Ethics - Uses of ethics?
Ethics needs to provide answers. If ethical theories are to be useful in
practice, they need to affect the way human beings behave. Some philosophers think that ethics does
do this. They argue that if a person realises that it would be morally good to
do something then it would be irrational for that person not to do it. But human beings often behave
irrationally - they follow their 'gut instinct' even when their head suggests a
different course of action.
However, ethics does provide good tools
for thinking about moral issues.
Ethics
can provide a moral map
Most moral issues get us pretty worked
up - think of abortion and euthanasia for starters. Because these are such emotional
issues we often let our hearts do the arguing while our brains just go with the
flow.
But there's another way of tackling
these issues, and that's where philosophers can come in - they offer us ethical
rules and principles that enable us to take a cooler view of moral problems.
So ethics provides us with a moral map,
a framework that we can use to find our way through difficult issues.
Ethics
can pinpoint a disagreement
Using the framework of ethics, two
people who are arguing a moral issue can often find that what they disagree
about is just one particular part of the issue, and that they broadly agree on
everything else.
That can take a lot of heat out of the
argument, and sometimes even hint at a way for them to resolve their problem.
But sometimes ethics doesn't provide
people with the sort of help that they really want.
Ethics
doesn't give right answers
Ethics doesn't always show the right
answer to moral problems.
Indeed more and more people think that
for many ethical issues there isn't a single right answer - just a set of
principles that can be applied to particular cases to give those involved some
clear choices.
Some philosophers go further and say
that all ethics can do is eliminate confusion and clarify the issues. After
that it's up to each individual to come to their own conclusions.
Ethics
can give several answers
Many people want there to be a single
right answer to ethical questions. They find moral ambiguity hard to live with
because they genuinely want to do the 'right' thing, and even if they can't
work out what that right thing is, they like the idea that 'somewhere' there is
one right answer.
But often there isn't one right answer
- there may be several right answers, or just some least worst answers - and
the individual must choose between them.
For
others moral ambiguity is difficult because it forces them to take
responsibility for their own choices and actions, rather than falling back on
convenient rules and customs.
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