11/1/09

World Religions 6th

Classical Ethics in a Modern Context

In light of the irresponsible acts of corporate America which led to the

Recession in 2007-2008, it is necessary to ask: What happened to

ethical philosophy in business, in the world of work, in society, and

even at home? To understand what it means to be ethical it is helpful

to study the Aristotle’s thoughts on virtuous society, the evolution of

that philosophy, Thomas Aquinas’s Natural Law and finally Bentham &

Mill’s Utilitarianism which provides the most modernly relevant

approach to ethics.

Aristotle’s philosophy on life was that everyone should try to

achieve happiness or what he called “the highest good” through the

act of balanced reason (Doctrine of the Mean) and through virtuous

actions. To center his thoughts around one easy to understand

question, Aristotle was trying to answer: what makes a human being a

good person? He determined that all human beings were living to be

happy and to achieve happiness humans must be disciplined in their

balance of desires and rational, along with acting like virtuous people.

To understand what Aristotle is saying it is helpful to look at an

example. Imagine that you are a student at Oakland Mills High School

and there is only one week till your monthly hours for NHS are due.

You have not even started, but, fortunately you see a group of senior
citizens struggling to cross a busy street. At this same moment, you

see a group of your friends across the street waving to you and

smiling. Wanting to impress your friends and possibly get hours for

NHS, you decide to help the senior citizens cross the dangerous street.

You have currently found the “middle road” or balance of your

personal desires (impressing your friends) and what you deem as

rational action (helping those in need) at that particular moment.

However, Aristotle goes even further and states that we must live

virtuously. To reference my prior example, this would be the idea that

to be a virtuous person the NHS student would have to be constantly

partaking in community service activities not simply reading about

what it takes to be a virtuous person in their World Religions textbook.

This approach to ethics is logical at face value, yet, it still is not

completely refined. For example, Aristotle states that the function of

humankind is to achieve happiness but why does there even have to

be a function? And why does this function have to be simply

happiness? A pen can be used to write, to poke at someone, to scratch

ones back, to tap on a table and make music, etc.... So it would be fair

to say that Humans have more than one function as well.

Thomas Aquinas further develops Aristotle’s ethics and creates

what is known as the Natural Law Philosophy. Aquinas further nuances

Aristotle’s ethics into something that is more Christian stating that

there exists a group of Natural Laws (God ordained Laws) that simply
justify what is ethical and non-ethical. Societies and people can be

judged by how well they conform to the Natural Laws of God thus

creating an ethical standard. Additionally, Aquinas differs from Aristotle

because he states that humans are not solely on earth to achieve

happiness but instead humans are here to live, reproduce, learn, keep

an ordered society, and worship God. Aquinas agrees that rational

reasoning must be used to define what good actions are but he also

states that there are apparent goods which stray from Natural Law and

favor human desires. For Aquinas a good action would be engaging in

sexual activity to procreate and an apparent good would be engaging

in sexual activity solely for pleasure (a temporary desire). When

Natural Law is observed from a modern perspective, in a world that

increasingly secular, critiques can easily be made. For example, the

Natural Law theory rests on the assumption that all humans have the

same sense of what is right and wrong. This is too large of an

assumption because often there exists cultural standards (that are not

Roman Catholic standards) which take a completely different approach

to what is ethical. For instance, in a tribal society it may be completely

acceptable to be Polygamous but according to the Natural Law

Philosophy this is not a “worldly standard”. Both Aristotle and Aquinas

present philosophies which have stood as a foundation for ethical

study, yet, in the twenty-first these original philosophies are not the

most pragmatic, instead a philosophy for all people must be applied.

 Utilitarian thought was initially founded by Jeremy Bentham who

stated that the right act was that which would cause "the greatest

good for the greatest number of people. This is very much unlike

Natural law because it encompasses all cultures, people, ways of life,

and even animals. Often in Environmental Science Utilitarian ethics are

used to determine whether an action should or should not be taken.

For example, if there is a nature center going up at the rim of the

Grand Canyon a Utilitarian would want to ask: Who will visit and

benefit from the center? Will animals die because the center destroys

their habitat? Is there someone living on the rim of the Grand Canyon

who would be displaced because of the nature center? A Utilitarian

would calculate what group of people would benefit the greatest from

the nature and who would be hurt the most. If the benefit was higher

than the hurt than a new nature center would be built along the rim of

the Grand Canyon. The Utilitarian approach is very modernly relevant

because it is secular and pragmatic (unless you’re the minority in the

situation, the one with the least utility). The world is never absolute in

its decisions on what is right and wrong but Utilitarian thought very

successfully establishes a formula for how we can make decisions for

the greater good. And in a world that looks for immediate results,

immediate judgments and for a scale to measure morality, Utilitarian

ethics comes through as a standard.

By studying great thinkers such as Aristotle and Aquinas along

with their respective ethical philosophies virtually anyone can follow

the evolution of the foundation of ethical thought. Yet, often it is the

most developed ethical philosophy which seems the most relevant in a

modern context. Bentham’s and Mill’s approach to Utilitarian thought

provides the closest thing to an absolute answer that ethic studies can

offer. In addition, this all encompassing study of morality and ethics

spans across cultures, governments, people, animals, and various

situations, providing much needed answers and making it the most

relevant approach to ethics today.