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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.
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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.”