Philosophy: Basic Notions, Volume 2

By Nicolae Sfetcu

A basic introduction to the world of philosophy, with answers to the deepest questions we all ask ourselves, through the lens of the world's greatest philosophers, from Plato and Confucius to modern thinkers. A guide to the fundamental nature of existence, society and the way we think.
After an overview of philosophy, with the history of philosophy, branches of philosophy, philosophical concepts and philosophical schools and traditions, specific topics in philosophy are addressed, such as God (religion), good and evil (ethics), animal rights, politics (political philosophy), appearance and reality, science (philosophy of science), mind (philosophy of mind), and art (aesthetics).
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning such matters as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Classical philosophical questions include both abstract questions (Is it possible to know something and prove it? What is most real?) and more practical and concrete questions (Is there an optimal way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust? Do people have free will?)
Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of approaching these problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and reliance on rational arguments.
Other investigations are closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits. For example, is beauty objective or subjective? Are there many scientific methods or just one? Is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy? The main sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics ("concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being"), epistemology (about the nature and foundations of knowledge andits limits and validity), ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science and the history of Western philosophy.
Many philosophical debates that began in antiquity are still debated today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicolae Sfetcu
• Release date: Dec 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9786060337553

Nicolae Sfetcu

Owner and manager with MultiMedia SRL and MultiMedia Publishing House. Project Coordinator for European Teleworking Development Romania (ETD) Member of Rotary Club Bucuresti Atheneum Cofounder and ex-president of the Mehedinti Branch of Romanian Association for Electronic Industry and Software Initiator, cofounder and president of Romanian Association for Telework and Teleactivities Member of Internet Society Initiator, cofounder and ex-president of Romanian Teleworking Society Cofounder and ex-president of the Mehedinti Branch of the General Association of Engineers in Romania Physicist engineer - Bachelor of Science (Physics, Major Nuclear Physics). Master of Philosophy.

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Philosophy

Basic Notions

Volume 2

Nicolae Sfetcu

Published by MultiMedia Publishing

Copyright 2022 Nicolae Sfetcu

Published by MultiMedia Publishing, https://www.telework.ro/en/publishing/

ISBN: 978-606-033-755-3

Source: Sections 1-13: Telework, CC BY-SA 3.0 text license, translation and adaptation from Wikipedia by Nicolae Sfetcu; Sections Introduction and Evolution or progress of philosophy: Émile Bréhier, Histoire de la philosophie - Tome premier: L’Antiquité et le Moyen âge, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 1928. Tanslation and adaptation by Nicolae Sfetcu © 2022 Nicolae Sfetcu

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7 Right and wrong

7.1 Ethics

Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the branch of philosophy, and more specifically of practical philosophy, the object of which is to put into practice morality itself based on ethical reasoning. It is a speculative philosophy that presents itself as a place of irreducible and specifically human tension between happiness and duty, being and having to be. It must be distinguished from ethics, which is not a specifically philosophical discipline since it is also a matter of applied ethics and theology. In the classical sense of the term, moral philosophy included sociology, politics, and other ancestors of the human sciences, in contrast to natural philosophy. Morality is also defined by the obligatory character, marked by norms, obligations, prohibitions, characterized by both a requirement of universality and an effect of constraint.

Even though the term moral philosophy appears only from Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, ethical questions have been at the center of philosophy since the Presocratics.

(Young Girl Reading by Otto Scholderer, 1883. Maria, or the misfortune of being a woman, a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft posthumously, criticizes the discourse of sensitivity, a moral and aesthetic philosophy that is in vogue at the late eighteenth century.)

Fundamental problems of moral philosophy

Moral philosophy focuses on the purpose of the action and seeks to resolve the issues that may arise in deliberation and decision-making:

What should I do ?

What should I have done?

Are there limits to my actions?

Philosophers divide morality into three domains whose limits are not always perfectly fixed:

Meta-ethics: understood as the search for the origins and meaning of our moral concepts;

Moral or normative ethics, which concerns the criteria of our behavior (habits, duties, consequences of our actions);

Moral or applied ethics, application of the first two to specific and controversial problems (eg abortion, environment, animal rights, etc.).

Fundamental conceptions of moral philosophy

Teleological ethics

Consequential Morals

In our actions, we often take into account the consequences of our actions. These consequences can therefore be considered as possible criteria of our behavior, which makes this type of morality a normative type. For a morality of this kind, conduct is moral if the consequences of an act are rather beneficial than unfavorable. The assessment of the morality of a conduct is therefore based on what is observable, rather than on the intention which is private and difficult to apprehend.

Several types of consequentialism can be distinguished, depending on which criterion is chosen to determine what is beneficial and what is detrimental:

altruism: the consequences of action favorable to anyone except the agent determine what is good and what is wrong;

selfishness: the consequences of action favorable to the agent and to him alone determine what is good and what is bad;

utilitarianism: the consequences of action favorable to all determine what is good and what is bad. Jeremy Bentham is one of the first utilitarian philosophers. He proposes on the one hand to consider the consequences of our actions, and on the other hand to measure the pleasure and the pain which results from them, hence the name of utilitarian hedonism of this doctrine.

Ethics of perfection

This morality defines the desirable good as perfection; this perfection is not subjective, but can be described objectively. For example, knowledge, success, etc. This good is conceived as the foundation of happiness, but without implying subjective satisfaction. This good often represents the optimal realization of human nature, and is therefore unequal. It defines a hierarchy of perfections to achieve, hierarchy from which the merit of individuals.

All the actions of our soul which acquire us any perfection are virtuous, and all our contentment consists only in the inner testimony that we have to have some perfection. (Descartes, Letter to Elizabeth)

Deontological ethics

Morals of duty base the moral character of our actions by the concept of obligation. This type of morality is conceivable regardless of any consequences that may result from our actions. For example, according to Kant, one should not lie to avoid murder, because the obligation to tell the truth is absolute and does not tolerate any particular condition.

There are several theories of duty:

Samuel von Pufendorf distinguishes three types of duty:

duties towards God (internal and external devotion);

duties towards oneself (duties towards the soul: for example to develop one's talents, and duties towards the body - not to kill oneself, not to harm oneself);

duties towards others (absolute duties: do no harm, etc. and conditional duties: keep one's word, etc.).

rights theory (eg Locke), in which:

rights are natural (for example, to live, to be free, to seek happiness);

they are universal;

they are the same for all;

they are inalienable.

It must be emphasized that all rights call for a duty.

the categorical imperative: this is the Kantian theory of morality. Kant distinguishes several types of imperatives:

the hypothetical imperative tells us that if we want this, we must do this or that;

the categorical imperative only tells us that we must do something, whatever we want or desire.

Theories of duty not only expose the principle(s) that make action moral, but also strive to resolve the conflicts that result from our duties themselves.

The problem of the foundation of morality

In a very general way, there are two types of conception of the foundations of morality:

an objectivist or heteronomous conception, which asserts that moral laws do not depend on man, but:

are natural laws (Greek philosophy in general);

are divine commandments (Christianity, St. Thomas Aquinas);

are laws of reason, to which every rational being (hence man) must obey (for example the natural laws on which men agree and establish them as civil laws, thus giving them force of law, at Hobbes).

a relativistic or autonomous conception, for which the moral values have a human origin:

because they are imposed by society or by some group;

because it belongs to the individual as such to define them.

In the objectivist (or realistic) conception, moral values are eternal and universal, or at least absolute; we can not change them or destroy them. On the contrary, in the second conception, moral values vary from one society, one group or even one individual to another.

Proceduralism

This ethic refers to John Rawls and is based on pluralism. Rawls affirms that it is no longer possible to base oneself on a single common notion, the good. This then implies the establishment of rather abstract rules in order to admit a generality of differences.

Jürgen Habermas considers that a solution to a conflict is legitimate if and only if those who are affected by this conflict agree on this solution in satisfactory conditions of words and communication. This is why it is a question of the ethics of discussion or communicational morality. Thus, it is the procedure that determines whether the solution is or is not legitimate.

Consequentialism

In actions, humans often take into account the consequences of their actions. These consequences can therefore be considered as possible criteria of our behavior, which makes this type of morality a normative type. For such a morality, a conduct is moral if the consequences of an act are beneficial rather than unfavorable. The evaluation of the morality of a conduct is therefore made on the basis of what is observable, rather than on the intention which is private and difficult to apprehend.

Several types of consequentialism can be distinguished, depending on the criterion chosen to determine what is beneficial and what is harmful:

altruism, which seeks to maximize the benefit of others, regardless of the advantages or disadvantages for the author,

selfishness, which seeks to maximize the benefit of the author,

utilitarianism, which seeks the good of the majority of participants.

Values

In ethics, it is commonly a question of values which are of the order of Being and of the Good, which indicate ideals to be pursued (autonomy, life and health, justice) — principles — which give broad orientations to the action, which set attitudes (self-determination, respect for life, give everyone their due) — standards and rules — which determine the action, which frame the decision (free and informed consent, take proportionate means, compliance with contracts). The word value is the most general and dynamic; it first has a philosophical evocation before having an ethical fallout. The word principle denotes a basic, action-inspiring direction. The word rule connotes something more concrete, closer to action. The principle is often indeterminate, and admits various applications. The rule has a specific content.

The main principles are relatively few and stable; the rules can be numerous and variable. The difficulty of presenting ethics (or morality) according to three points:

it comes from the fact that it is not a separate sector of life, but a permanent dimension of all behavior. Values, in fact, are implemented more or less explicitly in all behaviors and all decisions. So the practice of medicine, nursing, social work, law, for example, inevitably involves ethical choices, moral value choices;

it is due to the vocabulary which varies according to the authors. Words carry, from medium to medium, varying connotations or meanings;

it is due to the fact that this ultimately refers to a philosophical reflection, which has given rise to a multitude of more or less contradictory ethical theories.

Three words come up frequently in the discourse on human action: ethics, morals, deontology; and these are sometimes taken as synonyms. Moreover, historically for the first two, they have been used very often for each other. Etymologically, the words ethics (of Greek origin) and morals (of Latin origin) refer to mores, to the analysis of mores, to reflections on human conduct. The word deontology (from the Greek: deon-deonlos) also designates rules, duties and obligations. The three words refer to behavior, to human action, to decision-making. They concern what must be done (duty, values), as opposed to what is done (morals).

Ethics can be defined as a rationally structured set of explicit values that define the good, the just and the beautiful, by which someone accounts for himself, for what makes him exist and act. It is the way of saying how the individual must live and from what he must judge and decide. It is therefore an explicit and argued system of values that induce behaviors or social practices. There are therefore universal ethics (human rights) or ethics specific to a culture. We can establish two ways to conceive of ethics: ethics as a code, which tends to reproduce roles in social life. Prescriptions, and the values that inform them, tend to be taken for granted, thus being authoritative, and applicable in a wide range of contexts; and if ethics is thought, associated with a process to study and evaluate a system of values. So in this sense, ethics involves seeking principles to guide moral behavior and evaluating them. The first step is to identify the values, which may be contested, that exist within a community.

The organization of values together, in the form of a system, corresponds to an ethic; this gives meaning and coherence to the values attached to it. A value (such as democracy or sustainable development) only takes on its meaning according to the ethical field in which it falls. Among the values are found the values of a fundamental order, corresponding to goals to be achieved (for example, ecological balance), and values of an instrumental order intended to achieve these goals (such as responsibility). There are also abstract values (solidarity) and values corresponding to objects, and also values that are intrinsic (nature or architectural heritage). A value is an enduring belief, a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence, which is personally or socially preferable to another opposing or converging mode of behavior or purpose of existence. A value system is an enduring organization of beliefs about desirable modes of conduct and outlooks on life.

Traditionally, the concept of value is used in two distinct ways, either it is a question of the value that objects possess, or it is the value that people possess. Values differ from attitudes (as well as other concepts such as needs, norms, interests) and are moreover less numerous than the latter, they go beyond specific conceptions of attitudes of objects and situations and are dynamically closer to needs and more central to people identified as individuals. Referring to the words of Audigier, it is useless to endeavor to determine a well-established and coherent list of values, since in any situation, as soon as a decision has to be made, the individual is struggling with values in contradiction with each other. But they define as a point of view from which the individual evaluates, in the strong sense of the term evaluate, social actions, behaviors, even opinions.

Virtues

Virtue ethics is old. It arises from the encounter between ancient morality, in particular Aristotelian and Stoic, and biblical wisdom. It is during patristics (first Christian theology), then in medieval philosophy, especially scholasticism, that it reaches its completion. In the 18th century, the virtues took a considerable place in the revolutionary imagination (Robespierre). Today, a certain number of philosophers take it up on their own, as in France André Comte-Sponville. Virtue should not be understood in the sense of a lady dressed in black and railing against excesses and shortcomings, in the name of right-thinking morality. Virtue, from the Latin virtus, is more akin to the virtuosity of artists. It mobilizes training and a balance of opposites based on wisdom. But this does not mean mortification or asceticism.

The theory revolves around four virtues that were once called cardinal. Prudence, Strength (or Courage), Justice and Temperance. This definitive formulation occurs in the 13th century, under the influence of the Franciscan and Dominican Christian orders.

Prudence is the main virtue: it guides the decision and weighs it, depending on the responsibility, the contextual situation, the consequences. However, it is not averse to risk. Indeed, there are audacious decisions that are prudent decisions.

Strength or "courage" is the ability to stand firm in the face of adversity. It is also she who gives the energy to launch into businesses.

Temperance is the virtue that channels disturbances. It is not opposition to the passions, but moderation of the passions.

Justice is consideration of behavior with others. It includes an economic dimension (the sense of sharing), a social dimension (respect for the law) and a political dimension (equality for all). But it also has a critical function, when apparent justice is opposed to ethics.

Christian tradition has added three so-called theological virtues:

Faith, which is participation in the knowledge that God has of himself.

Hope, which is confidence in the completion of history in a transformation and recreation of the world and people, beyond death (see Jürgen Moltmann)

Charity, which is love of neighbour, starting with the smallest and those left behind.

Today, virtue is considered as a quality that pushes men and women to achieve excellence, the best of themselves.

Meta-ethics

Meta-ethics refers to the analysis of basic ethical concepts, their epistemological presuppositions and their meaning, from the angle of philosophy. It is above ethics (meta in Greek) because its purpose is not to set ethical standards but to analyze them. It is interested, for example, in the nature of ethical norms as norms, in the foundations of these norms, in the structure of ethical arguments, in the characteristics of ethical propositions, etc. Meta-ethics is actually as old as ethics, although it is true that it has only been since the 20th century that it has become an independent discipline with a particular focus on the linguistic aspect. of ethics. A good example of meta-ethics is the small article that Paul Ricœur had written as early as 1985 for the Encyclopædia Universalis: Before the moral law: ethics.

Applied ethics

Applied ethics is a generic term for all ethical issues relating to a field of human activity such as health, the world of work, economy, science, governance or culture. Ethics applied to a profession leads to defining a deontology. Deontological ethics leads to the definition of professional deontologies (medical code of deontology, code of deontology for lawyers, code of deontology for architects, to take just a few examples).

7.1.1 Meta-ethics

Meta-ethics refers to the part of moral philosophy which analyzes the fundamental concepts of ethics, their epistemological presuppositions and their meaning. It goes hand in hand with normative ethics, the foundations of which it is supposed to define. Meta-ethics, for example, is interested in the meaning of moral concepts like good, just, duty, but also moral conscience, end; it is also called for this reason analytical ethics.

There are two major currents which partly overlap: non-cognitivism and moral cognitivism.

Basic concepts of meta-ethics: axiology, non-cognitivism, expressivism, fictionalism, moral universalism, moral subjectivism, universal prescriptivism, moral naturalism.

Etymology

The term meta-ethics comes from the Greek word meta (beyond, after) and another Greek word: "ethics. Meta-ethics is beyond ethics in that it is not intended to define new standards or moral laws but to study the nature of ethical statements themselves. It does not say, for example, you must act in this way" but analyzes the nature of such imperative statements. Through the application of a complexity scale to all dimensions of the person, from their links to all the parts and in all components of their life, social intelligence offers a measurable articulation of meta-ethics.

History

The development of moral philosophy during the twentieth century went hand in hand with the demand for autonomy. This movement was initiated by the British philosopher G. E. Moore, author of the work which is at the origin of contemporary moral philosophy, Principia Ethica (1903). It starts from the observation that ethics is sui generis and therefore that it constitutes a field of study in its own right.

It is from this specificity that meta-ethics is born, that is to say the study of ethics not in its content, but in its fundamental functioning. Another consequence of the specificity of ethics is the irreducibility of values to facts, that is to say, the impossibility, as finite beings observing an infinite reality, of producing moral constructions claiming to have general validity. Meta-ethics has therefore separated from practical philosophy, understood as a reflection on moral action. This branch of moral philosophy dominated people's minds throughout the first part of the twentieth century.

7.1.2 Applied ethics

Applied ethics is a branch of ethics that applies its principles to a particular set of circumstances and practices, taking into account the general criteria of ethics.

Applied ethics can be deduced in particular from normative ethics, through the way of establishing codes of ethics, taking into account the rules of law, theories of the social contract, or other types of criteria. Normative ethics, however, can not have the ambition to mark the resolution of the so-called regular problems, i.e. those for which pre-exists a rule. The resolution of the so-called irregular problems, where the norm is non-existent, mute or insufficient, must be based on clear and practicable values; these values must be in consensus within the company or organization.

Practical examples of fields of application are:

business ethics, which includes a set of components that include:

ethics in economic intelligence,

financial ethics

legal ethics, illustrated, among other examples, by the code of ethics of lawyers,

the ethics of computing,

bioethics,

the ethics of the environment,

animal ethics,

medical ethics,

ethics and education,

ethics and state management.

Corporate social responsibility is not itself an ethic, but in order to be more effective, it must be based on ethical standards, particularly in business ethics.

Many considerations of applied ethics are also at stake in human rights discussions.

The main difficulty, along with formal applied ethics, is the possibility of disagreement about what constitutes the true theory or principles to be applied, which leads to solutions to specific problems that are not universally acceptable to all participants. For example, a strict deontological approach will never allow a patient to be misled about his condition, whereas a utilitarian approach may consider this possibility. A deontologist will arrive with a solution very different from that of a utilitarian, under the same conditions.

A modern approach to addressing such issues is casuistry. The casuistry attempts to establish a plan of action to respond to particular facts by a form of reasoning on a case by case basis. By doing so, with a real study of the facts, it increases the possibility of agreement between stakeholders based on explicit moral codes. The abuse of this method may, however, present certain dangers, as we have seen in history: in the absence of a posteriori for the modes of action (on new cases in too great number, complex and irreducible ), it may lead to errors of assessment. (Contingency and discernment were the problem, for example, of the Red Cross in its case-by-case history during the Second World War.)

7.1.3 Normative ethics

(The tram dilemma is a thought experiment that can serve to illustrate and test different ethical theories.)

Normative ethics is the branch of ethics that studies the possible moral criteria to determine when an action is right and when it is not. It looks for general principles that justify normative systems and argue why certain standards should be adopted . A classic example of a similar criterion is the golden rule.

Main positions

In normative ethics, there are three main positions:

The consequentialism holds that the moral value of an action must be judged only based on whether its consequences are favorable or unfavorable. The different versions of consequentialism differ, however, about what consequences should be considered relevant to determine the morality or not of an action. For example, moral selfishness considers that an action will be morally correct only when the consequences of it are favorable for the person who performs it. On the other hand, utilitarianism holds that an action will be morally correct only when its consequences are favorable to a majority. There is also debate about what should be counted as a favorable consequence.

The deontology maintains that there are duties that must be fulfilled, beyond the favorable or unfavorable consequences that they can bring, and that to fulfill those duties is to act morally. For example, caring for our children is a duty, and it is morally wrong not to do so, even though this may result in great economic benefits. Different deontological theories differ in the method to determine the duties, and consequently in the list of duties to fulfill. 

The virtue ethics focuses on the importance of developing good habits of behavior or virtues , and to avoid bad habits, vices .

According to the criteria used to evaluate moral good: Ethical theories can also be distinguished according to the criteria they use to evaluate the moral good. The moral good can be evaluated by:

Consequences (teleological ethics, consequentialism).

Behavioral dispositions, character traits and virtues (virtue ethics)

The intention of the actor (disposition ethics)

Objectives towards moral facts, as objective of moral evaluations on property or action (deontological ethics)

Optimization of interests or interested parties (preferably), utilitarian ethics, happiness (eudaimonia), or welfare

Normative ethics and descriptive ethics: Frequently ethics is understood in the sense of normative ethics, that is, this part is confused with the whole. However, while descriptive ethics is concerned with determining what is considered morally correct in a given society, normative ethics reflects on what is morally correct and why.

Normative and non-normative statements: Descriptive ethics formulates non-normative statements since it is limited to declaring what in a certain society is considered correct, but the validity of the consideration is not held, in a strict sense, the validity is not a logical consequence of the generalized acceptance of the rule.

A normative statement is supported by a logical argument that grounds why the application of a norm is correct, in a way that sustains and affirms its validity. These types of statements are those formulated by normative ethics.

Normative theories

Normative ethics has always been present in Western thought and different classifications of its doctrines have been proposed. However, the distinction between consequentialist ethics and deontological ethics is one of greatest strength and discussion in the contemporary field.

Consequentialism

(Jeremy Bentham, father of utilitarianism, one of the main consequentialist theories.)

In ethics , consequentialism , also known as teleological ethics (from the Greek τέλος, telos, end, in the sense of finality) refers to all those theories of normative ethics that hold that the goodness or badness of an act is determined by the consequences what it entails. For consequentialist theories, an action is judged good if it generates the greatest possible good or a surplus of the amount of good over evil. Thus, in the consequentialist view, good behavior is the one that optimizes some values given axiologically by a metaethics, provided that the values refer to an effect in the world.

Among the consequentialist ethics we can find many forms of utilitarianism (the best consequences for the greatest number), moral selfishness (the best consequences for myself) and Auguste Comte's ethics of altruism (the best consequences for the other).

Consequentialist ethics are a group of ethical theories that emanate moral duties or obligations that seek to achieve an ultimate goal, which presumes good or desirable. It is also known as consecutive ethics, since it is based on the judgment of acts in their consequences, and is opposed to deontological ethics (from the Greek δέον, duty), which hold that the morality of an action is independent of good or evil generated from it. 

Consequentialism holds that the morality of an action depends only on its consequences (the end justifies the means). Consequentialism does not apply only to actions. To believe that morality is only about generating as much happiness as possible, or about increasing freedom as much as possible, or about promoting the survival of our species , is to hold a consequentialist position; because although all these beliefs differ in terms of the values that matter, they agree that what is desirable takes the form of some consequence. For example, the consequentialist hedonistic theory identifies good with pleasure and evil with pain; and the eudaemonist aims at the full realization of happiness.

One way to classify the different types of consequentialism is from the agents that must be taken into account when considering the consequences of the actions. This gives rise to three categories of consequentialism: 

Moral egoism : an action is morally correct if it produces positive consequences for the agent.

Altruism : a good action is one that produces the good of others, at the expense of the agent.

Utilitarianism : an action is morally correct if favorable results predominate over the undesirable, regardless of who the beneficiaries are. Therefore, the best possible action is that which produces the greatest good; as it would be measured by an impartial observer.

Critics of the consequentialist ethics have been argued that it is impossible to fully estimate the consequences of an action, so it is difficult to reach safe judgments about them. In addition, the value of an action would not be determined by the real consequences of such an action but from the assumptions about the probability of its results. The risk of falling into excessive pragmatism is another possible objection against consequentialist ethics, since the exploitation or subordination of some groups may seem justified in terms of some beneficial consequences for individuals or other groups. 

Deontology

(Immanuel Kant, one of the leading thinkers of deontology, developed Kantian ethics.)

The deontology (from Greek δέον, -οντος, Deon -ontos, 'what is necessary', 'duty' and -logía, 'knowledge', 'study') is the branch of ethics that deals with duties, especially those that govern professional activities, as well as the set of duties related to the exercise of a profession. In turn, it is part of the moral philosophy dedicated to the study of moral obligations or duties.

Deontology is also the theory in normative ethics according to which there are certain actions that must be carried out, and others that should not be carried out, beyond the positive or negative consequences that they may bring. That is, there are certain duties that must be fulfilled beyond their consequences. For deontology, actions have a value in themselves, independent of the amount of good they can produce. According to the conviction that there are good or bad actions in themselves, it is still the duty to perform them or to avoid them. An action can be morally correct, even if it does not produce the greatest amount of good, because it is just by itself. However, deontological ethics are increasingly sensitive to the need to consider the global consequences of actions. If, for example, a human life can be saved through a lie, a deontological ethicist can recognize a weighting of the results of the action. However, in these cases, the consequences of the action and not the proper value of the action are taken into account, which is why deontology is suspended.

Deontologists are those who consider correct a situation in which more people are faithful to their convictions, but at the same time have to judge it right to do something that will inevitably cause more people to act incorrectly. 

The ethics that belong to this group are developed from an anthropocentric humanist postulate; with this they postulate a humanistic, enlightened morality that acts on politics and law. This guides, presses and criticizes, with the purpose of promoting a free, democratic and open society.

There are two main types of deontologies: 

Applied deontology: tells us about the duties of everyday life, whether or not it should be done right in some situation

Prescriptive deontology: determines the behavior based on the rules proposed or necessary for coexistence

The term was coined by Jeremy Bentham , in his Deontology or moral science , where he defines it as the branch of art and science that aims to act in a straight and appropriate, refers to the exhibition of what is correct and what should be. Bentham also considers that the basis of this term is based on the principles of freedom and utilitarianism. On the other hand, Rossini establishes the deontology not of the being, but of the to-be, that is to say, what must be to be considered perfect.

The term arises in the nineteenth century as a new way of calling ethics, however, as time went by it was taken as the ethics applied to the profession specifically. All the professions or offices can count on their own deontology that indicates what is the duty of each individual, that is why some of them have developed their own deontological code.

Deontological norms are incomprehensible without reference to the context or social group in which they are obligatory. The obligation is confined to that group, outside which they lose the obligation. Under the deontological eye a situation in which people are following their convictions will be considered correct, but at the same time it has to analyze if what it will do will cause more people to make incorrect (hypocritical) decisions.

Among the ethical deontologists we can include Immanuel Kant , William David Ross and Frances Kamm . According to Sebastián Kaufmann, one of the most important principles of normative ethics is the categorical imperative proposed by Immanuel Kant:

Work only according to that maxim by which you can want it to become a universal law at the same time. Work as if the maxim of your action could be converted by your will into a universal law of nature.

For this imperative, an action is morally good when it is based on a principle with qualities of being universalized. We can take as an example the action of lying, this attitude is generally immoral because if everyone were lying the general trust within societies would be ruined and consequently is not a universal maxim.

Virtue ethics

(First page of the 1566 edition of the Nicomachean Ethics in Greek and Latin, perhaps the first treatise on the virtue ethics.)

The virtue ethics is the current of study of morality that starts from the fact that this arises from internal features of the person, the virtues, as opposed to the position of deontology - moral arises from rules - and from consequentialism - moral depends on the outcome of the act. The difference between these three approaches to morality lies more in the way in which moral dilemmas are addressed than in the conclusions reached.

The virtue ethics is a theory that goes back to Plato and, in a more articulate way, to Aristotle, according to which an action is ethically correct if doing it was proper to a virtuous person. For example, if utilitarianism have to help the needy because that increases the general welfare, and ethics must be done because it is our duty, to the virtue ethics, we must help those in need because doing it would be charitable and benevolent.

The virtue ethics seeks to explain the nature of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior, rather than rules (ethics) or consequentialism, which is derived as right or wrong result from the act itself.

For example, a consequentialist would argue that lying is bad because of the negative consequences produced by lying, although a consequentialist would allow certain foreseeable consequences to make it acceptable to lie in some cases. A deontologist would argue that lying is always bad, regardless of any potential good that could come from a lie. A supporter of the virtue ethics, however, would focus less on lying on a particular occasion, and instead he would consider what the decision to tell or not a lie tells us about one's character and moral conduct. As such, the morality of lying would be determined case by case, which would be based on factors such as personal benefit, group benefit, and intentions (as to whether they are benevolent or malevolent).

Although concern for virtue appears in several philosophical traditions, in Western Philosophy virtue is present in the work of Plato and Aristotle, and even today the key concepts of tradition derive from ancient Greek philosophy. These concepts include arete (excellence or virtue), phronesis (practical or moral wisdom), and eudaimonia (happiness). In the West, the virtue ethics was the predominant focus of ethical thought in the ancient and medieval periods. The tradition of virtue ethics was forgotten during the modern period, when Aristotelianism fell out of favor. The theory of virtue returned to prominence in Western philosophical thought in the twentieth century, and today is one of the three dominant approaches to normative theories (the other two being deontology (Kant) and consequentialism or teleologism, where we could include the utilitarianism).

Relationship with other disciplines

In addition to descriptive ethics (which is concerned with determining what is considered morally correct in a given society), normative ethics is related to other parts of ethics. The reflection on the norms of the normative ethics is to be continued in the metaethics; it does not formulate normative statements but rather of a linguistic or methodological type that reflects on normative language or on the form and basis of normative theories. However, there is no sense in pretending to establish a clear limit between ethics and metaethics, since no discipline can renounce the investigation of its theoretical foundations or the explanation of the meaning of its fundamental expressions. After the processes of reflection of normative ethics and metaethics, concrete norms of more immediate application proper to applied ethics are projected. The latter includes the most interesting or current topics in a society, such as bioethics.

7.2 Philosophy of culture

The philosophy of culture is a philosophy that formulates cultural theories, expresses distance from traditional conceptions and reflects cultural phenomena. It developed around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Century in the context of social and political changes in the pre-war- and post-war period of the First World War. On the occasion of the millions of deaths and an all-round loss of norms, intellectuals presented the culture-bearing theories of idealistic philosophies, especially those of Hegel and Kant, questioned or rejected them. Today, philosophy of culture is again emerging in the 1980s cultural studies. Its representatives distance themselves from the limitation of their science to a school science of philosophy.

Culture as a joint activity

Some cultural critics of this time (including Oswald Spengler ) saw the end of culture. The majority represented a critical program of idealism and thus tied in with ideas of the 19th century. This program wanted to initiate the reform of philosophical thought: philosophical theories were to be adapted to the needs of people and the scientific demands of the time. The view was passed that culture was a structure of different realms of being which consisted of qualified products of the arts and sciences. The use of these products, it was claimed, gave rise to people of culture.

The events of the war and the preceding and subsequent socio-political changes made this idea no longer universally valid. At the beginning of the 20th century, cultural philosophers began to regard culture as a common task for all people. The changing products and structures of joint action were now regarded as forms of expression of culture. Culture was viewed as a dynamic structure, as an ensemble of interactions that people produce together and that serves the individual to orientate himself in life. The peculiar reciprocal relationship between the individual and the community is culture. Your salary for us only exists in that it (what has been created together) is constantly appropriated anew and thus always created anew. (Ernst Cassirer, The tragedy of culture, 1942) .

The changeover to this functional (positivistic) way of thinking about culture shapes the self-image of cultural philosophy and is reflected in theories that have an innovative effect on cultural studies. A characteristic feature is the critical reflection on cultural phenomena, as it was called for in connection with ideas from the first half of the 20th century after the Second World War (including Arendt , Horkheimer , Marcuse ). 

Sketch of a cultural upheaval

Times of upheaval are of cultural-philosophical or cultural-scientific interest. Cultural philosophers and cultural scientists have repeatedly addressed and examined the phenomena of the period of upheaval, or the 'caesura' of the 19th and 20th centuries until today.

Ubiquitous traditional views

The last third of the 19th century was marked by internal and external political changes. The majority of people thought and felt politically nationalistic. They followed a popular philosophy, which was influenced by variations of Kantian, Hegelian and romantic ideas depending on inclination and denominational ties. 

New perspectives are spreading

New scientific working methods and theories that rejected metaphysics and also questioned the classical world view of physics, such as B. Ernst Mach, became a problem for universities. They questioned the self-evident belief that truths can be found by empirical and metaphysical means. The relativity of research results, which, as many assumed, excluded Kant's transcendental philosophy, became a natural, scientific basis for the natural sciences.

This had consequences in the humanities. While Ranke still believed that world history was moving towards a higher and ultimately harmonious order willed by God, his imitators (epigones) operated in the humanities faculties with a rather secularized concept of power. At the end of the story, the victory of the most capable nations should be in the struggle for survival. 

The cultural philosopher and historian Karl Lamprecht looked for laws of historical development and advocated a concept that came close to that of French and English positivism. The neo-Kantians also indicated a departure from old certainties. Heinrich Rickert, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and Georg Jellinek advocated scientific value relativism. The suspicion grew that knowledge depends on the viewpoint of the observer and that absolute truths elude people.

Marxist ideas pushed through the walls of the university and made intellectual struggle inevitable. Gustav Schmoller, Lujo Brentano and Adolf Wagner were looking for a way between classic economic liberalism and Marxism and met with historians and lawyers for discussion. The challenge posed by Marxism is believed to have fueled the rise of sociology.

What was said was not disseminated until it was reproduced in newspapers, magazines, books and brochures. If the opinions became too liberal, the sanctions of the state authority were available and were mobilized for illiberal purposes.

The First World War

Historians characterize the First World War today as the end of an era that was characterized by the socio-political power and the ideologies associated with it. 

Reactions after the war

Intellectuals associate the attitude towards life and thinking before, during and after the war with terms such as 'Disappearance of familiarity' (Max Weber), 'Crisis of the Spirit' (Paul Valéry), 'God forsaken world' (Georg Lukács), 'Loss of the old world of ideas', 'Fall of the Occident' ( Oswald Spengler ), 'Transcendental homelessness' ( Neo-Kantians ).

Personal things are also noted: Georg Simmel explains that his generation stands on an abyss between yesterday and tomorrow, between metaphysics or idealism and a still unknown philosophy that will create a new person. Paul Valery feels unable to describe the current state of Europe. We have experienced, according to Valery, that our culture is going under: Europe has felt in all of its nerve centers that it no longer recognizes itself, that it has ceased to resemble itself, that it loses consciousness of itself . The ideas before the war have become useless. War veterans refer to the idea of taking up arms as the triumph of fools and warn that dogmatists in every direction pose a constant threat of war. In the first post-war years, Konersmann said of the reactions, a polyphonic crisis rhetoric becomes audible, which in retrospect, in addition to the drastic nature of individual formulations, is surprising."

The radical nature and peculiarity of cultural philosophy can only be understood, continues Konersmann, if one understands them as an intellectual reaction to this shock and as a challenge for philosophy and science.Hochkeppel sees the lamented cultural decline as a rejection of the idea of truth in science.

Cultural theories

Cultural theories corresponded to the prevailing understanding of science in the 19th and 20th centuries. Century that intellectuals - humanities scholars and philosophers - occupied themselves with how the tragedy of culture or  the fall of the west  should be explained, and how people can prepare for such events in the future. Cultural theories were developed which, on the one hand, emphasized the character of decline and, on the other hand, emphasized the chances of a new cultural beginning. They have the character of world views. Concepts of truth had had their day in the face of the cultural crisis. 

Theories of philosophy of life

Some of the publications that sought answers are from authors who are referred to as proponents of the philosophy of life. In contrast to idealism, they replaced spirit and reason with life. Life, they asserted, is the supporting and encompassing principle of culture and individual consciousness. Life is only tangible and evades any explanation through rationalistic thinking. In "Downfall of the Occident", Spengler creates an arationalistic view of the world based on these assumptions, which is an alternative to the reason of the Enlightenment. He exposed himself to the charge of philosophizing irrationally and disqualified himself as a conversation partner for many contemporaries. Spengler projects culture as an organism, in whose metamorphosis or transformation processes take place that fatefully involve the individual.

Simmel (The concept and the tragedy of culture, 1919) starts from individual life in order to illustrate cultural processes and future developments. From his point of view, culture is laid out in the germinal forces of personality and determines within the framework of this ideal plan the cultural characteristics of the individual and the community. Albert Schweitzer, self-taught cultural philosopher, regards culture as a spiritual and moral phenomenon that is based on the 'mystical bond' with all living things. This vital fact characterizes the attitude towards life and, together with Christian ideas, serves a worldview which, for him, should establish a cultural 'total worldview' beyond convictions. (Sabine Pohl, Albert Schweitzers Ethik als Kulturphilosophie, 2014)

Materialistic theories

The end of idealism, determined by cultural philosophy, opened the philosophical discourse for materialistic views on culture. It is necessary to forego solutions that were intended for problems of the past, wrote Antonio Gramsci in his prison notebooks in the early 1930s. He designed a philosophy of culture for the society-changing practice, which should not only be good for intellectuals, but also for the simple people. Truths that have already been discovered, such as those offered by idealism, must be viewed critically, ie consciously, replaced by new solutions and used for social changes. The result of this process could become the future basis for common thinking and acting. People would have to learn by criticizing their everyday understanding to think uniformly and coherently and in this way to give their own actions a conscious direction through philosophizing. For philosophy students he wrote that an introduction to the study of philosophy must summarize the problems.

In 1937 Herbert Marcuse saw the traditional culture of idealism as the successor to philosophizing that was only concerned with itself and spiritual ideas. He stated that idealism had given up the original claim of ancient philosophy to serve practice. In the course of history he lost interest in the material world. A culture ... of the spirit has developed which is essentially different from the actual world. The individual was expected to fully accept the spiritual world by realizing it from within without changing the actual world. Instead of being implemented in practical life - which had been tried unsuccessfully - the reception of the values of this world becomes an act of celebration and elevation. It is obvious that this culture - like any culture - is ephemeral. Her downfall is burdened with pain, grief and suffering. The elimination of the affirmative culture will bring about a new culture, accompanied by individuality and reality.

7.3 Duty-based theories

Duty-based morals establish the moral character of our actions on the concept of obligation. This type of morality is conceivable regardless of any consequences that may result from our actions. For example, according to Kant, one should not lie to avoid murder, because the obligation to tell the truth is absolute and does not tolerate any particular condition.

There are several theories of duty:

Samuel von Pufendorf distinguishes three types of duty:

duties towards God (internal and external devotion);

duties towards oneself (duties towards the soul: for example to develop your talents, and duties towards the body - not to kill yourself, not to harm yourself);

duties towards others (absolute duties: do no harm, etc., and conditional duties: keep one's word, etc.).

rights theory (eg Locke), in which:

rights are natural (for example, to live, to be free, to seek happiness);

they are universal;

they are the same for all;

they are inalienable.

It must be emphasized that all rights call for a duty.

the categorical imperative: this is the Kantian theory of morality. Kant distinguishes several types of imperatives:

the hypothetical imperative tells us that if we want this, we must do this or that;

the categorical imperative only tells us that we must do something, whatever we want or desire.

The theories of duty not only expose the principle or principles that make an action moral, but also strive to resolve the conflicts that result from our duties themselves.

7.4 Christian ethics

The Christian ethics (theological ethics) is one of the basic disciplines of theology . It deals with the reflection of the moral good in the context of Christian theology. According to the older definition, Christian ethics is the science of the Christian rules of life, by the observance of which man is delivered from sin and perfected to the image of God.

(Sermon on the Mount (1877, by Carl Heinrich Bloch) depicts Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in which he commented on the Old Covenant and summarized his teachings. Christians believe that Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant.)

Subdivision of discipline

The theological ethics is assigned in the canon of Christian theology of systematic theology - together with dogmatics, philosophy of religion and fundamental theology. The traditional subject Christian social studies is included in some faculties as part of theological ethics, partly according to a professional understanding, which faces the Christian social studies as a social ethic and applied ethics of a fundamental ethics conceived especially in an individual-ethical way. Sometimes the Christian social studies is led to a hermeneutics of the Christian social doctrine.

Theological ethics includes both the reflection of the moral good from the standpoint of the individual - the so-called individual ethics - as well as the criteria of a just society - the so-called social ethics. The term theological ethics was originally used - in the second half of the 19th century - mainly by Protestant theologians. In Catholic theology, for a long time, it was moral theology, the term for the whole area of theological moral reflection. Since the end of the 19th century, in addition, chairs have been set up for the Christian Social Teaching. Hence, there is still a predominant division of work between individual ethics and social ethics. The term moral theology is then further used in part for the whole of both perspectives, but often also for the individual ethics alone. On the other hand, both disciplines together are often referred to by the term theological ethics, which above all also implies a demarcation from philosophical ethics and also indicates that the earlier counterposition to Protestant ethics is no longer represented. Both major disciplines of theological ethics can be subdivided into numerous sub-disciplines and are often pursued at two different chairs. As far as their cause is concerned, it is often argued that these are not separate subject areas, but two differently accentuated (individuals versus structures).

The theoretical foundations of theological ethics, in which, among other things, the principles and methods of justifying concrete moral judgments and moral validity claims are treated at all, are often referred to as fundamental ethics or fundamental morality, now and then as moral theology or as part of it together with individual ethics and overlaps in the subject area with the moral philosophy. It often becomes the philosophical-theological treatise of theological anthropology (especially in view of the theory of action and freedom) as well as the doctrine of the conscience assumed or connected. In accordance with today's diversity of methods in theological ethics, fundamental ethics in many current concepts is no longer just part of an individual ethic or closely related moral theology.

Partly transversely to the distinction of the individual (conscience) and society (justice, institutions, structures), the subject area is subdivided into subject areas - often called areas of life in an anthropological perspective, whose respective specific responsibilities are also referred to as area ethics, including: (theological) bioethics, medical ethics, business ethics, cultural ethics, sports ethics, media ethics, educational ethics, sexual ethics, political ethics, institutional ethics, etc.

Method

Whether and how the prerequisites for divine revelation are included in the methodological implementation is, like many other questions of the fine determination of method and object, judged differently by different expert representatives.

Following controversies that have been going on since the 1960s, a distinction is made between belief-ethical and autonomous approaches to justifying the moral. The former - and the term moral theology is sometimes used in a specific way - assumes that it is only in the horizon of Christian understanding of self and of the world that a full conception of reason and good is possible. The latter emphasize that an autonomous, universally justifiable argumentation is necessary for the foundation of the good, but that its results are to be integrated into the context of Christian ideas, whereby criticism remains possible on both sides.

As faith ethicists are among other Bernhard Stoeckle, Joseph Ratzinger, Heinz Schürmann, Robert Spaemann or Hans Urs von Balthasar. There is often a strong continuity with traditional positions that assume a natural predisposition of the moral.

Franz Böckle and Alfons Auer are the first representatives of a decidedly autonomous statement of morality. Religious contexts here have the status of a broadening horizon of motivation and meaning, but they are not an argumentative prerequisite for moral judgment. In fact, today only a few theological ethicists pursue the program of a strict ethics of faith.

In line with the broad field of modern approaches to justifying the moral right, diverging research programs are also pursued in today's theological ethics. In metaethics, in fact, predominantly or exclusively, realistic and cognitivist positions are defended, which are at best mitigated, for example, to accommodate reservations to general regulations of concrete conflict situations and to defend moderate relativistic options.

With regard to the alignment of normative ethics were classically deontological (duty-oriented) prefers theories, often supplemented by teleological (goal-oriented) perspectives, often on the basis of strong ontological conditions and embedded in natural law ideas. Today, with the exception of amoralistic positions, individual expert representatives receive almost all contemporary moral philosophical approaches, including deontological, contract theory , discourse theory , transcendental pragmatic, narrative and model-ethical and virtuous ethics, very rarely even younger utilitarian approaches to methods and justifications, as well as, for example, attempts to integrate ideas of critical theory and other schools - often by means of specific modifications.

An integrative methodology of theological ethics have been proposed, inter alia, Werner Schöllgen, Hermann Ringeling, Wolfgang Huber, Wilhelm Korff. What is meant is not only an interdisciplinary interested case by case integration of information, but a universal action-guiding integration theory. Dietmar Mieth, in his program Ethics in the Sciences, assumes somewhat weaker general assumptions, but proposes, with similar intent, a conductive method, which begins with a hermeneutics of anticipation and a knowledge of the pertinent facts, following a rationalization of the alternatives into a consideration of the priorities for the constitution of the correct moral judgments.

7.5 Kantian ethics

(Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (German: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten; 1785; also known as the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals), by Immanuel Kant - Original title page.)

Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (original title: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten) is a work of moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant published in 1785.

The ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: Physics, Ethics and Logic. We distinguish between material knowledge, related to an object: Physics for the laws of Nature; Ethics for the laws of freedom; and formal knowledge, related to understanding and reasoning: Logic, which is thus free from any empirical component. If one tries to abstract oneself from the empirical with regard to physics, one ends up with a metaphysics of nature; for Ethics to a Metaphysics of Mores (Empirical Ethics can be designated as a practical anthropology).

To describe this way a pure moral Philosophy, we obviously base ourselves on the common idea of duty and moral laws. The principle of obligation must not be sought here in the nature of man, nor in the circumstances in which he is placed in this world, but a priori in the only concepts of pure reason. The pure will possible must take precedence over any motive or object of the action.

These Foundations are nothing but the search for the supreme principle of morality.

Shift from the common rational knowledge of morality to philosophical knowledge

Kant states the principle that There is nothing that can without restraint be held for good, if not only a good Will. The result of temperament, qualities, luck, or the necessities of action, can become extremely bad or fatal if it is not governed by good will. Only the human will can be absolutely good. Even if the Good Will does not reach its goal, it remains good in itself.

If the finality of nature is the preservation of being, its well-being, its happiness, instinct, will be a better performer than the reason for achieving it. Reason does not make happy, sometimes is a night to happiness. It has value only because it produces a good will.

Thus we introduce the concept of DUTY. An action according to the duty may be fortuitous, or by immediate inclination, by interested intention, by conformity, or in a natural way. A trader is honest not by duty but because it is his interest. To preserve one's life is a duty, but has no moral price since it is the instinct that drives it first. To assure one's happiness is a duty, but especially an inclination. Duty is implemented in the passages of Scripture where it is ordered to love one's neighbor, even one's enemy: it is not love inclination but a practical and non-pathological love that resides in the will. So is an action that is done by duty.

The value of the action can only lie in the principle of the will.

Duty is the need to perform an action out of respect for the law.

And this law can be stated thus: Act in such a way that you may also want the maxim of your action to become a universal law.

Thus, if one thinks of getting out of a constraint by a promise that one will not be able to hold, or by a lie, it is simple to note that the maxim of this action cannot in any case be universal: promises always disappointed would be worthless.

With this maxim, there is no need for any science or philosophy