From: phyllis bergiel (neilfl@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2003 - 23:26:27 BST
Hi all,
Haven't been around for some time, and this will have to be my last post for
some time to come. You all are so interesting, I just end up wanting to
read (and answer) everything. And, since my fall teaching schedule looks
packed, I'd better heed that discretion being the better part of valor quote
and unsubscribe.
But, one last post:
In all my reading of ethics texts, the distinction between ethics and
morality is as follows:
morality refers to the principles and rules of moral conduct
in other words those acts/choices which individuals do or make based upon an
assessment of their rightness/ wrongness
ethics or moral philosophy suggests reflection on the nature and
justification of right actions (an examination of the rules)
in other words, almost all of us are moral in the sense that
we act in consciousness of morals, however, ethics is indeed the
intellectual level of morality since it examines the foundations of that
morality.
Bye, and best to all. It has been enjoyable,
phyllis
Johnny said:
>
> Sam wrote to DMB
> "But ethics I see as level 3..."
>
> I see ethics as level 4, very distinctly level 4. It is a school of
> philosophy, and philosophy is clearly level 4, right? Ethics talks about
> what people ought to do, how they ought to behave, based on intellectual
> principles and beliefs that may or may not have evolved out of how people
> actually tend to behave (but definitely evolved out of isolated,
> extrapolated examples of how people actually behave). It clearly believes
> there is only a correlation between how people actually do behave and how
> they ought to behave ethically, and that ethics influences and is
influenced
> by human behavior.
>
> Level 3 morals aren't necessarily ethical at all. It is moral to drive a
> car, but is it ethical? It is moral to wear Levi's, but is it ethical?
The
> morality of something is imperically measurable (though logistically
> impossible, and the heisenburg principle applies: the act of measuring how
> someone behaves changes their behavior). There always is something
socially
> moral to do in a given situation, though what it is is never exactly clear
> and two people might disagree. The ethics of something is only a matter
of
> opinion, even if everyone agrees.
>
> Anyone have any thoughts on the value of ethics?
>
> I see the Giant at work in the New York Times every Sunday, when they run
> that 'The Ethicist' column. I know what they are up to!
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jun 11 2003 - 23:20:55 BST