Some notes as I read through an ethics textbook.

Descriptive vs Normative

There is a distinction between describing the state of affairs (descriptive) ethics and saying what is right and wrong (normative). For example, descriptive egoism is the observation that it seems like most people act in selfish ways while normative egoism says that people ought to act in self-interested ways as a philosophy.

Also important to note that you shouldn’t fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy. Just because something is the way things are right now doesn’t make it the way things should be. When talking about ethics then, it’s important to note whether you’re describing what the world is like or how the world should be.

Another similar example is in relativism. It’s descriptive to note that cultures around the world have different moral codes, but it’s normative to say that morals being relative to the society in which they’re interpreted is how we should live.

Ethics pokemon types

So now that it’s established we care about normative ethics, just how do we think about whether something is “good” or “bad”? Generally, there are three categories to use: consequentialist, non-consequentialist, and… the ones that don’t quite fit into this framework.

Consequentialist ethical theories are ones that care about the consequences of your actions (philosophers are a clever bunch eh). Your classic utilitarianism where your whether something is “good” is fully decided by the outcomes and the amount of “utility” it produces. In a nutshell, the ends justify the means. On the other hand, we have non-consequentialist or deontological ethical theories where the means are what make something good or bad. Kant is the prototypical example here with his categorical imperatives where whether something is good or bad is if it fits in as a “universal principle”.

In the corner, we have the two oddballs I know about which are virtue ethics and care ethics. Virtue ethics isn’t about what actions you should take, but how one should be. What character values show virtue are the ones that are good. If you act in line with said virtues, then you are “good”. Care ethics is a feminist school of thought that while traditional ethics focuses on the individual, no person is an island. Rather, ethics has to focus on the broader network that someone is embedded in and how they can show care to their community.

Relativism expanded

Interesting thing I’ve learned is that relativism isn’t as idealistic as one would hope. By definition, it’s this notion that what makes something right or wrong is fully dependent on the cultural context surrounding the action. You can’t really say that one culture is better than another then which while appealing to the liberal views I hold, is also problematic for obvious reasons (genocidal regimes). It also doesn’t include tolerance. While it might seem like relativists would be tolerant of other cultures, they also would have to tolerate cultures which don’t tolerate others. In such a way, being a relativist doesn’t rule out thinking that you should rule out other moral codes.

Oh man… utilitarianism (or how many shrimp is my life worth?)

TODO!