Archive for November 11th, 2010

Morality: An Introduction to Ethics   no comments

Posted at 3:40 pm in Uncategorized

Moral Philosophy is the philosophic study of moral values and rules. Here, Moral philosophy is addressed through meta-ethical questions about the nature of moral judgement that  addresses metaphysics, semantics, epistemology, and psychology of morality (Chingosho, 2006) .  According to Garner and Rosen (1967) there are three different types of Meta-ethical problems: what is the meaning of moral terms or judgments? What is the nature of moral judgments? How may moral judgments be supported or defended? Consequently, Williams tries to address these underpinning arguments of defining what is good, bad, right and wrong. 

However, one problematic notion to Moral Philosophy, Is whether everyone can be moral? Imagine people that oppose morality. Mr X for example, an individual in despair and hopelessness. Why should I do anything?  Why should I care if my life is meaningless? A man that may not be persuaded. As society we could help him, give him some reason to care about something, or argue a point of view, but is reasoning going to make him?  He is to many moralists a real challenge to moral reasoning.

There are many other important areas that Williams addresses, such as Subjectivism, Relativism and Utilitarianism. As with Subjectivism there can be no objective moral judgement. For example, a man’s moral judgement is a mere state of ones own attitudes. Moral judgements, therefore, cannot be determined as true and so is inevitably subjective towards individual opinion. In regards to Relativism, what I found interesting was determining moral outlooks between two societies, because moral truth is defined by a collective view of values and beliefs shaped by society. Subsequently, people from different societies will inevitably have differing perceived “Moral Truths”; it is a rationale of how one should not criticise the values from another society. In regards to Utilitarianism, it  holds that there is just one moral principle, which is to seek the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Despite the lack of agreement about how the term is used. It addresses happiness as the one intrinsically good thing. It is thus a form of Consequentialism, which is interested in the idea of what one does has consequences.

Written by cmh206 on November 11th, 2010