmation of the term is, however, recent. Derived from the Latin rule, it soon became synonymous with the rule in the metaphorical meaning of compliance with a model of human behavior, and, therefore, with regard to the contents of a precept to adapt to the real case, following the Aristotelian image of the ruler that "conforms to the shape of the stone and does not stand firm" (Nicomachean Ethics, 1137 b). In this sense the term is used rarely both in the Corpus Juris Civilis and in the legal literature and ancient and medieval philosophy.
There is an important point that must be considered. "The norm is right because it is established by God, or God establishes the norm because it is right?"
Then, which of the two principles should be followed: that of auctoritas or that of veritas? From a formal point of view, the law can not be based on the authority of God. Plato addresses this problem in the Eutifron arguing that the criterion of justice is not in the good will of God, but in the nature of the thing itself; ultimately, for Plato, the Demiurge being of good nature can only command good things. Rises, however an epistemological question: how do we know that God is good? by convention it is said that a legislator is good when it adopts good laws. We fall back, then, into the distinction between
• ethical voluntarism, that the laws are good because they are emanated by a good legislator
• ethical rationalism, according to which laws are good in themselves; goodness is inherent in the nature of things.
Plato shows the inadequacy of the norm, that is the limit in which it is locked
Just an example: a moral norm, even before a law, says that killing is not good (that is: a moral law prohibits killing, a moral norm made compulsory becomes law prohibiting murder). But if I were to choose between my life and that of another? If it was self-defense?
That question, in modern speculation, moves, therefore, the validity of the provision to its effectiveness. To show the validity of the rule, in this sense, just a good reason, which, moreover, is not enough to make the standard very effective. It follows, then, to know that a moral law (or rule) and observe it, are two different things
Best regards, Gianrocco
Dear Professor Tucci
I would like to add the ontological turn to your seminal contribution of norms as human species are "entangled " to them as also their bearers
Philosophically wise endurant and perdurant Ontologies are distinct, this distinction is introduced in order to discuss whether quality-bearers such as ordinary things, physical material particles, and persons should be regarded as persisting by enduring or by perduring, i.e., whether in their persistence through time they are strictly identical at every moment (endurants), or whether they persist by unfolding in time different parts of themselves (perdurants). Those who are concerned with top-level ontologies cannot rest content with classifying quality-bearers. Qualities and their ways of persisting in time are of equal importance (ethics).
Best regards,
Constantine.
'Love the Creator above everything, and your neighbor the same you love yourself''
The norm you are seeking for, should be one which every or nearly every person in the world could agree with. So we should ask which norm can be agreed and followed by the larger part of the world population. the case here is not the inherent value or validity of the norm itself, but is the validity it has for people.If majority of members of human society validate some kind of norm, then we can hope it will bear peace and happiness for all if pursued globally. this would guide us to try to find the most common ethical values among people of different cultures, colors, religions and languages.
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