Describe the historical development of both traditional and modern ethics.?

Question

Describe the historical development of both traditional and modern ethics.?

Answer 1

This question requires a very long answer. Moreover, if it's for a course, the answer will depend upon what the profesor has had you read in class.

Briefly, ethics has three traditional "fields" represented by three figures:

1. Virtue ethics, represented by Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. This places the value of action in two things: virtues (or functions, or character attributes, such as courage, temperance, friendliness, etc) and a purpose (telos) to be acheived. For Aristotle, the goal is Eudaimonia, or human flourishing, also translated (poorly) as happiness.

2. Deontological ethics, represented by Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. This place the value of an action in it being done from DUTY. Deonto- is from the Greek, meaning "bound," so, it is "the study of what we are bound, by duty, to do.

Kant's system depends upon the following claims. First, an IMPERATIVE is a objective principle (or rule) necessitating for a will (or: that a person is required to do). A CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE is an imperative that is done for no other reason, and Kant calls these the IMPERATIVES OF MORALITY. Imperatives of morality, BY THE VERY DEFINITION OF A CATEGORIAL IMPERATIVE, provdie their own rule: Act only according to that maxim (i.e. that rule that governs the will) that you can will become universal law (i.e. and objective principle or rule). This is Kant's FIRST FORMULATION OF THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE.

Based upon the fact that Humans are ends in themselves, he transforms the first formulation to say that we should treat others as ends in themselves and never as MERE means.

From there, he provides the kingdom of ends formulation, which states that we should act always such that we are both members of sovereigns of the kingdom of ends. However, it is really the first two formulations that are used by philosophers.

3. Utilitarian ethics is the view that the good is to maximize some individual good, such as pleasure. This is the view of John Stuart Mill in his book Utilitarianism. He argues that the overall increase of pleasure ought to be the main focus our activities and we should do those actions which contribute to the increase of pleasure. It must be noted that Mill does not succumb to the so-called "Swine Objection" (that such a principle would make us no better than swine) because he acknowledges that there are greater pleasures than mere physical pleasure and that the good must be increased for everyone.

That takes care of traditional ethics. Modern ethics takes forms of the foregoing three theories or your professor probably has you discuss one of these theories:

1. Cultural Relativism, which became popular in the 50's as result of globalization, anthropology and cultural studies, and holds that morality depends upon the culture.

or:

2. Ethical Egoism, which became popular through the writings of Ayn Rand, and holds that we should whatever is in our own self-interest in the long run.

James Rachels has an excellent discussion of both of these in in his book on ethics, the title of which slips my mind at the moment.