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NAME: ANAYO CHIDINMA VERA DEPARTMENT: NURSING LEVEL: 100 COURSE: GST 113 (PHILOSOPHY): CHAPTER 19 ETHICS AND HUMAN CONDUCT IN THE SOCIETY In his famous book politics, Aristotle defined man as “zoon politikon,” which means political beings. This is aimed at portraying human beings as social beings. He portrayed that no man is a Robinson Crusoe (or an island) that is self-sufficient. The fact that everyone needs others in the pursuit of social, economic, political, spiritual goals cannot be over emphasized. One cannot agree less with Aristotle then that “he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because for himself must be either a beast or a god.” However, the rules in a society do not bother strictly on how individuals should relate to one another. The realization of this importance of morals rules to the society has led to the systematic study of what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust called ethics. ETHICS AND ITS GOALS. Ethics is a field of philosophy where the analytical and critical tools of philosophy are focused on human actions. It is a field that seeks to unearth the nature of morality and what the right moral judgement entails. It touches every facet of life where one can point to one human conduct or the other. Ethics is a rational inquiry. It is practiced with the belief that human beings are rational, and that as rational beings they will seek adequate reasons or relevant evidence that will enable them make justifiable decisions concerning their actions in their quest to determine the proper way to behave. The ultimate aim of ethics, is to furnish human beings with standards with which they can make distinction between those “actions that are good and those that are bad, between those that are right and those that are wrong, between those that are acceptable and those that are not acceptable, and between those that are commendable or not commendable”. In other words, ethics prescribes moral norms that human conducts should conform to, and condemns vices which they should run away from. Ethics is instrumental in ensuring social order which is germane for securing the common good. Furthermore, a good knowledge of ethics provides a guide for political leaders, public servants, and professionals regarding how to conduct the affairs of a group of people. In attaining the ultimate goals of ethics, moral philosophers undertake two tasks which are: 1) presenting us with better understanding of concepts employed in moral discourse and; 2) developing theories that people can appeal to it in making moral decisions and which serves as justifications for human conduct. METAETHICS. According to Bodunrin, “the first step in philosophical reasoning is conceptual analysis”. This step allows the philosopher to explicate the concept or idea being discussed, thereby allowing the philosopher to unearth the meaning of his terms and avoid linguistics muddle. In ethics, this aim is undertaken in metaethics. The issues addressed in metaethics, unlike those of normative ethics, do not concern determining the rightness and wrongness of an action, rather they have to know what terms like “right”, “wrong”, “good”, “bad”, “morality”, “moral judgement”, among others mean. Metaethics is also concerned with the meaning of ethical statements. Emotivism, which is a metaethical theory, seeks to influence the attitude, and in turn the conduct, of an individual/group of people. Prescriptivism is another metaethical theory that suggests how moral statements should be understood. Some metaethical theories however, attempt to address issues relating to the origin or justification for moral standards. The aim is to understand what makes an action moral or immoral, right or wrong. Examples of such theories include the divine command theory (depends on what God says), ethical relativism (what the individuals, culture or epoch determines or justifies right or wrong). NORMATIVE ETHICS. The main focus of this division of ethics is on determining “principles that ought to guide human conduct” or “the formulation of moral rules that have direct implications for what human actions, institutions, and ways of life should be like”. In fulfilling this task, moral philosophers have put forward various normative theories recommending what ought to be considered in determining whether an action is right or wrong. The first set of theories is called teleological ethical theories. There is no consensus among proponents of teleological ethical theories as to what qualifies a result as good or bad. For philosophers who subscribe to this view, an action is right if it promotes the greatest amount of over pain; and wrong if it enhances more pain than pleasure. The normative ethical theory called ethical hedonism is an ethical theory that interprets the rightness or wrongness of an action this way. The position of ethical hedonists is that pleasure is the only intrinsic good worth seeking and pain, the only intrinsic bad that should be avoided. Eudaemonism in ethics is used to capture the idea that happiness is the chief good. Ethical egoism recommends that the performer of an action should seek to maximize pleasure or happiness for himself. Countering the stance of this ethical theory is the argument put forward by the proponents of ethical altruism who are of the view that the criterion for determining that which is wrong from that which is right morally has to do with whether the deed promotes the interest of others rather than one’s interest. However, mediating between these two extreme theories is the position of utilitarianism, which holds that an action is morally right if it promotes the greatest number of pleasure or happiness for the greatest number of people. Hence, a major distinction between utilitarianism, ethical egoism and ethical altruism is the scope of the consequence. Utilitarians believe that the good that must be maximized is the overall good, which requires that the actor considers the good of others as well as his own good. Teleological ethical theories have some shortcomings. One is that they require that we foresee the outcome of our actions, which incidentally is what humans are not totally capable of. Some consequences which are foreseen to bring good results sometimes end up producing bad ones and vice versa. In addition, humans are often incapable of foreseeing which action will purely benefit self, or others, or even the majority. Another major failure of consequentialism (or the teleological theory) is that it makes it appear that the end justifies the means. But the problem is that an evil means cannot justify a good end (even if it has a good end, the means cannot be said to be morally good). The inadequacies of consequentialist ethical theories made some philosophers to favor deontological ethical theories. Deontological ethical theories reject the use of the outcome of an action in judging its rightness or wrongness. Generally, deontological ethical theories place important rules, motives, and the nature of the action itself in deciding the rightness or wrongness of an action. Kant’s Moral Theory is an example deontological ethical theories. Immanuel Kant is of the view that the outcome of an action matters less than the will or motive informing an action to be performed. Acting in line with duty, for Kant, is also important in determining the rightness of an action. Duty to him is “the recognition that you are under a moral obligation, an obligation to do what is right”. CONCLUSION The influence that ethics has could be in two dimensions. The first could be through enabling persons to have better understanding of terms, concepts, and statements employed in moral reasoning or moral discourse. The other is that ethics makes available frameworks of action in form of normative theories that can guide human actions and, if adhered to, enable people to act rationally and morally.