Ethical Perspective

Prof. Kumar Neeraj Sachdev

6168-F
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Philosophical Perspectives

Ethical Perspective Values

Logical Perspective Reasoning
Epistemological Perspective Knowledge
Metaphysical Perspective Reality

Ethical Perspective
An ethical perspective begins in response
to questions such as the following:
How should I live (a good human life)?
Virtues for Good Human Life in Aristotles
ethics
What should I do (in a particular moral
situation)?
Fundamental Moral Principles of Conduct:
Utilitarian or Kantian, for example.

Ethical Perspective of Thinkers

Aristotle Virtues
John Stuart Mill Utility
Immanuel Kant Duty

Aristotle Virtue Ethics

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

Teleological Approach
Telos Purpose or Goal
Goal is good life
Good life is a life of Eudaimonia or
Happiness
Happiness is an activity of the
rational part of the soul in
accordance with virtue. - Aristotle

 Goodness is assessed in terms of function. A good

knife or a good car, for example.
A person is good if he performs his function well as
a person and that depends upon his distinguishing
feature as a person, that is rationality the ability
to use reason and to make important decisions
through the use of reason, instead of instincts,
emotions and the like.
This feature enables humans to pursue highest form
of life, the good life a life of eudaimonia or
happiness.
The good person is one who performs his function,
which is to strive for the good life by exercising his
rationality in accordance with virtue.

 We are to act according to virtues. By doing so, we will be

acting virtuously and will become virtuous ourselves that
is, we will be fulfilling our function as humans, and will thus
acquire good character.
The generous person the person who acts in accordance
with the virtue of generosity is one who has gotten to the
point where being generous is a habit.
A virtuous person judges each sort of thing correctly, and
in each case what is true appears to him. - Aristotle
Virtues are ways of acting, dispositions, or habits. For
example, honesty, fairness, generosity, kindness and
courage.
Doctrine of Mean (Moderation) virtues are habits that are
in the middle of feelings or actions between the two
extremes of deficiency and excess. For example, courage is
a virtue and cowardice and foolhardiness are extremes.

Criticisms
Virtue Ethics is about the character of a
person and not his action (s).
Virtue Ethics is not good at evaluation of
rules or policies.
A person faced with a situation of conflict
in virtues finds it difficult to resolve.

John Stuart Mill Utilitarian

Ethics
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
All human action, Bentham claimed, is
motivated by the desire for pleasure
and the avoidance of pain.
Mill says that actions are right in
proportion as they tend to promote
happiness, wrong as they tend to
promote the reverse of happiness.

 Each person desires his or her own happiness or as a

means or part of this. Therefore, each persons own
happiness is desirable for that person and a rational
end for that person to aim at.
Each persons happiness is a good to that person,
and general happiness therefore a good to the
aggregate of all persons.
Utilitarian morality has a natural basis of sentiment
that is social feelings of mankind the desire to be in
unity with our fellow creatures.
Social state is natural, necessary and habitual.
Humans are unable to conceive a state of total
disregard of other peoples (interests) happiness.
Innumerable experiences of cooperation with others
leads to an identification with the collective interest
rather than individual interest.

 Utilitarian Principle: Maximization of overall

happiness
Maximization the more happiness there is the
better
Overall total happiness the effects of an action on
the happiness of all people must be taken into
consideration.
Efficiency may require to focus only on those people
for whom the act in question would produce some
net change in happiness.
Happiness intended pleasure and avoidance of
pain
Unhappiness pain and privation of pleasure
Higher pleasures intellectuality and creativity
Lower pleasures body pleasures

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig

satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool
satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different
opinion, it is because they only know their own side of
the question. The other party to the comparison knows
both sides.
John Stuart Mill
Utilitarianism, Chapter 1

J S Mill on Calculation of Happiness:

Visit

You
Aunt
Total

-10
+15
+5

An Example
Do not
visit
+8
-20
-12

 Criticisms:

Difficult to measure happiness or predict the future

owing to lack of information
Morally required to engage in never-ending action;
Does not clearly prescribe what is fair and ethical thing
to do (See an example in the box given below)

One
day
Off
each
Sue
Tom

+12
+4

Sue
Gets
Both
Days
Off
+22
-4

Immanuel Kant Deontological

Ethics

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Deontology any position in
ethics which claims that the
rightness or wrongness of
actions depends on whether
they correspond to our duty
or not. The word derives from
the Greek word for duty,

 What makes a person morally good? The intentions

one chooses makes one morally good.
A person is morally good that is performs morally
good actions if he acts from a morally good intention
and an intention is morally good if the motive is duty
itself meaning respect for the moral law.
A morally good person is motivated to do the right
thing just because it is his duty.
Thus acting with a morally good intention is the same
as acting from the motive of duty.
It is not the intention of bringing about happiness that
makes one morally good.
Instead, it is acting with the intention of being dutiful,
of acting from the motive of duty itself, and not from
the misguided motive of bringing about happiness.

 The
moral
law
is
categorical
imperative (unconditional command).
Categorical Imperative:
First formulation: Act only according
to that maxim by which you can at the
same time will that it should become a
universal law.
The basic idea behind the formulation:
The question of what would happen if
everyone acted that way.
Example: Railway Crossing

Second formulation: Act, so that you treat

humanity whether in your own person or in
the person of any other, always as an end
and never merely as a means.
The basic idea behind the formulation:
The notion of persons as ends in
themselves - Kingdom of Ends
Example: Treatment of Older Employees
Appeal to consequences is irrelevant.
Inclinations intuitions, desires, emotions
or any motivation other than respect for
the moral law are to be ignored.

Criticisms
Kantian ethics is an abstract
thought process.
Individual
is
the
judge
separated from attachments of
socio-cultural traditions or ties
of community.
A moral person appears to be
free from intuitions, desires or
emotions.

Thank You.