We ended yesterday with you completing the personal moral decision guide.
Today we'll discuss these big Ethics questions:
1. What is a good life?
2. What is a good person?
3. What is the right thing to do?
For Socrates and Plato, a good life is one worth living. What makes a life worth living for them was a life of ethical action in a community of family friends and society.
Others have discussed a life of pleasure, wisdom, harmony, virtue, happiness, satisfaction, fulfilment, joy, freedom, truth, love, art, an afterlife, etc.
Others have argued that one must make their own life worthwhile - for example by refusing to participate in the injustices of the world.
The BUDDHIST Answer to these big Questions:
Gautama, founder of Buddhism, discussed the Four Noble Truths of life:
1. Life is suffering
2. Suffering comes from worldly desires
3. Desires can be eliminated
4. Desires can be eliminated by following the Eightfold Path (a good life-style).
The Eightfold Path:
1. Right Understanding
2. Right Thought
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
The over-riding goal of all of this is to be reborn in the next life a little closer to Nirvana, the ultimate goal of having no worldly needs, a state of enlightenment.
This ethic is egalitarian and inclusive and focuses on the individual who is responsible for his/her own actions. Also, living a peaceful existence is a worthwhile virtue and lifestyle helping one reach Nirvana.
The CONFUCIANIST's and TAOIST's Answer:
The good life is a life that searches for peace and enlightenment. This approach differs from Buddhism in that the individual sees him/herself as part of the whole of the community so that individual desires take a back seat to the well-being of family, friends, society.
Like Buddhism this is filled with virtue ethics - the five main virtues are:
1. Kindness
2. Uprightness (righteousness)
3. Decorum (propriety)
4. Wisdom (integrity)
5. Faithfulness to one's self and to others
The HEDONIST's Answer:
Originally this meant pleasures of the body, but since Epicurus (Greek Philosopher) it has meant pleasure of the mind - in particular serenity, achieved by minimizing desires and overcoming fears similar to Buddhist ideals.
Today we use the term Hedonism with a negative connotation as one who is solely interested in seeking pleasurable experiences.
The STOIC's Answer:
Very popular during Greek and Roman times, Stoicism is a lifestyle involving living happily through wisdom rather than pleasure. The universe, they believe, is a well-ordered place and people must find their harmonious place within it by living in harmony with nature. To do so means to have control over emotions and intentions yet remaining indifferent to things that cannot be controlled.
Hence our modern use of the term - to be stoic today generally means to show no emotion.
A Big Question in Ethics is what makes you a Good Person? If your only motives for doing good things is to please God or your parents, or to impress your friends or teachers, does this make you a good person? Well, the behaviour seems to be good behaviour but philosophers differ on whether your motivations for doing good constitute goodness.
VIRTUE ETHICS answers:
Virtue Ethics believe that a "Good Person" is someone who is virtuous, someone who does the right things in life because they have a good moral character rather than someone who does the right things based on the consequences of their actions.
Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, indicates that a life lived through reason is the best life which will lead to happiness. He said that moral virtue is the result of habit and training so that people must be taught to be virtuous. This is important because it means that people must KNOW what the right thing to do is and then they must CHOOSE to do the right thing.
Aquinas (13thC) said that people must use their wisdom / reasoning to know go and thus can achieve virtue or perfection. He and many other religious leaders developed the idea that goodness was a result of obedience to God and His Word. So "right conduct" became more important than "good character" as the mark of a good person.
More recently philosophers have reinvigorated the ideas of virtue as goodness of character, mixed in with good actions. Some of these ideals include:
Fidelity - keeping promises
Reparation - making up for your wrong actions
Gratitude - repaying the favours of others
Justice - working to correct injustices
Beneficence - improving the conditions of others
Self-Improvement - improving your own condition
Non-Maleficence - not hurting others
In fact WD Ross and others would argue that these virtues MUST be followed to be a good person and that ALL of these virtues must be considered in your behaviour.
For example, your friend asks if her prom dress looks fantastic. Rather than saying something truthful such as, "Actually, that dress makes you look like you're on your way to a Halloween Party", which might be your true opinion, you realize that that truth would hurt your friend's feelings. So your duty to be faithful to your friend and to not hurt her (Non-Maleficence) must take precedence over your duty to tell the honest truth. So, of course you say something like, "That's the most beautiful dress ever and I wish I had bought it instead of you!"
Virtue ethics raises many troubling questions - animal rights, human rights, equality, justice - very difficult ideas to define conclusively.
Here is some food for thought to end the class - see how these ideas fit or do not fit with our ideas of Virtue Ethics:
No comments:
Post a Comment