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YINUSA O. AISHA SOCIAL AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY GST113 ENGAGING THE PRESENT IN THE PRESENT; ISSUES IN CULTURE AND PHILOSOPHY. ASSIGNMENT; ENGAGING THE FUTURE IN THE PAST. INTRODUCTION The conception of man as “zoon politician” which means “political animal” Aristotle portrayed aimed at portraying human being as social beings in his famous book “politics”. The book explains that no man is an island and he is not self – sufficient, everyone needs others in the pursuit of social, political, spiritual and economic goals. “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself must be either a beast or god”. Thomas Hobbes described as a state of nature where live is nasty, brutish, poor and short. Ethics is a rigorous, critical and analytical studies in the society. The realisation of the importance of moral rules to the society has led to the systematic study of what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust could be ethics. WHY ETHICS? Ethics is a field of philosophy where the analytical and critical tools of philosophy are focused on human actors. It is a field that seeks to unearth the nature of morality and what the right moral judgement entails. A definition of ethics conceives it as “an inquiry into the moral worth of human conducts. Ethics is, however, not just any kind of inquiry. Rather it is a rational inquiry. It is a rational inquiry into the grounds of moral conduct which stands in contrast to revelations, special intuition, mystical insight, and other arbitrary means for obtaining answers to moral questions. The ultimate aim of ethics, therefore, 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, between those that are commendable and those that are not commendable.” This ultimate aim shows that the divide that ethics draws between actions categories them into two, namely, the good or the bad; the right or wrong. The good or the right ones are moral, while the bad or wrong ones are immoral. Moral philosophers undertake two tasks which are; 1) Presenting us with better understanding theories that people can appeal to in making moral discourse and 2) Developing theories that people can appeal to in making moral decisions and which serve as justifications for human conduct. The first task falls under the sub- branch of ethics referred to as metaethics while the second task is undertaken under the rubric of normative ethics. METHAETHICS According to Bodurin “the first step in philosophical reasoning is conceptual analysis.” This allows the philosopher to explicate the concept or idea being discussed, thereby allowing the philosopher to unearth the meaning of his terms and avoid linguistic muddle. The issues addresses in metaethic, unlike those of normative ethics, do not concern determining the rightness or wrongness of an action, rather they have to with terms like “ right, wrong, good, bad, morality, moral judgement” among others. For instance, as part of the attempt to clarify what is good, “goodness is a simple, non-native, and indefinable property. This is to shed more light on what the term “good” is. Some metaethical theories however, attempt to address issues to the origin or justification for moral standards. Moral or immoral, right or wrong depends on what God says. If God says an action is wrong, then such an act is immoral and should be avoided; if God says it is right, then such action can be regarded as moral. This is the divine command theory. Another theory, ethical relativism this deals with individual’s culture, or epoch justifies the rightness or wrongness of an action. An action being right or wrong varies from person to person, society to society, and time to time. One is to evaluate the culture of an individual or the time during which the person lived or the belief of the individual. Eventually, Simon Blackburn narrows down the essence of ethics to metaethics by defining it as the study of concepts which is involved in practical reasoning or concepts such as; good, right, duty, obligation, virtue, freedom, etc. NORMATIVE ETHICS This is the sub-branch of ethics that involves determining principles that ought to guide human conduct or formulation of moral rules that have direct implication for what human actions, institution and ways life should be. Theories emphasize the rightness or the wrongness of an action, deontological, ethical theories place an importance on rules, motives and nature of actions itself in deciding the rightness or wrongness of an action. Ethical egoism seeks maximum pleasure or happiness Ethical altruism for others regardless of the consequences of himself The main 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, institution, and ways of life should live”. The first set of theories is called teleological ethical theories. These have in common the emphasis places on consequences of an action in determining its rightness or wrongness. An action is right if it brings about good results and bad when bad results are provided. Philosophers observed that for an action to bring pleasure then it’s good, then when an action brings pain it is bad. 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. Others have used the term happiness for goodness and consequences is bad is wrongness. Telogical theories emphasize that the consequences of an action determines the rightness or the wrongness of an action, dentological, ethical theories place importance on rules, motives and nature of action itself in deciding the rightness or wrongness of an action. Human are most times not capable of foreseeing the outcome of our actions; hence the demarcation is often difficult to draw. Humans are incapable of telling what will benefit them or others It makes it appear that the ends justify the means. As if it does not matter. Moderate deontological ethical theories hold that “consequences do matter, but only as one of the factors relevant in determining the moral rightness of an action, “while extreme deontological ethical theories totally reject the relevance of consequences in determining if an action is morally right or wrong. Immanuel kant is of the view of the view that the outcome of an action matters less than will or motive informing an action to be performed. This is because he believes that “we are responsible for our motives to do good or bad, and thus it is for this that we are held morally accountable.” Duty to him is “the recognition that you are under a moral obligation, an obligation to do what is right.”