Ethics produces moral judgments.
Ethics is a notion that is related to the study of morality and human action. The concept comes from the Greek term ethikos , which means "character." An ethical statement is a moral statement that makes statements and defines what is good , bad, obligatory, permitted, etc. in relation to an action or a decision.
Therefore, when someone applies an ethical sentence to a person, they are making a moral judgment . Ethics, then, studies morality and determines how the members of a society should act. Therefore, it is defined as the science of moral behavior .
It must be clarified that ethics is not coercive , since it does not impose legal punishments (its rules are not laws). Ethics helps the fair application of legal norms in a rule of law, but in itself it is not punitive from a legal point of view, but rather promotes self-regulation based on values .
Branches of ethics
Ethics can be divided into various branches, among which normative ethics stand out (these are the theories studied by moral axiology and deontology , for example) and applied ethics (refers to a specific part of reality, such as bioethics). and the ethics of the professions ).
With respect to normative ethics , we can say that it is the branch that focuses on the study of criteria to understand in which cases an action should be considered correct (as well as the opposite). It is based on the search for general principles that serve to justify systems of rules and determines the reasons why we should adopt some of them.
All of this can be understood with one of the best-known moral principles in history: the golden rule (also called the golden law ), which proposes "treating others as we would like them to treat us." If we use this criterion, it is likely that the actions we take towards our environment are correct, since no one would want to be treated unfairly, although it goes without saying that there are exceptions.
We can recognize, on the other hand, the following fundamental positions for normative ethics: consequentialism , virtue ethics and the aforementioned deontology .
Ethics acts as a guide when making decisions.
Your applications
Applied ethics , for its part, is also known as disciplined ethics , and is the branch that aims to apply the theories of ethics to controversial and well-defined moral issues. There are, in turn, several subdisciplines that focus specifically on these aspects, such as bioethics , which analyzes positions in biology and medicine related to topics such as euthanasia , organ donation, voluntary interruption of pregnancy and animal testing . Medical ethics also addresses these types of issues, but always focused on the practices of medical professionals.
Environmental or environmental ethics, for example, studies the link that exists between people and the environment, generally starting from the following questions: what are our obligations towards the environment and why? Answering the second question is enough to support the answer to the first. This area reflects on the importance of sustainable development and the conservation of ecology from an ethical point of view.
Ethics in communication , meanwhile, examines the role of journalism, considering issues such as propaganda and information manipulation. Ethics in technology , in turn, revolves around data privacy , the scope of artificial intelligence and other topics of interest.
Nepotism and corruption are problems that ethics in politics studies, while workplace harassment and discrimination in labor relations are concerns of ethics at work . If we focus on ethics in sport , notions such as fair play and doping appear.
Ethics, of course, also breaks into people's daily spheres. There is a sexual ethic that can be associated with how intimate interpersonal relationships develop, where the idea of sexual consent comes into play. Food ethics , in turn, can lead a subject to opt for responsible consumption of food products, choosing veganism or vegetarianism to contribute to animal welfare and avoid exploitation.
Ethics defines what is good and what is bad.
Codes of ethics
It should be noted that, in many areas and sectors, there are so-called codes of ethics or deontological codes . These are resources that, based on objective insights, serve as a guide for the development of an activity.
These codes are based on values and norms to regulate the exercise of a profession, being useful when making certain decisions based on ethical principles. If we focus on journalism , to mention a trade or profession, a code of ethics can point out the need to disseminate accurate, truthful information independent of power to act with responsibility and autonomy .
The contributions of different philosophers
Regarding the fundamental authors in the study of ethics, we cannot ignore the British Philippa Foot , the founder of contemporary virtue ethics and dedicated to the criticism of non-cognitivism , a work that inspired many other philosophers of all parts of the world, nor to the German Immanuel Kant , who reflected on how to organize human freedoms and moral limits.
One of the main concepts of Kantianism or Kantianism is the categorical imperative . According to Kant , morality is limited to a central commandment that does not arise from the command of a god, but from reason. This preposition that establishes the rules of right or wrong is the categorical imperative, which is autonomous and does not depend on ideological or religious criteria.
Nor should we stop reading other figures in philosophy who made important steps in the field of ethics, such as Socrates , Plato , Aristotle , Simone Weil , Baruch Spinoza , Thomas Hobbes , Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Carol Gilligan , Jean-Paul Sartre , Ayn Rand , Michel Foucault , Edith Stein , Friedrich Nietzsche , María Zambrano , John Locke and Albert Camus , among many other thinkers.