Transcript of Lectures in Ethics - 4 Types of Ethics - Jove S Aguas

hello this is job AdWords once again and welcome to my lectures in ethics we are now in our fourth lecture so for this lecture I will be talking about types of ethics right so meta ethicist meaning those who study ethics as a discipline they distinguish two kinds of or two types of ethics the normative ethics and the non normative ethics so we will focus on these two general types of ethics so first the normative type of ethics it determines this kind of ethics determines what moral standards to follow so that our actions may be morally right or good the term normative from the word norms and we have already mentioned norms in our previous lectures in previous discussion and by norms we mean standards or basis so when you say norms these are the prescribed standards it describes what we need to do so that our actions are right or good and it also tells us what are the things that we have to avoid because they are wrong or evil so sometimes you call normative ethics as prescriptive ethics because this kind of ethics prescribes certain norms or standards or rules that we want we must follow so that our actions or behavior our conduct are right or good now there are two kinds of normative ethics the general normative ethics and the applied normative ethics or we just refer to them as general ethics or applied ethics so let's talk of the general normative ethics first a right away the second type of ethics is the non normative okay so non normative because it does not prescribes but rather describes or evaluates our moral attitudes or statements so it's not a prescriptive ethics but a descriptive ethics because it describes how we make more assessments how we make moral judgments or how we make moral assertions or what are our moral assertions okay and there are two types of non normative or descriptive ethics first one is scientific or descriptive and the second is meta ethics I already mentioned met ethics in just a while ago when you say meta ethics that means these are the people or this is a discipline rather that studies antics itself as a discipline we're going to discuss that later on alright so let's now discuss the normative ethics I mentioned there are two general normative ethics and the non and the applied normative ethics so when you say general ethics or general normative ethics it is a recent search for the principles of human conduct meaning it studies the different major theories about what are the things that are good or what are the acts that are right and what are the acts that are evil so a general ethics would prescribe certain norms and it studies what are these norms and of course the norms or the standards of morality will depend on a particular theory right this particular theory so for example Christian ethics is a particular of ethics and Christian ethics prescribes certain norms namely law and conscience so Christian ethics is an example of a general ethics so a general ethics also attempts to determine what moral standards we should follow so that our our actions are morally right or good again let's use the example of Christian ethics it tells us that our actions should conform to the law and it must also conform to a good conscience to our conscience which must be good conscience so it tries to defend a system of basic ethical principles that presumably are valid for everyone all right so it tells us that everybody if you want to be moral you have to follow these principles okay so whether it's be the Christian ethics or Buddhist ethics or confusion ethics it tells us that these are the things that we have to follow or these are the rules that we must follow so that we act morally okay or rightly so there are two broad categories of general normative ethics these are the teleological or consequential ethics and the ontological or non-consequential ethics we will discuss and differentiate these two later on or in our succeeding lectures and discussions right so the second type of normative ethics is the applied ethics okay so insane when you say general ethics is applied generator everybody to everyone all right every to every human action right but when you say apply normative ethics it not talks about how are we going to apply these general norms to specific situation or specific acts or specific moral problems okay so tries to explain justify our position in a particular moral issue all right so the for example how do we apply ethics to capital punishment or how do we apply ethics to our respect for life or respect for the life of the unborn like abortion or how do we apply ethics to discrimination okay so it is an apply apply because now we are trying to apply the general norm to specific or particular situation right so it uses the general ethical principles in the general ethics in an attempt to solve a specific moral problem or apply the ethical principle to particular situation right so here we can see now ethics branching out to the different disciplines like for example we apply ethics to the Health Sciences like my ethics let me apply ethics the environment environmental ethics we apply ethics to the different professions okay like the profession the health profession so we are now talking on professional ethics or we apply ethics now to the practice of law legal ethics or we are now applying ethics to business business ethics so now we go to the different disciplines and apply the ethical principles to these different disciplines right so there is again forensic ethics there is aside from all these ethics types of ethics that I have already mentioned many different applications now of ethics now in your medical course then you're going to take bioethics if you are taking business course then you take up business ethics if you are taking upload then you have legal ethics and so on and so forth so that's applied ethics now let's talk about the non ethics and this is good this rather rather complicated now because now we are not talking of the prescribed norms generally and you know specifically to certain issues we're not talking or we're now talking about how we are going to how we study ethics so it does not tell us how we should apply ethics it tells us how we do ethics okay how Attucks is done so it describes what ethics is that's right it's called non normative business does not give us the norms but it describes the ethics so the first one is the script a per call that scientific ethics so when you say scientific it is or descriptive it is a study of morality which involves the factual investigation of moral behavior so it's a study of moral behavior remember it's not about telling people what they should do right it studied how people do it or why do people do this or why do people say this okay so it is concerned about how people do in fact behave such that it is not tell us that if people should be good they should do this now let's look at the concern of descriptive ethics it simply describes okay so for example in normative ethics no motivators will tell us if you want to be good you have to be just okay so it prescribes justice in a normative in descriptive you can say well people do this because they they have this sense of justice and our sense of justice may be different from one another right okay so that's descriptive ethics at apologies in the zoologist investigate in describe moral attitudes so this is the area of the anthropologist or the sociologist because they are the ones who investigate and describe moral attitudes the moral codes you know the behavior of people gentle etcetera so they are concerned about how moral attitudes in codes differ from one culture to another or from one society to another saya T so they investigate and evaluate describe the behaviors the values of different cultures and different societies but the inter politician will not tell you that o their practice is wrong because it does not follow these norms it should follow the storms now when you do that you're not there no longer and anthropology are now making and more and more obsession and therefore you are not into the area of normative ethics now there are two categories of scientific ethics absolutism and relativism now just a word about this - and when you say absolutism an anthropologist is absolute least when he says that there is a universal moral moral code okay there is a universal moral code common to all the societies all the sculptures when you are a relativist you say well different cultures different codes different societies different moral values so that's it's the relative part okay so absolutely sin and relativism are going to talk about relativism in our succeeding lectures right in the theories now the second type of nun or multiple sex which is rather complicated but this is a very wide area is meta ethics now let me let me explain first what we mean by meta hear the word mentum because that's very crucial to our discussion the word meta could literally mean which could be translated literally as beyond or after okay after beyond so that the beyond could be about right it could be about beyond or it could be far okay now if we are going to use the word meta as something that's Benson something that is on top okay so imagine if you are on top and you apply ethics so when you say meta ethics it is something that is beyond or above ethics and when you say above ethics if you are above then you have a view of what is below and what is below you and things so when you say meta ethics it means that you take a higher perspective so that you can see what is below okay so you can examine what is below and what is being examined in meta ethics ethics itself this study the discipline of ethics itself so when you say meta ethicist these are investigators these are thinkers philosophers emphasis of also who take a higher perspective and try to email a value eight what ethics is doing or what is what ethics is all about so the metathesis is not half after whether an action is right or wrong it's not the concern of the meta entities the metathesis concern is to study how is this discipline at least being studied so how does it be study certain things all right so you can apply this notion of meta to some other things like say when you say meta pragmatics when she met the pragmatics you study how people practice certain things okay so you take a vantage perspective a higher perspective and try this study with this what is below so it is highly technical discipline now because it try to investigates the meaning of for example ethical terms including the the critical study of how ethical statements can be verified when you say ethical statements these are moral assertions like for example I say stealing is bad so how do we analyze this statement stealing is bad or corruption is evil how do we analyze that in a knavish the concern of the meta it exists they study how are this medical or ethical or moral statements should be evaluated or should be analyzed okay so it is taken it is concerned with meaning of terms like right so what do you mean by right or obligation or responsibility or justice or wrong or good so what do you mean by that that is the concern of the meta at exist okay so the method exists because it's a non normative ethics does not propose any moral principle or norms of action it is solely consists of philosophical analysis analyzing the terms analyzing the statements analyzing the behavior analyzing the codes chatter etc okay so again take note that when you say meta you are taking a higher perspective and try to look down below and try to analyze you know these concepts and and codes etcetera etcetera all right now there are three meta article positions the first one is naturalism it maintains that ethical statements any statements read more about basis matically example we say corruption is evil okay it maintains that that statement can be translated into non ethical statements rather will bein an ethical statement these are statements without moral evaluation or assessment it can be interpreted aphasia for example I say corruption is evil okay when I say corruption is evil of course it can be interpreted as a moral statement with means by moral statement it tells us that corruption is evil okay but you can also interpret it as non ethical right how so when I say corruption is evil it could mean that the person does not like corruption okay or that he disapproves corruption so he's not there is a difference between the two because well I can say lying is bad it can it can also mean that well lying is bad means that we should not lie okay so there's a difference between the moral statement and anon more speed and naturalism tells us that we can interpret moral statements as non moral State okay so there are three kinds now of naturalism here so it becomes more complicated because of all this distinction the first one is autobiographical naturalism it simply says that an ethical or moral statement can express the approval or disapproval of the one saying the statement of the speak so when I say healing is bad it means that I don't like healing for some other reasons I don't like healing I'm not saying that healing is wrong as you know something that we shouldn't know but I just don't like it okay so he's not there the person may not be saying may not be King killing as bad he is just saying that he does not like it hey like when you say the food is bad what do you doesn't mean the food is bad well it could mean that he does not like the food it's not that the food is not really bad or it's really bad it's just that he does not like eating the food you see that's the that's the point of naturalism by a lot autobiographical naturalism the second is sociological naturalism an ethical statement simply expresses the approval or disapproval of the majority so when you say autobiographical it talks about the person individual in sociological it talks about the majority okay so again when you say healing is bad the majority the Society for example majority of people say well I don't like killing so when for example Filipino saying well AJ K is bad they may not be making a moral assessment about the evil of killing it's just not we don't like a JK okay again using the food example when for example the classes the menu is bad it really means that the balloon the food the serve is not really good tasting or simply that we don't like it we like some something else see that's the point on sociological I hope you understand okay and then the last one is biological naturalism that an ethical statement simply expresses either approval or disapproval of a divine being or a God for example so when you say killing is bad it simply means that God does not like killing okay so the difference of the is that who makes the statement it could be the person it could be the group or it could be a divine being okay but naturalism simply tells us that smaller statements can be interpreted as a non moralistic okay so when you say uh mhm steel is good well a person can say well I just like people who are honest it's not that he is saying that honesty is really a good act to do but he would like it if people are honest okay now the second type of metrics is NaN naturalism okay so an ethical statement cannot be translated into a non ethical form so when you say non naturalism it is the opposite of naturalism naturalism says a real statement can be translated into ethical form into a non ethical statement naturalism said no that's not that cannot happen it cannot be translated into a non ethical form because some ethical terms can only be defined in terms of other ethical words so for example how do you interpret out it how to translate the word right well when you say right you explain right by using another ethical terms like well right means good oh right means just okay so if the naturalist would say good means liking when they say something is good that means I like it according to the naturalist that it's not that's not possible because when you say good what do you mean by good no good is not liking something good means right so you will need another ethical term to explain an ethical term so when you say a statement like King was right what do you mean by King is right you don't interpret it as he King is right that were right that you like the king man no when you say the king is right that means what he did okay it's good the king was right means what the king did is good okay so you translate the state met the ideal statement by using another ethical term or translated into another ethical statement I hope you have that's clear the difference between the naturalist and then and naturalist okay now this is this is very important because not only in ethics very not only in ethics but even in our conversation because for example when you say your your your your your shirt is good what do you mean by your shirt is good you mean my shirt fits me or it would mean that you like my shirt so you see it's how we try to interpret these these things because even again in our society many government officials are making pronouncement here in there but how do we interpret their pronouncement or statements are we going to interpret them naturally or not naturally right so you see president detente making pronouncements on television already I ATF okay making pronouncements about the quarantine about the pandemic so how do we interpret how we translate their statements it's very important to understand how to interpret statements and of course as I've said that's taking a meta now I met a perspective all right so in this sense they cannot be verified this thorough false that can only be believed that's the unnaturally stout the third one is emotivism or non-cognitive isn't right it claims that ethical statements are usable a predetermined emotive response meaning there is some emotional element okay in our statement emotional there's emotional character in our statement but when we say something it evokes an emotional response okay it evokes in an emotional response from the people who were listen overhear or read our statement so that in some way or another they are compelled to behave in a certain way give you an example one is when somebody says cheating is bad it's not just about to say that cheating is wrong it evokes an emotional response that we should not chip so when when we hear people say killing is evil it's not just about that killing people is evil against the law it also tells us that we should not kill see or when you say corruption is evil it's not just about that corruption is bad or you know and then just are we should not be corrupt or when I say studying is good it's not just about the fact that study is right it also evolves an emotional response but we should study see so that's the point of emotivism right so these different types of ethics tells us a lot about ethics that ethics can be you know can be studied from different perspectives okay so let me repeat there are two types of ethics then normative or prescriptive ethics divided into two give the general ethics and be applied ethics and then we have the normative divided into the scientific ethics and meta ethics okay so I hope that discussion is is clear and hope you understand the discussion now just to enrich our you know our discussion here I will leave you with some discussions on questions for your discussion so just to what do you think because you are in course in your in your career in your course medicine what do you think is the most crucial issue in bioethics this is applied ethics right all right what do you think and we just in general what do you think is the most crucial issue in bioethics and one you know you're not going to resolve the issue but just what do you think is the most resolution in bias in in your would-be career and number two from a medical miracle perspective how should we interpret the saying honesty is the best policy so you can use n men any of the method ethical perspectives that we have just discussed and try to interpret honesty is the best policy right so thank you very much for listening I hope you have learned some thing or two from this discussion thank you very much