MORAL PHILOSOPHY
Introduction
Ethics is the Practical normative study of the rightness or wrongness of human conduct as known by natural reason. When we refers to the actions of human beings as moral, ethical, immoral and unethical we mean whether they are right or wrong. The term amoral is used to refer the acts of babies. Non-moral means that the object or act is totally out of the realm of morality.
Reason to study Ethics
Many moral issues that we face are complex .We may think that there is a simple solution for that, but not always.
Ancient saying ‘for every complex problem, there is solutions that is simple, neat and wrong. Ethics helps us to handle complex issues of life.
Theoretical and Moral Reasoning
The purpose of any science is to know something either for the sake of satisfying a pure intellectual curiosity, or for the sake of understand How to do something.
As a practical science, moral philosophy is an acquired habit of the human intellect enabling it possession to reason to true conclusion about the kind of human actions, which are calculated to bring man to attainment of true happiness.
Aristotle’s Classification about the form of knowledge:
1) Theoretical: First the human mind can apply it self to the contemplate of things without any possibility of intention of changing or affecting them. In science: We may contemplate or natural body
2) Productive: The human mind can also create motion or change. If its aim is to create a - 1 -tangible object then the reason proceeds productively. It means that we are rationally motivated to move by some technique or craft.
3) Practical science: At work when one tries to attain certain ultimate ends which cannot be produced but which affect one ‘s life as a who was what Aristotle says /calls ‘practical science ‘It refers to our knowledge pertinent to action.
WILL AND WILLING
What is meant by freewill?
Non-living and non-rational creatures must confirm to certain physical laws by which they are controlled. If a fish is taken out of water, it must die. If a piece of paper is thrown in to fire it must barn. Human beings, how ever are different. They can choose not to follow the laws, which will take them to their ultimate goal. To this extent, their will is free. Instinct will not take to possible in a choice. Their will is free to choose or not to choose happiness as a goal. It is the object of their will, which seeks the goal. Will is coming out of freedom. In other words, an action turns out of human action. E.g., in this sense a man’s will is not free in much the same way as a track, or a train can’t choose where the track for the train goes. Because the train follows the track. From a moral point of view, human beings are not forced to follow a particular moral principle to reach their goal. They are free either to accept or to reject it. Then we can say the human attainment of happiness results from a human choice. The free will of a human being lies in his or her ability to CHOOSE THE MEANS to happiness (But not to choose whether he or she wants happiness or not). For example, the instinct provides your decisions when you have to rise at morning, means considers makes you to rise at the bell time. Human action will leads you to take will. “Free will is not synonymous with licentiousness”. Human free will is used in each individual act of moral nature. One person can determine whether the act in question contributes to his or her ultimate happiness or not. He or she can make a deliberate choice because of one motive or reason and put all others aside. Freedom is the basis of understanding the human’s responsibility. If the foundation or basis is absent then responsibility also will absent. Human beings have to protect their freewill against those things, which oppose it like (like ignorance, fear, violence, passion etc….) Freewill is fundamental to ethics.
The will is trained by doing
To strengthen the will, it is necessary to make acts of will. This can be done by Voluntary accepting things, which are not liked or wanted, or by denying one, things, which are perfectly permissible.
In Kant’s ethical theory (as well as in some other non- consequentialist theories) the will is the local of moral value and is interpreted as a rational capacity. It is a capacity to act in accordance with the conception of law.
If ethics is concerned with a philosophy of conduct then the principles that, must follow have to be related to daily life , and must be the principle of Right &wrong.
Ethics aims to help us to realize the moral idea in regard to others and ourselves by helping to give us clear moral principles by or which we can know what is true and what is right and attain that real wisdom which leads us to proper action.
Ethics is that rule of conduct by which we act in accordance with moral laws, which have as their purpose to lead us to true God-this is the ultimate happiness.
CONSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Conscience is an ethical term. It means personal judgment of the rightness or wrongness of action on the basis of general moral principles. When we are not certain about moral judgments they are said to be having double conscience. The word ‘conscience’ comes from the Latin ‘conscentia’ (literary, knowing with). Conscience I sometimes called the voice of god, but this expression is to be understood metaphorically, not literally. Conscience is not a special faculty distinct from intellect. Conscience is but the intellect itself in a special function, the function of judging the rightness or wrongness of our own individual acts. Conscience may therefore be defined as practical judgment of reason upon an individual act as good and to be performed, or as evil as to be avoided. Thus the personal judgment about the rightness or wrongness of action on the basis of general moral principles is called conscience. It is also inner capacity to feel a moral obligation. Four factors in the formation of conscience are:
- Past experiences
- Demand for faithfulness to group or society
- Religious experience
- Reason and reflection.
Consciousness is a psychological term. It means the state of being able to use your senses of mental power to understand what is happening. In his book ‘The conscious mind’, David J Chalmers says that “the having of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and awareness”. Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon. It is impossible specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved.
HUMAN ACT
Those acts in which the human being has mastery and are directed by human intellect and will are called human acts. Human life consists of the actions man performs, and primarily of those which are under his control. It is by this that a man lives like a man. Man’s actions taken collectively are called behavior or contact. Behaviour is more of a psychological word and is applied even to animals, where as conduct has a strictly ethical meaning and is exclusively human. The human act is the result of a complex psychological involving wishes, intention, deliberation, choice, consent, use and enjoyment. The decisive point is the consent of will following the deliberation of the intellect. Man is regarded as good or bad on the basis of his or her actions performed consciously and freely. Human actions therefore are defined as those actions of man consciously controlled and deliberately willed.
GOOD or BAD / RIGHT or WRONG
The word good comes from the German word ‘Gut’ it means that which is useful for the supreme good. In one way good is that which leads to supreme good.
Herbert Spencer in his ‘The Principles of Ethics’ calls those articles good or bad as they are well or ill adapted to achieve ‘prescribed end’.
Oxford dictionary states good on 4 grounds based on its (1) usefulness (2)Extrinsic value; a means which leads to good.(3)intrinsic value; inherent result (4)Internal result; morally right. Goodness is indeed what is desirable.
BAD (EVIL) is connected to something that which is having harmful effects or with unpleasant experiences.
Evil is that which are influenced by extremely unpleasant elements or that which is connected with what is bad in the world. For human kind it can be physical evil like blindness, pain, illness, starvation, etc.
RIGHT that which is (1) acceptable, (2) correct as fact. Derived from ‘rectus’ (Latin) it means straight or direct in according to law.
WRONG is that which is (1) not right / correct (2) causing problems/difficulties (3)not suitable, etc. In a way that produces a result that is not correct or that you do not want.
In moral philosophy the terms Good or Bad, Right or wrong are not on account of their lexical functions, for example,
v Not only does a pious man do good works, a robber too enjoys a ‘good’ theft.
v Evils such as physical evils like blindness, starvation are in themselves evil but not necessarily in ethics.
As there are actions, which are inversely related to the lexical sources, there should be some norms to differentiate between what is Good and what is Bad.
Norms or standards to distinguish between Good (right) and Bad (evil):-
ü In ancient times it was according to human nature. Thomas Aquinas calls moral actions to ‘those actions that are in accordance with human nature’ that is right was the norm for moral judgement.
ü Any action is qualified as good or moral as it promotes the proper use of understanding, will and emotional powers.
ü The word right is appropriate for an action that is in some fitting to its circumstances.
In general an action is right/good when it leads to ultimate happiness in terms of physical, intellectual and spiritual happiness. The doer or other people of the society feel that one ought to do it.
The sense of obligation leads to the usage of phrases like ‘ought to do’ or ‘its your duty to do’ and words such as Moral and Non-moral, Amoral and Immoral.
Moral person >>>good person>>who does good actions.Immoral person>>bad person >>who does wrong actions.Amoral; with no moral senses / being indifferent to right/wrong. Non-moral; outside the realm of morality, for eg; function of machines controlled by someone else.An action thing or matter is categorized into moral territory only when it a human influence is involved in it. In other words ‘Morality’ is qualified only when ‘humanity’ is involved in it.
MORALITY and LEGALITY
Law provides a series of public statements (a legal code or system that explains the do’s and don’ts to guide human beings in their persons and property) whereas Morality gives a set of principles on what we live on.
Legality should be formed on morality, whereas Morality is not necessarily formed on legality.
The legal system has a prescription connected with punishments, whereas Moral principles have a binding character that has no threat.
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