1. What is Ethics?

The word "ethics" comes from the Greek ethos — meaning character, habit, or custom. Ethics is also called moral philosophy; "moral" comes from the Latin mores (customs, character, behaviour).

Ethics is:

• A science — a body of reasoned truths, organised logically, deduced by reason.
• Normative/regulative — it directs and regulates human life toward right conduct.
• Both theoretical and practical — theoretical because it gives fundamental principles; practical because it aims at an end (good living) and the means to reach it.

Ethics vs. Morality

Strictly speaking, ethics is the explicit philosophical reflection on moral beliefs and practices, while morality refers to the actual first-order beliefs and practices about good and evil that guide behaviour (much like "music" and "musicology"). In everyday use, however, the two words are mostly treated as synonyms.

Important: Ethics is not merely a set of fixed codes. It doesn't just restrict behaviour — it helps us discover what is good and how to attain it.

Where Does Ethics Fit? — A Quick Map

Philosophy is broadly divided into branches such as Metaphysics (what is real?), Epistemology (what can we know?), Logic (what is valid reasoning?), Aesthetics (what is beauty?), and Ethics (what is good/right conduct?). Ethics is thus one major branch of Philosophy — the branch concerned with value and action, rather than pure fact.

2. Scope of Ethics — Human Action vs. Action of Human

Ethics deals only with voluntary actions.

The deciding factor is intention — it is intention that turns a mere "action of a human" into a "human action" worthy of moral evaluation.

3. A Brief History of Ethics

Ethical thinking is as old as human society itself, first passed down orally, later recorded in writing.

Indian roots: In the Rgveda, the concept of Ṛta denotes both the cosmological and the moral order — one of humanity's earliest pursuits of moral philosophy. Indian schools (Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina, even the materialist Cārvāka) developed rich moral philosophies, often centred on Purusartha (aims of human life) — sharing common pillars: Satya (truth), Ahimsā (non-violence), Asteya (non-stealing), Aparigraha (non-possessiveness), and Brahmacharya (self-restraint) — though each school grounds them in a different metaphysics.

Western roots: Begins with Socrates (5th c. BC), who demanded rational grounds for ethical judgements. Plato gave ethics an objective foundation through his Theory of Forms (the vision of "the Good"). Aristotle, departing from Plato's idealism, founded the naturalistic tradition through his Nicomachean Ethics. The Medieval period (Augustine, Aquinas) fused this with Christian theology. The Modern period brought Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Mill — dominated by Utilitarianism (British/French) and Idealistic ethics (German/Italian). The Contemporary period is often dated from Moore's Principia Ethica (1903).

4. Methods of Ethics

Ethics uses both, but generally prefers the inductive method (particular → universal).

5. Approaches to the Study of Ethics & Division of Ethics

Philosopher Tom L. Beauchamp mapped four approaches to ethics:

These three areas (Metaethics, Normative, Applied) are interrelated, not watertight compartments — e.g., the abortion debate involves applied questions (is it wrong?), normative principles (right to life vs. self-rule), and metaethical questions ("where do rights come from?").

6. Ethics and Other Sciences

Unlike natural sciences (which describe how things are), ethics is concerned with an end, ideal, or standard — how things ought to be.

7. Ethics and Religion

Ethics has no necessary connection to any particular religion. While belief in God can be an added motivation for morality, ethics exists in all human societies — suggesting it is a natural phenomenon arising from social, intelligent life, not solely a product of religion.

Marx & Nietzsche critiqued religion as a source of social conformity that keeps people confined to existing positions — yet religion can equally be a liberating force for individuals and social change.

8. Why Study Ethics? (3 Reasons)

The world today is marked by rising crime, terrorism, exploitation, and declining influence of traditional religion — making ethical study more urgent than ever: "Are we being sucked into a moral vacuum?"

9. Why Should We Be Moral?

Every human person has a deep, natural desire for good — summum bonum (the highest good). Morality is not merely obedience to external customs; it is rooted in the very rational nature of the human being.

Society also needs shared moral rules to function — institutions cannot survive without them, though this raises the tension between social demand and individual freedom.

10. Key Terms Glossary

1. What is an "Action"?

An action is a movement generated by an agent to produce a result — it does not just "happen" like a natural event. Every action has three parts:

Example: "John gave alms to the poor" is an action (motivated, intentional) — unlike "the sun rises every day," which is a mere event (no intention involved).

Motive vs. Intention

Most philosophers treat an agent's motives as central to whether an action is morally good or bad — but motives are not the whole story:

• A good motive can still lead to a morally bad act — e.g., a boy who steals ₹500 (bad act) out of the good motive of curing his sick mother is still acting wrongly, because he violates someone else's rightful property.
• Actions may be unintentional yet still blameworthy — morality is shaped over a lifetime of training, not just single choices (e.g. toddlers taught to avoid hurting others).

Key Elements of a Moral Action

1. Knowledge / Voluntariness — done with awareness of facts, choices, and consequences (not out of ignorance).
2. Freedom — done without compulsion.

Actions from natural bodily programming (instinct, reflex, mannerisms) or from honest ignorance are not properly "moral" actions — they lie outside human control or knowledge.

2. Moral Action in World Religions

Across all religions, a moral action is broadly one that brings a person closer to the Supreme Good — the ultimate end of existence.

3. Three Great Philosophical Theories of Moral Action

Philosophers explain the moral worth of an action through three broad families of theory:

A. Teleological Theories

An act is morally right if the consequences are more favourable than unfavourable. Three sub-types, based on whose welfare counts:

Utilitarianism combines Hedonism (pleasure/happiness = the supreme value) with Consequentialism (rightness determined by outcomes). Mill's Principle of Utility: an action is approved or disapproved according to its tendency to increase or decrease happiness.

B. Deontological Theory — Immanuel Kant

For deontologists, morality is about following rules — the rightness of an act comes from its conformity to moral law, not its results. "The right has priority over the good."

Kant's central concept is the Categorical Imperative — an unconditional command of reason, with three formulations:

1. Universal Law: "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
2. Humanity as an End: "Act so as to treat humanity, in your own person and in every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means."
3. Kingdom of Ends: Every rational being must act as if legislating universal laws in a "kingdom of ends."

For Kant, certain acts (murder, theft, lying) are always prohibited — even if they would produce more happiness than the alternative. This directly contrasts with Mill's utilitarian flexibility.

C. Virtue Ethics — Aristotle & Hume

Aristotle holds that a moral action flows from good character, not rule-following. The virtuous agent must act with practical wisdom — knowing what they are doing and why it is good; otherwise the act is only "naturally good," not truly virtuous.

Illustration: Karb helps people out of natural kindness (unreflective) while Barb helps people because she rationally chose and cultivated virtue. Aristotle says only Barb possesses genuine virtue, because she exercised practical wisdom and free choice.

David Hume saw virtues as pleasing mental qualities, useful to social life. Morality, for Hume, rests on natural human sympathy — we feel the pain of others and this becomes the root of moral evaluation. He focused moral evaluation on internal motives, not just external acts.

1. Meaning of Virtue

Greek arête = excellence of any kind (usually human excellence). Latin virtus = moral excellence.

Laird's Three Classes of Virtue

Opposite of virtue = Vice.

2. Socrates — "Virtue is Knowledge"

Socrates held that virtue is the deepest property of humans, and it is identical with knowledge. If virtue is knowledge, it can be known — and therefore taught. Through self-knowledge, one gains mastery over oneself.

• Health, wealth, courage, and temperance are good only if guided by wisdom — otherwise they can become forms of evil.
• Because knowledge of the good ultimately governs the will, Socrates believed "no one does wrong knowingly."
• Virtue is fundamentally one, though it appears in different forms — like bodily health expresses itself through many bodily excellences, the health of the soul (harmony of reason, temper, and desire) expresses itself through wisdom, courage, and soberness.

This leads to the idea of one supreme "Idea of the Good" underlying all ethical activity — described by Plato (via Socrates) in The Republic as the ultimate source of truth, reason, and right action.

3. Plato's Four Cardinal Virtues

The word "cardinal" derives from Latin cardo = hinge — these four virtues are the "hinges" on which the moral life turns.

Justice is special: only once a person understands justice can they gain the other three virtues, and once all four are possessed, it is justice that holds them together.

4. Aristotle's Conception of Virtue — The Golden Mean

Aristotle's moral end is eudaimonia (happiness/flourishing), achieved through the exercise of the soul in accordance with virtue.

• Virtue is not a mere habit but a habit of choice — repeated deliberate choices become settled character.
• A single good deed may be accidental; it is the habitual choice that counts as virtue.

The Doctrine of the Mean

Every virtue sits as a middle position between two vices — one of excess, one of deficiency:

Note: the exact "mean" is relative to the individual and situation — e.g., a soldier's courage should be closer to rashness than a statesman's, because taking risks is part of a soldier's role. This reflects the Greek maxim: "Nothing too much."

5. Virtues in Hinduism

Rooted in the three Gunas (modes of material nature) described in Vedic texts:

Key Sattvic virtues: Altruism (selfless service), Restraint & Moderation, Honesty, Cleanliness (inner & outer), Universality (tolerance for all), Peace, Ahimsa (non-violence), Reverence for elders and teachers (the Guru is likened to God).

6. Virtues in Islam

The Qur'an is regarded as the great repository of virtue; the Prophet's hadiths the exemplar of virtue in human form. Islam literally means "acceptance/submission" to God's will.

God's foremost attributes are Rahman (Mercy) and Rahim (Compassion) — invoked at the start of nearly every chapter of the Qur'an. Zakat (charity to the poor) is obligatory; fasting (sawm) during Ramadan cultivates empathy for the hungry.

Muslim virtues: prayer, repentance, honesty, loyalty, sincerity, frugality, prudence, moderation, self-restraint, discipline, perseverance, patience, hope, dignity, courage, justice, tolerance, wisdom, good speech, respect, purity, courtesy, kindness, gratitude, generosity, contentment.

7. Vices

Christian View of Vice

Two kinds recognised:

• Physical/instinctive vices (e.g. lust) — sinful but considered less serious.
• Spiritual vices (blasphemy, apostasy, despair, hatred, indifference) — considered graver, rooted in a form of pride, "the idolatry of the self."

The Roman Catholic tradition (via Thomas Aquinas) distinguishes sin (the wrongful act itself) from vice (the underlying habit that inclines one to sin). Even after a sin is forgiven, the habit of vice may remain — and must be removed gradually by repeatedly resisting temptation and performing virtuous acts.

Dante's Seven Deadly Vices

1. The Supreme Principle of Morality

All ethical reflection begins with the "ought"-character of the good. Whatever is good makes a claim on us, urging us toward it; whatever is bad pulls us away.

This flows from the ratio boni (the "reason of the good") — the fact that all humans naturally desire the good because it manifests itself as desirable.

2. Defining Natural Moral Law

Natural Moral Law presupposes:

1. The capacity of practical reason to perceive moral truth.
2. A constant human nature underlying all historical change.

The phrase "by nature" expresses the minimum requirements for being an ethical subject at all — namely, freedom and reason. These minimum conditions are protected by natural law's negative commands (e.g., "do not kill the innocent").

Thomistic Natural Law & the Three Levels of Inclination

Thomas Aquinas combines natural reason with humanity's natural inclinations toward a fulfilled life:

Reason does not merely rubber-stamp these inclinations — it is like a music conductor that fine-tunes them into a coherent, meaningful whole, transforming raw inclination into genuine moral norms.

3. Reason and Morality

Every law must be reasonable to obligate us. According to Aquinas, the regula et mensura (rule and measure) of human acts is reason itself. An immoral act is, at root, one that contradicts reason.

Both are aspects of the same rational soul, neither subordinate to the other. Practical reason's judgements are less certain than theoretical reason's, because they deal with contingent, particular situations — not universal, timeless facts. This doesn't make them invalid, only less absolute in application.

4. Universality of Moral Law

Only the top-most principles of practical reason (and their direct conclusions) are universally valid — e.g., do good/avoid evil, the Golden Rule, love of neighbour, the negative commands of the Decalogue.

Truth, once discovered by reason, is valid for all — independent of whether every culture has recognised it. This underpins the idea of universal human rights.

5. Does Moral Law Change?

Moral law is not a fixed, closed catalogue of rules. Only the supreme principles ("according to nature") are unchangeable; the concrete application to particular situations can vary, because:

• Situations are diverse and contingent (not a matter of moral incapacity).
• Human self-understanding deepens over history.

Moral law stands opposed to pure historicism (the idea that "human nature" is entirely a product of history, with no fixed core). Instead: nature and history are not opposed — the unchanging core of human nature can only ever be observed through its historical, cultural expressions. Just as a cave-dweller and an urban dweller are both fully human despite vastly different lives, moral law manifests differently across cultures while remaining rooted in a common human nature.

6. Moral Law and Human Dignity

Every human being has a core, inviolable sector — the person — which morality exists to protect. The minimum requirements of moral law are the minimum requirements of human dignity and rights.

Rights are grounded in practical reason — so as new situations and insights emerge, the expression of rights (civil rights) can expand, even though the underlying natural rights remain constant.

7. The Concept of Intrinsic Evil

If something is intrinsically good, its opposite must be intrinsically evil — an act that violates another person's absolute, inalienable rights, regardless of any "good" outcome it might produce.

Teleologists (who judge acts purely by consequences) struggle to defend this concept — they might avoid such acts only because doing so tends to produce better outcomes, not because such acts are wrong in themselves. Deontological reasoning is needed to defend genuine "no matter what" prohibitions.

8. Criticisms of Natural Moral Law — & Responses

1. Background: Metaethics — Realism vs. Anti-Realism

Ethical Subjectivism ≠ Ethical Relativism. Subjectivism says truth depends on an individual's attitude ("Rohit was evil" only expresses personal dislike). Relativism is broader — it says the truth of a moral claim depends on the society's / group's norms, so different things can be right for different societies.

2. Defining Moral Relativism vs. Moral Absolutism

Relativists claim: (1) moral judgments are true/false only relative to a particular standpoint; (2) no single standpoint can be proven objectively superior to another.

3. Three Types of Moral Relativism

4. Historical Development of Relativist Thought

• Jaina Anekāntavāda: reality is many-sided; no single viewpoint captures the whole truth.
• Herodotus observed each society believes its own customs are best — cultural diversity as early evidence for relativism.
• Hobbes: moral rules are like laws — human agreements for social living, judged pragmatically by how well they serve their purpose.
• Spinoza: nothing is inherently good or bad; such labels are errors from imagining nature was designed by God with humans in mind.
• Hume: morality rests on feeling, not reason — "ought" cannot be logically derived from "is" (the famous is-ought gap).
• Nietzsche: conventional morality suppresses the individual's "will to power"; "God is dead" — no transcendent justification survives; morality should be actively self-created, not passively inherited.
• Edward Westermarck (anthropologist): formulated the first detailed theory, treating all moral ideas as subjective judgments reflecting one's upbringing.

5. Why Has Moral Relativism Become Popular?

6. Major Criticisms of Moral Relativism

A. The "Moral Reformer" Problem

If relativism is true, a moral reformer within their own society cannot coherently criticise it. Example: imagine Rina lives in a slave-owning society and sincerely believes "Slavery is morally wrong." If relativism is true, her claim is necessarily false, because slavery is sanctioned by her society's conventional standards — she could criticise it only on non-moral grounds (economics, stability), never on genuine moral grounds. This leaves no intelligible space for moral progress or reform — a serious flaw for any theory of morality.

B. Self-Refutation ("Logical Incoherence")

Consider the claim "all truth is relative." Either:

• It is objectively true → then relativism is false (since at least one truth — this one — is not relative), or
• It is only subjectively true → then it's just "I believe relativism," a trivial claim with no force to persuade anyone else.

Either way, the statement "all truth is relative" appears to contradict itself.

C. Cultures Often Share Underlying Principles

Many ethicists argue that while practices differ across societies, the underlying principles often do not. E.g., some societies once killed elderly parents believing it aided their afterlife — a practice we'd condemn, yet built on the same underlying principle we share: the duty to care for parents. So apparent moral disagreement is often disagreement in application, not in fundamental principle.