Ethics

I

Introduction

Ethics (Greek ethika, from ethos, “character,” “custom”), principles or standards of human conduct, sometimes called morals (Latin mores, “customs”), and, by extension, the study of such principles, sometimes called moral philosophy. This article is concerned with ethics chiefly in the latter sense and is confined to that of Western civilization, although every culture has developed an ethic of its own.

Ethics, as a branch of philosophy, is considered a normative science, because it is concerned with norms of human conduct, as distinguished from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, and the empirical sciences, such as chemistry and physics. The empirical social sciences, however, including psychology, impinge to some extent on the concerns of ethics in that they study social behavior. For example, the social sciences frequently attempt to determine the relation of particular ethical principles to social behavior and to investigate the cultural conditions that contribute to the formation of such principles.

II

Ethical Principles

Philosophers have attempted to determine goodness in conduct according to two chief principles, and have considered certain types of conduct either good in themselves or good because they conform to a particular moral standard. The former implies a final value, or summum bonum, which is desirable in itself and not merely as a means to an end. In the history of ethics there are three principal standards of conduct, each of which has been proposed as the highest good: happiness or pleasure; duty, virtue, or obligation; and perfection, the fullest harmonious development of human potential.

Depending on the social setting, the authority invoked for good conduct is the will of a deity, the pattern of nature, or the rule of reason. When the will of a deity is the authority, obedience to the divine commandments in scriptural texts is the accepted standard of conduct. If the pattern of nature is the authority, conformity to the qualities attributed to human nature is the standard. When reason rules, behavior is expected to result from rational thought.

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III

Prudence, Pleasure, or Power

Sometimes principles are chosen whose ultimate value is not determined, in the belief that such a determination is impossible. Such ethical philosophy usually equates satisfaction in life with prudence, pleasure, or power, but it is basically derived from belief in the ethical doctrine of natural human fulfillment as the ultimate good.

A person lacking motivation to exercise preference may be resigned to accepting all customs and therefore may develop a philosophy of prudence. He or she then lives in conformity with the moral conduct of the period and society.

Hedonism is that philosophy in which the highest good is pleasure. The hedonist decides between the most enduring pleasures or the most intense pleasures, whether present pleasures should be denied for the sake of overall comfort, and whether mental pleasures are preferable to physical pleasures.

A philosophy in which the highest attainment is power may result from competition. Because each victory tends to raise the level of the competition, the logical end of such a philosophy is unlimited or absolute power. Power seekers may not accept customary ethical rules but may conform to other rules that can help them become successful. They will seek to persuade others that they are moral in the accepted sense of the term in order to mask their power motives and to gain the ordinary rewards of morality.

IV

History

For as long as people have been living together in groups, the moral regulation of behavior has been necessary to the group's well-being. Although the morals were formalized and made into arbitrary standards of conduct, they developed, sometimes irrationally, after religious taboos were violated, or out of chance behavior that became habit and then custom, or from laws imposed by chiefs to prevent disharmony in their tribes. Even the great ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations developed no systematized ethics; maxims and precepts set down by secular leaders, such as Ptahhotep, mingled with a strict religion that affected the behavior of every Egyptian. In ancient China the maxims of Confucius were accepted as a moral code. The Greek philosophers, beginning about the 6th century bc, theorized intensively about moral behavior, which led to the further development of philosophical ethics.