Ethics seems very simple to apply. It just requires that people follow the rules and do their duty.
Right? Seems easy!
But are ethics a set of universal things we all agree on?
Are ethics not often based on what we were taught, in the first place by our parents and afterwards by other people that educate us?
To behave ethically is very often based upon what we personally feel is right or wrong.
What is right or wrong? What is ethical? What are standards?
When are you driving too fast to your own standards? Do you base yourselves on the boards beside the highway, or does it depend on the situation?
At what age do you leave your children alone at home ? In this example we cannot base ourselves on a law. So I guess it depends on how responsible your child is.
Is a beautiful lady by default white, young, blond, with big blue eyes and long legs, size 36?
This approach tends to fit well with our natural intuition about what is or isn’t ethical. Is Deontology the same as ethics?
Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. Deontology is often associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions follow universal moral laws, such as “Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.”
Some of the main questions that Kant’s ethics focuses on are questions of right and wrong: What makes an action right or wrong? Which actions are we required by morality to perform? Do consequences matter? Is it ever permissible to do something morally wrong in order to achieve good consequences? Is it important to do actions with good intentions? And what are good intentions?
What I found online is that some of Kant’s answers to some of these questions are complex, but as we will see, he doesn’t think that consequences matter and thus good consequences cannot justify wrong actions. He also thinks that intentions are important to the ethical evaluation of actions.
So I wonder, would it be ethically correct to reward myself with a glass of champagne after 9 days of detox ? Happy weekend.
