MODULE 1

1.1 Introduction to Ethical Philosophy: Definition, Nature, Scope and Branches.

As used originally by the ancient Greeks, the term "philosophy" meant the pursuit of knowledge for
its own sake, and comprised ALL areas of speculative thought, including the arts, sciences and
religion.
At its simplest, philosophy (from the Greek or phílosophía, meaning ‘the love of wisdom’) is the
study of knowledge, or "thinking about thinking", although the breadth of what it covers is perhaps
best illustrated by other alternative definitions:
 the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things
exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge
(epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic) (Wikipedia)
 The American Heritage Dictionary states it profoundly that Philosophy is the investigation of
the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning
rather than empirical methods.
 It is seen as the study of the ultimate nature of existence, reality, knowledge and goodness, as
discoverable by human reasoning (Penguin English Dictionary),
 It is the basis for the search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and
his behavior and beliefs (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary),
 It states the rational and critical inquiry into basic principles (Microsoft Encarta
Encyclopedia)
To summarize with various definition across literature, Philosophy is
 a study of the most general and abstract features of the world and categories with which we
think. This include: mind, matter, reason, proof, truth, and other related areas.
 It is careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for human
knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct within specified parameters.
Nature of Philosophy
Based on the definitions, the beliefs, and the practices, the dispositions of philosophy are discussed
herewith.
 Philosophy is a set of views or beliefs about life and the universe, which are often held
uncritically.
1. We refer to this meaning as the informal sense of philosophy or “having” a philosophy.
Usually when a person says “my philosophy is,” he or she is referring to an informal personal
attitude to whatever topic is being discussed.
 Philosophy is a process of reflecting on and criticizing our most deeply held conceptions and
beliefs.
1. The two senses of philosophy— “having” and “doing”— cannot be treated entirely
independent of each other. This is because, if we do not have a philosophy in the formal,
personal sense, then we could not do a philosophy in the critical, reflective sense.
2. Having a philosophy, however, is not sufficient for doing philosophy. A genuine philosophical
attitude is searching and critical; it is open-minded and tolerant, willing to look at all sides of
an issue without prejudice.
 3. To philosophize is not merely to read and know philosophy; there are skills of argumentation
to be mastered, techniques of analysis to be employed, and a body of material to be
appropriated such that we become able to think philosophically. Philosophers are reflective
and critical.
 Philosophy is a rational attempt to look at the world as a whole.
1. Philosophy seeks to combine the conclusions of the various sciences and human experience
into some kind of consistent worldview.
2. Philosophers wish to see life, not with the specialized slant of the scientist or the
businessperson or the artist, but with the overall view of someone cognizant of life as a
totality.
 Philosophy is the logical analysis of language and the clarification of the meaning of words
and concepts. .
1. Certainly, this is one function of philosophy where in nearly all philosophers have used
methods of analysis and have sought to clarify the meaning of terms and the use of language.
2. Some philosophers see this as the main task of philosophy, and a few claim this is the only
legitimate function of philosophy.
 Philosophy is a group of perennial problems that interest people and for which philosophers
always have sought answers.
1. Philosophy presses its inquiry into the deepest problems of human existence. Some of the
philosophical questions raised in the past have been answered in a manner satisfactory to the
majority of philosophers.
2. Many questions, however, have been answered only tentatively, and many problems remain
unsolved.
3. “What is truth?”
4. “What is the distinction between right and wrong?”
5. What is life and why am I here?
6. Why is there anything at all?
Few important aspects of Philosophy
Let us see few important aspects related to Philosophy, which will enhance our understanding of
philosophy.
 Philosophical questions (unlike those of the sciences) are usually foundational and abstract in
nature. Philosophy is done primarily through reflection and does not tend to rely
on experiment, although the methods used to study it may be analogous to those used in the
study of the natural sciences.
 In common usage, it sometimes carries the sense of unproductive or frivolous musings, but
over the centuries it has produced some of the most important original thought, and its
contribution to politics, sociology, mathematics, science and literature has been inestimable.
Although the study of philosophy may not yield "the meaning of life, the universe, and
everything", many philosophers believe that it is important that each of us examine such
questions because an unexamined life is not worth living.
 It also provides a good way of learning to think more clearly about a wide range of issues, and
its methods of analyzing arguments can be useful in a variety of situations in other areas of
life. Philosophy augments cognitive learning and plays very vital role in exploring self and
the allied systems that may impact us and the society at large.
  Philosophy is such a huge subject that it is difficult to know how to break it down into
manageable and logical sections. Perhaps the most basic overall split at the highest level
is geographical, between Eastern Philosophy and Western Philosophy (with, arguably, African
Philosophy as a possible third branch at this level).
 There are 4 common ways in which Philosophy can be usefully broken down or organized:
 By Branch / Doctrine
 By Historical Period
 By Movement / School
 By Individual Philosophers
Branches of philosophy
Time and again we keep asking the questions to self , the establishments, systems, and society on
what is right and what is wrong, on our own existence, the way we work, the regulations specified by
the systems, the values in roped by the socieities, and so on. All these Philosophical questions can be
grouped into various branches.
These groupings allow philosophers to focus on a set of similar topics and interact with other thinkers
who are interested in the same questions.
These divisions are neither exhaustive, nor mutually exclusive. Furthermore, these philosophical
inquiries sometimes overlap with each other and with other inquiries such as science, religion or
mathematics.
1. Aesthetics
Aesthetics is the "critical reflection on art, culture and nature." It addresses the nature of art, beauty
and taste, enjoyment, emotional values, perception and the creation and appreciation of beauty.
It is more precisely defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called
judgments of sentiment and taste. Its major divisions are art theory, literary theory, film theory and
music theory. An example from art theory is to discern the set of principles underlying the work of a
particular artist or artistic movement such as the Cubist aesthetic.
2. Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, studies what constitutes good and bad conduct, right and
wrong values, and good and evil.
Its primary investigations include how to live a good life and identifying standards of morality.
It also includes investigating whether or not there is a best way to live or a universal moral standard,
and if so, how we come to learn about it.
The main branches of ethics are normative ethics, meta-ethics and applied ethics.
The three main views in ethics about what constitute moral actions are:
Consequentialism, which judges actions based on their consequences. One such view is utilitarianism,
which judges actions based on the net happiness (or pleasure) and/or lack of suffering (or pain) that
they produce.
Deontology, which judges actions based on whether or not they are in accordance with one's moral
duty. In the standard form defended by Immanuel Kant, deontology is concerned with whether or not
a choice respects the moral agency of other people, regardless of its consequences.
Virtue ethics, which judges actions based on the moral character of the agent who performs them and
whether they conform to what an ideally virtuous agent would do.
3. Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge.
This is very important branch especially in today’s reference as we are living in the knowledge
economy.
Epistemologists examine putative sources of knowledge, including perceptual experience, reason,
memory, and testimony. They also investigate questions about the nature of truth, belief, justification,
and rationality.
There are three central questions in this field:
 What are the sources of knowledge? Where does genuine knowledge come from or how do
we know? This is the question of origins.
 What is the nature of knowledge? Is there a real world outside the mind, and if so can we
know it? This is the question of appearance versus reality.
 Is our knowledge valid? How do we distinguish truth from error? This is the question of the
tests of truth, of verification.
This is very important. We as humans have biased approach with the knowledge we possess. We
generally tend to understand that the version of our knowledge is the only correct version and we does
debate or critically analyse our intellectual possession. This turns hazardous and the outcome of
application of this knowledge result in utter failure.
Traditionally, most of those who have offered answers to these questions can be placed in one of two
schools of thought—rationalism or empiricism.
 The rationalists hold that human reason alone can discover the basic principles of the
universe. Humans are at the centre everything else revolves around humans.
 The empiricists claim that all knowledge is ultimately derived from sense experience and,
thus, that our knowledge is limited to what can be experienced.
Our conception of reality depends on our understanding of what can be known. Conversely, our
theory of knowledge depends on our understanding of ourselves in relation to the whole of reality.
4. Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, such as existence, time, objects and
their properties, wholes and their parts, events, processes and causation and the relationship between
mind and body.
Metaphysics includes cosmology, the study of the world in its entirety and ontology, the study of
being.
As Metaphysics deals with the topic of identity and the relationship of mind and body, a major point
of debate comes from realism, which holds that there are entities that exist independently of their
mental perception and idealism, wherein Metaphysics holds that reality is mentally constructed or
otherwise immaterial.
Metaphysics deals with the topic of identity. Essence is the set of attributes that make an object what it
fundamentally is and without which it loses its identity while accident is a property that the object has,
without which the object can still retain its identity. Particulars are objects that are said to exist in
space and time, as opposed to abstract objects, such as numbers, and universals, which are properties
held by multiple particulars, such as redness or a gender. The type of existence, if any, of universals
and abstract objects is an issue of debate.
5. Logic
Coming to the next point, Logic is the study of reasoning and argument.
Deductive reasoning is when, given certain premises, conclusions are unavoidably implied. Rules of
inference are used to infer conclusions such as, modus ponens, where given “A” and “If A then B”,
then “B” must be concluded.
Because sound reasoning is an essential element of all sciences, social sciences and humanities
disciplines, logic became a formal science. Sub-fields include mathematical logic, philosophical logic,
Modal logic, computational logic and non-classical logics are practices in the world.
A major question in the philosophy of mathematics is whether mathematical entities are objective and
discovered, called mathematical realism, or invented, called mathematical antirealism.
6. Mind and language
Philosophy of language explores the nature, origins, and use of language.
Philosophy of mind explores the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body, as typified by
disputes between materialism and dualism.
In recent years, this branch has become related to cognitive science.
7. Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science explores the foundations, methods, history, implications and purpose of
science.
Many of its subdivisions correspond to specific branches of science. For example, philosophy of
biology deals specifically with the metaphysical, epistemological and ethical issues in the biomedical
and life sciences.
8. Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of government and the relationship of individuals (or families and
clans) to communities including the state.
It includes questions about justice, law, property and the rights and obligations of the citizen.
Political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics are traditionally linked subjects, under the general heading
of value theory as they involve a normative or evaluative aspect.
9. Philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion deals with questions that involve religion and religious ideas from a
philosophically neutral perspective (as opposed to theology which begins from religious convictions).
Traditionally, religious questions were not seen as a separate field from philosophy, the idea of a
separate field only arose in the 19th century.
Issues include the existence of God, the relationship between reason and faith, questions of religious
epistemology, the relationship between religion and science, how to interpret religious experiences,
questions about the possibility of an afterlife, the problem of religious language and the existence of
souls and responses to religious pluralism and diversity.
The debate on atheist, an agnostic, a deist, and a deity will fall in this category.
An atheist does not believe in a god or divine being. An agnostic neither believes nor disbelieves in a
god or religious doctrine. A deist believes in God, but believes that while God created the universe,
natural laws determine how the universe plays out. All have their own belief and their justification are
their philosophy of religions.
10. Meta-philosophy
Meta-philosophy explores the aims, boundaries and methods of philosophy itself. The term Meta
It is debated as to whether Meta-philosophy is a subject that comes prior to philosophy or whether it is
inherently part of philosophy.
1.2 Basic Theories (Deontology, Utilitarianism, Virtue Theory, Rights Theory, Casuist Theory)
Deontology - It is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. It is an approach to
ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as opposed to the rightness or
wrongness of the consequences of those actions. It argues that decisions should be made considering
the factors of one's duties and other's rights. The Greek deon means an obligation or duty).
Deontology is often associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions
follow universal moral laws, such as “Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.” Deontology is simple to
apply. It just requires that people follow the rules and do their duty. This approach tends to fit well
with our natural intuition about what is or isn’t ethical. Unlike consequentialism, which judges actions
by their results, deontology doesn’t require weighing the costs and benefits of a situation. This avoids
subjectivity and uncertainty because you only have to follow set rules.
Despite its strengths, rigidly following deontology can produce results that many people find
unacceptable. For example, suppose you’re a software engineer and learn that a nuclear missile is
about to launch that might start a war. You can hack the network and cancel the launch, but it’s against
your professional code of ethics to break into any software system without permission. And, it’s a
form of lying and cheating. Deontology advises not to violate this rule. However, in letting the missile
launch, thousands of people will die. So, following the rules makes deontology easy to apply. But it
also means disregarding the possible consequences of our actions when determining what is right and
what is wrong.
Utilitarianism - Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on
outcomes. It is a form of consequentialism. Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one
that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. It is the only moral framework that can be
used to justify military force or war. It is also the most common approach to moral reasoning used in
business because of the way in which it accounts for costs and benefits.
Utilitarianism also has trouble accounting for values such as justice and individual rights. For
example, assume a hospital has four people whose lives depend upon receiving organ transplants: a
heart, lungs, a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy person wanders into the hospital, his organs could be
harvested to save four lives at the expense of one life. This would arguably produce the greatest good
for the greatest number. But few would consider it an acceptable course of action, let alone the most
ethical one. So, although utilitarianism is arguably the most reason-based approach to determining
right and wrong, it has obvious limitations.
Virtue Ethics - It is a philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient Greeks. It is the quest to
understand and live a life of moral character. This character-based approach to morality assumes that
we acquire virtue through practice. By practicing being honest, brave, just, generous, and so on, a
person develops an honorable and moral character. According to Aristotle, by honing virtuous habits,
people will likely make the right choice when faced with ethical challenges.
Theory of rights – The Rights Approach focuses on respect for human dignity. This approach holds
that our dignity is based on our ability to choose freely how we live our lives, and that we have a
moral right to respect for our choices as free, equal, and rational people, and a moral duty to respect
others in the same way.
Some of these rights are articulated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights such as life, and
freedom, which include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, property ownership, and contractual
agreements to name few. Other rights might include the right to privacy, to be informed truthfully on
matters that affect our choices, and right to health, that is, to be safe from harm and injury, and similar
other rights.
This approach asks us to identify the legitimate rights of ourselves and others, in a given situation, as
well as our duties and obligations. Consider how well the moral, legal, and contractual rights of
everyone are respected and or protected by the action, and assess how well those affected are treated.
As such, the ethical action would be the one we have a moral obligation to perform, that does not
infringe on the rights of others.
Casuist Theory – Casuistry, in ethics, is a case-based method of reasoning. It is particularly
employed in field specific branches of professional ethics such as business ethics and bioethics.
Casuistry typically uses general principles in reasoning analogically from clear-cut cases, called
paradigms, to vexing cases. Similar cases are treated similarly. In this way, casuistry resembles legal
reasoning. Casuistry may also use authoritative writings relevant to a particular case.
Practitioners in various fields value casuistry as an orderly, yet flexible way to think about real-life
ethical problems. Casuistry can be particularly useful when values or rules conflict. For example,
what should be done when a business executive’s duty to meet a client’s expectations collides with a
professional duty to protect the public?
Casuistry also helps clarify cases in which novel or complex circumstances make the application of
rules unclear. Should email receive the same privacy protection as regular mail? If someone develops
an idea while working for one employer, is it ethical to use that idea to help a subsequent employer?
Casuistry seeks both to illuminate the meaning, and moral significance of the details in such cases,
and to discern workable solutions. Some practitioners classify casuistry as a subset of applied ethics,
or practical ethics. It is considered as the branch of ethics that is concerned with the application of
moral norms to practical problems. Others restrict the term applied ethics to deductive reasoning from
principles to cases. Accordingly, the philosophers view casuistry as an alternative to applied ethics.
1.3 Morals, Values and Ethics
What is Ethics?
Invariably, the first question that arises is What is Ethics?
The term ethics may refer to the philosophical study of
1. The concepts of moral right and wrong and moral good and bad, to any philosophical theory,
and
2. Any system or code of moral rules, principles, or values.
The last may be associated with particular religions, cultures, professions, or virtually any other group
that is at least partly characterized by its moral outlook.
The second question that comes to the mind is Why does Ethics Matter?
Ethics matters because:
1. it acts as the basis for the individuals and groups to define themselves and thus build the
identity of their own or the individual members,
2. because values in most ethical systems reflect and foster close human relationships and
mutual respect and trust, and
3. it could be “rational” for a self-interested person to be moral, because his or her self-interest is
arguably best served in the long run by reciprocating the moral behaviour of others.
This is supported by various ethical and philosophical theories.
The Origin of Ethics
When did ethics begin and how did it originate?
If one has in mind ethics proper—i.e., the systematic study of what is morally right and wrong—it is
clear that ethics could have come into existence only when human beings started to reflect on the best
way to live.
This reflective stage emerged long after human societies had developed some kind of morality,
usually in the form of customary standards of right and wrong conduct.
The process of reflection tended to arise from such customs, even if in the end it may have found
them wanting. Accordingly, ethics began with the introduction of the first moral codes.
Virtually every human society has some form of myth to explain the origin of morality. In the Louvre
in Paris there is a black Babylonian column with a relief showing the sun god Shamash presenting the
code of laws to Hammurabi (died c. 1750 BCE), known as the Code of Hammurabi. The Hebrew
Bible (Old Testament) account of God’s giving the Ten Commandments to Moses (flourished 14th–
13th century BCE) on Mount Sinai might be considered another example. In the dialogue Protagoras
by Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE), there is an avowedly mythical account of how Zeus took pity on
the hapless humans, who were physically no match for the other beasts. To make up for these
deficiencies, Zeus gave humans a moral sense and the capacity for law and justice, so that they could
live in larger communities and cooperate with one another. The concepts of Bhagwat Geeta, where
Lord Krishna guided Arjun towards building a better society even on the cost of loosing ill-minded
peer relatives, is an EPIC that acts as a testimonial of what is right and what is wrong in the civic
society. Same is with Ramayana.
That morality should be invested with all the mystery and power of divine origin is not surprising.
Nothing else could provide such strong reasons for accepting the moral law. By attributing a divine
origin to morality, the priesthood became its interpreter and guardian and thereby secured for itself a
power that it would not readily relinquish. This link between morality and religion has been so firmly
forged that it is still sometimes asserted that there can be no morality without religion. According to
this view, ethics is not an independent field of study but rather a branch of theology (see moral
theology).
There is some difficulty, already known to Plato, with the view that morality was created by a divine
power. In his dialogue Euthyphro, Plato considered the suggestion that it is divine approval that
makes an action good. Plato pointed out that, if this were the case, one could not say that the gods
approve of such actions because they are good. Why then do they approve of them? Is their approval
entirely arbitrary? Plato considered this impossible and so held that there must be some standards of
right or wrong that are independent of the likes and dislikes of the gods. Modern philosophers have
generally accepted Plato’s argument, because the alternative implies that if, for example, the gods had
happened to approve of torturing children and to disapprove of helping one’s neighbours, then torture
would have been good and neighbourliness bad.
Problems of divine origin
A modern theist (see theism) might say that, since God is good, God could not possibly approve of
torturing children nor disapprove of helping neighbours. In saying this, however, the theist would
have tacitly admitted that there is a standard of goodness that is independent of God. Without an
independent standard, it would be pointless to say that God is good; this could mean only that God is
approved of by God. It seems therefore that, even for those who believe in the existence of God, it is
impossible to give a satisfactory account of the origin of morality in terms of divine creation. A
different account is needed.
There are other possible connections between religion and morality. It has been said that, even if
standards of good and evil exist independently of God or the gods, divine revelation is the only
reliable means of finding out what these standards are. An obvious problem with this view is that
those who receive divine revelations, or who consider themselves qualified to interpret them, do not
always agree on what is good and what is evil. Without an accepted criterion for the authenticity of a
revelation or an interpretation, people are no better off, so far as reaching moral agreement is
concerned, than they would be if they were to decide on good and evil themselves, with no assistance
from religion.
Traditionally, a more important link between religion and ethics was that religious teachings were
thought to provide a reason for doing what is right. In its crudest form, the reason was that those who
obey the moral law will be rewarded by an eternity of bliss while everyone else roasts in hell. In more
sophisticated versions, the motivation provided by religion was more inspirational and less blatantly
self-interested. Whether in its crude or its sophisticated version, or something in between, religion
does provide an answer to one of the great questions of ethics: “Why should I be moral?” (See below
Ethics and reasons for action.) As will be seen in the course of this article, however, the answer
provided by religion is not the only one available.
Moral Philosophy
The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending
concepts of right and wrong behavior.
Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into given general subject areas:
Meta-ethics - Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean.
Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual
emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of
God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.

Meta Ethics is concerned primarily with the meaning of ethical judgments, and seeks to understand
the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments, and how they may be supported
or defended. A meta ethical theory, unlike a normative ethical theory, does not attempt to evaluate
specific choices as being better, worse, good, bad or evil. Rather it tries to define the essential
meaning and nature of the problem being discussed. It concerns itself with second order questions,
specifically the semantics, epistemology and ontology of ethics. The major meta ethical views are
commonly divided into two camps: Moral Realism and Moral Anti Realism.
o Moral Realism – Also called Moral Objectivism, holds that there are objective moral
values, so that evaluative statements are essentially factual claims, which are either
true or false, and that their truth or falsity are independent of our beliefs, feelings, or
other attitudes, towards the things being evaluated. It is a cognitivist view since it
holds that ethical sentences express valid propositions, and are therefore truth apt.
o Moral Anti-Realism – It holds that there are no objective moral values, and comes in
one of three forms, depending on whether:
o Ethical statements are believed to be subjective claims supporting Ethical Subjectivism,
o Not genuine claims at all, which is called Non Cognitivism, Or,
o Mistaken objective claims which is termed as Moral Nihilism, or Moral Scepticism.
2. Normative ethics –
Normative Ethics, or Prescriptive Ethics, is the branch of ethics concerned with establishing, how
things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are
right or wrong. It attempts to develop a set of rules governing human conduct, or a set of norms for
action.
Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate
right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the
duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others.
Normative ethical theories are usually split into three main categories, namely Consequentialism,
Deontology, and Virtue Ethics.
 Consequentialism - Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not
something is right by what its consequences are. For instance, most people would agree that
lying is wrong. But if telling a lie would help save a person’s life, consequentialism says it’s
the right thing to do. Two examples of consequentialism are. Utilitarianism, and, Hedonism.
o Utilitarianism - Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on
outcomes. It is a form of consequentialism. Utilitarianism holds that the most ethical choice is the one
that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. It is the only moral framework that can be
used to justify military force or war. It is also the most common approach to moral reasoning used in
business because of the way in which it accounts for costs and benefits.
Utilitarianism also has trouble accounting for values such as justice and individual rights. For
example, assume a hospital has four people whose lives depend upon receiving organ transplants: a
heart, lungs, a kidney, and a liver. If a healthy person wanders into the hospital, his organs could be
harvested to save four lives at the expense of one life. This would arguably produce the greatest good
for the greatest number. But few would consider it an acceptable course of action, let alone the most
ethical one. So, although utilitarianism is arguably the most reason-based approach to determining
right and wrong, it has obvious limitations.
o Hedonism - Hedonism is the belief that pleasure, or the absence of pain, is the most important
principle in determining the morality of a potential course of action. Pleasure can be things like
“party, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll,” but it can also include any intrinsically valuable experience like
reading a good book. Hedonism is a type of consequentialism, and it has several forms. For example,
normative hedonism is the idea that pleasure should be people’s primary motivation. On the other
hand, motivational hedonism says that only pleasure and pain cause people to do what they do.
Egotistical hedonism requires a person to consider only his or her own pleasure in making choices.
Conversely, altruistic hedonism says that the creation of pleasure for all people is the best way to
measure if an action is ethical. Regardless of the type of hedonism, critics fault it as a guide for
morality because hedonism ignores all other values, such as freedom or fairness, when evaluating
right and wrong.
Coming back to Consequentialism, it is sometimes criticized because it can be difficult, or even
impossible, to know what the result of an action will be ahead of time. Indeed, no one can know the
future with certainty. Also, in certain situations, consequentialism can lead to decisions that are
objectionable, even though the consequences are arguably good.
 Deontology - It is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. It is an
approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions themselves, as
opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions. It argues that
decisions should be made considering the factors of one's duties and other's rights. The Greek
deon means an obligation or duty).
Deontology is often associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions
follow universal moral laws, such as “Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.” Deontology is simple to
apply. It just requires that people follow the rules and do their duty. This approach tends to fit well
with our natural intuition about what is or isn’t ethical. Unlike consequentialism, which judges actions
by their results, deontology doesn’t require weighing the costs and benefits of a situation. This avoids
subjectivity and uncertainty because you only have to follow set rules.
Despite its strengths, rigidly following deontology can produce results that many people find
unacceptable. For example, suppose you’re a software engineer and learn that a nuclear missile is
about to launch that might start a war. You can hack the network and cancel the launch, but it’s against
your professional code of ethics to break into any software system without permission. And, it’s a
form of lying and cheating. Deontology advises not to violate this rule. However, in letting the missile
launch, thousands of people will die. So, following the rules makes deontology easy to apply. But it
also means disregarding the possible consequences of our actions when determining what is right and
what is wrong.
 Virtue Ethics - It is a philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient Greeks. It is the
quest to understand and live a life of moral character. This character-based approach to
morality assumes that we acquire virtue through practice. By practicing being honest, brave,
just, generous, and so on, a person develops an honorable and moral character. According to
Aristotle, by honing virtuous habits, people will likely make the right choice when faced with
ethical challenges.
Approaching the Normative Ethics back, to illustrate the difference among three philosophies of
Normative Ethics, ethicists Mark White and Robert Arp refer to the film The Dark Knight, where
Batman has the opportunity to kill the Joker.
 Utilitarian, White and Arp endorse killing of the Joker by Batman. By taking this one life,
Batman could save multitudes.
  Deontologists, on the other hand, would reject killing the Joker simply because it’s wrong to
kill.
 But a virtue ethicist would highlight the character of the person who kills the Joker. Does
Batman want to be the kind of person who takes his enemies’ lives” No, in fact, he doesn’t.
3. Descriptive ethics - Descriptive Ethics is a value free approach to ethics, which examines ethics
from the perspective of observations of actual choices, made by moral agents in practice. It is the
study of people's beliefs about morality, and implies the existence of theories of value or of conduct ,
rather than explicitly prescribing them.
It is more likely to be investigated by those working in the fields of evolutionary biology, psychology,
sociology, history, or anthropology, although information that comes from descriptive ethics is also
used in philosophical arguments. Descriptive Ethics is sometimes referred to as Comparative Ethics. It
is because so much activity can involve comparing ethical systems, comparing the ethics of the past to
the present, comparing the ethics of one society to another, and comparing the ethics which people
claim to follow with the actual rules of conduct, which do describe their actions. It is not designed to
provide guidance to people in making moral decisions, nor is it designed to evaluate the
reasonableness of moral norms.
4. Applied ethics - Finally, The fourth branch of moral philosophy is Applied Ethics which is a
discipline of philosophy, that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations. Strict, principle
based ethical approaches often result in solutions to specific problems, that are not universally
acceptable or impossible to implement. Applied Ethics is much more ready to include the insights of
psychology, sociology, and other relevant areas of knowledge in its deliberations.
The following would be questions of Applied Ethics.
o Is euthanasia immoral.
o Is affirmative action right or wrong.
o What are human rights, and how do we determine them. And
o Do animals have rights as well?
Medical Ethics, Bioethics, Legal Ethics, Business Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Information Ethics,
Media Ethics, falls under the discipline of applied ethics. Thus, applied ethics involves examining
specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns,
capital punishment, or nuclear war.

1.4 Moral Issues, Moral Dilemmas & Moral Autonomy

Moral Issues - A moral issue can be understood as an issue to be resolved not only by considering the
technical stuff but also by keeping moral values in mind. “Moral issue is a working issue of moral
concern with the potential to help or harm anyone, including oneself.”
 Moral issues are those which involve a difference of belief and not a matter of preference - a
moral dispute would involve a factual disagreement (or a disagreement in belief) where one
or the other or neither belief is correct. It would not involve a disagreement in attitude (or a
disagreement in feeling).
 Moral issues are those, which involve the experience of a special kind of feeling - This feeling
is said to differ intuitively from other kinds of feelings such as religious or aesthetic feelings.
(E.g., some people think these feelings arise from arise from conscience.) Such feelings can
be those of satisfaction, shame, or guilt.
 Moral issues are those actions which have the potential to help or harm others or ourselves - is
a version of consequentialist ethics and has a number of objections. very few human decisions
or actions are not of some moral concern since very few, if any, decisions have no
consequences helping or harming ourselves or others. On this view, only decisions with no
 possible consequences helping or harming would qualify as nonmoral actions. Decisions such
as the latter are difficult to imagine. Thus, it may well be that any decision made
and any action performed is of some ethical concern.
Moral Dilemma
What is common to the two well-known cases is conflict. In each case, an agent regards herself as
having moral reasons to do each of two actions, but doing both actions is not possible. Ethicists have
called situations like these moral dilemmas. The crucial features of a moral dilemma are these: the
agent is required to do each of two (or more) actions; the agent can do each of the actions; but the
agent cannot do both (or all) of the actions. The agent thus seems condemned to moral failure; no
matter what she does, she will do something wrong (or fail to do something that she ought to do).
A moral dilemma is an irresolvable moral conflict, i.e. no fully satisfactory resolution is possible since
all possible options for action leave behind a remainder that does not cease to be morally binding.
Moral dilemmas are often used to help people think through the reasoning for their beliefs and
actions, and are common in psychology and philosophy classes. Some examples of moral dilemmas
include:
 The classic “lifeboat dilemma”, where there are only 10 spaces in the lifeboat, but there are 11
passengers on the sinking ship. A decision must be made as to who will stay behind.
 A train with broken brakes is speeding towards a fork in the tracks. On the left, there is a
woman crossing with her two children; on the right, there is a man doing routine maintenance
on the tracks. The engineer must decide which side to aim the speeding train towards.
 A husband learns he has a terminal illness and he decides to ask his wife for assistance in
ending the pain before it gets too bad.
Moral dilemmas also provide interesting social topics for students to examine in position and research
papers. Common topics for such assignments often include:
 The Death Penalty
 Doctor-Assisted Suicide
 Ending the Drug War
 The Draft
 Government Spying
 Prison Reform
 Legalizing (or decriminalizing) Marijuana
 Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Energy
Steps in confronting moral dilemmas - In order to face/overcome the above said moral dilemmas,
one can follow one or more of the following steps.
 Step 1: Identifying the pertinent moral factors and reasons. It involves addressing solutions
for conflicting responsibilities, opposing rights, and incompatible ideals involved.
 Step 2: Collecting all the available moral considerations, which are relevant to the moral
factors involved.
 Step 3: Ranking the above collected moral considerations on the basis of importance
as applicable to the particular situation.
 Step 4: Making factual inquires. In other words, finding alternative courses of actions to
resolve the moral dilemmas and following the complete implications of each.
 Step 5: Inviting discussions, suggestions from colleagues, friends, and other involved persons
to critically examine the moral dilemmas.
  Step 6: Taking the final decision i.e. selecting the more reasonable solution by weighing
all the relevant moral factors and reasons.
Moral Autonomy
Moral Autonomy is the philosophy which is self-governing or self-determining, i.e., acting
independently without the influence or distortion of others. The moral autonomy relates to the
individual ideas whether right or wrong conduct which is independent of ethical issues. The concept
of moral autonomy helps in improving self-determination.
Moral Autonomy is concerned with independent attitude of a person related to moral/ethical issues.
This concept is found in moral, ethical and even in political philosophy.
Moral Autonomy – Skills Needed:
 Ability to relate the problems with the problems of law, economics and religious
principles − It is essential to have the ability to analyze a problem and finding the relation
with the existing law or the topic of issue with the existing principles on that topic. The ability
to distinguish between both of them and finding the moral reasons.
 Skill to process, clarify and understand the arguments against the moral issues − If the
issue is against some moral values or the ethical values to be followed in the society, then
clarity should be maintained about the differences and similarities. Both of these differences
and similarities are to be judged based on why they are a matter of concern and in what
aspect.
 Ability to suggest the solutions to moral issues on the basis of facts − If the moral issues
are not fulfilling and needs to be, then the solutions are to be suggested according to the moral
issues based on the facts and truths of the issue. These suggestions must be consistent and
must include all the aspects of the problem. No partiality is to be allowed in any such aspect.
 Must have the imaginative skill to view the problems from all the viewpoints − After
having known about the facts and illusions of the issue, a clear understanding is attained in
viewing the problem in all kinds of viewpoints. This enables one to be able to suggest a
proper alternative solution.
 Tolerance while giving moral judgment, which may cause trouble − When the whole
analysis is made considering all the viewpoints of the issue, the final output might be or might
not be pleasing to the persons involved. Hence while declaring the judgment or the decisions
taken, a detailed description of the actions done should be given, while the actions ought to be
done should be presented in a better way, to ensure others that the decisions have been taken
without any partialities towards any party.
 Tolerance while giving moral judgment, which may cause trouble − When the whole
analysis is made considering all the viewpoints of the issue, the final output might be or might
not be pleasing to the persons involved. Hence while declaring the judgment or the decisions
taken, a detailed description of the actions done should be given, while the actions ought to be
done should be presented in a better way, to ensure others that the decisions have been taken
without any partialities towards any party.
1.5 Basic Ethical Principles

The expression "basic ethical principles" refers to those general judgments that serve as a justification
for particular ethical prescriptions and evaluations of human actions. Given below are the basic
principles, among those generally accepted in our cultural tradition, and are particularly relevant to
the ethics in business organizations:
1.Truthfulness and confidentiality - Two concepts that you may commonly face in your day-to-day
practice are truthfulness and confidentiality. Truthfulness is about telling the truth to someone who has
the right to know the truth. The concept of confidentiality urges you to keep a secret of the knowledge
or information that a person has the right or obligation to conceal. If the management knows that an
employee is always going to work with the ethical principle of confidentiality in mind, then they will
be able to talk freely about sensitive issues. The professional obligation to keep a secret arises from
the fact that harm will almost certainly follow if the information is revealed.
o There are three types of secrets:
 Natural secret: information, which, if revealed, is harmful by its nature. Such revelations may
lead to embarrassment or endangering the existence.
 Promised secret: information that we have promised to conceal which, if broken, leads to
public mistrust.
 Professional secret: knowledge, which, if revealed, will harm the client, the profession and the
society, that obtain services from the profession. A professional secret is the most serious of
all secrets, because its violation can cause the greatest harm.
2. Autonomy - Autonomy is another ethical principle that you may already be aware of, but not know
by that name. The term refers to every individual’s right of self-determination, independence and
freedom to make their own choices. In the context of a corporate, the concept of autonomy is most
concerned with the ethical obligation of an organization or stakeholder to respect the clients’ right to
make decisions about their own well being. However, there are conditions in which the personal
choice or autonomy may be restricted because of concern for the wellbeing of the community. The
term autonomy is commonly referred as ‘Respect for Persons.’
Respect for persons incorporates two ethical convictions:
 That individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and
 That persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection.
The principle of respect for persons thus divides into two separate moral requirements:
 The requirement to acknowledge autonomy, and
 The requirement to protect those with diminished autonomy.
To respect autonomy is to give weight to persons' considered opinions and choices while refraining
from obstructing their actions unless they are clearly detrimental to others.
This principle leads to the requirement of informed voluntary consent.
3. Informed consent - Informed consent is the process in which a service provider educates a client
about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention. The client is assumed
to be competent to make a voluntary decision about whether to seek a service or not. Informed
consent is both an ethical and legal obligation of the organizations. Implicit in providing informed
consent is an assessment by the client based on the documentation of the matter. The legal system
requires documentation of all the elements of informed consent "in a form, progress notes, instruction
manuals, and terms and conditions."
The following are the required elements for documentation of the informed consent discussion:
 The nature of the procedure,
 The risks and benefits and the procedure,
 Reasonable alternatives,
 The risks and benefits of alternatives, and
 Assessment of the client’s understanding of elements 1 through 4.
It is the obligation of the service provider to make it clear to the client and avoid making the client
feel forced to agree to with the provider. The provider must make a recommendation and provide their
reasoning for said recommendation.
4. Beneficence and Non-maleficence - The term “beneficence” is often understood to cover acts of
kindness or charity that go beyond strict obligation. Beneficence is defined as an act of charity, mercy,
and kindness with a strong connotation of doing good to others including moral obligation. All
professionals have the foundational moral imperative of doing right. In the context of the
professional-client relationship, the professional is obligated to, always and without exception, favor
the well-being and interest of the client. Stakeholders are treated in an ethical manner not only by
respecting their decisions and protecting them from harm, but also by making efforts to secure their
well-being.
The term beneficence tells you about ‘doing good’ for your client, while the concept
of nonmaleficence tells you to ‘do no harm’ either intentionally or unintentionally to your clients.
Two general rules have been formulated as complementary expressions of beneficent actions in this
sense:
 Do not harm, and
 Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.
All stakeholders must be protected from harm and their well being must be secured. This principle
leads to the requirement that the benefits to subjects or to humanity generally must be judged to
outweigh the risks to the associates.
5. Justice - Justice is a complex ethical principle and it entails fairness, equality and impartiality. In
other words, it is an obligation to be fair to all people. The risks and benefits of a service must be
distributed fairly without creating demographical differences among the stakeholders based on
defined classes. The justice is pursued from two perspective:
 Distributive justice - means that individuals have the right to be accepted equally regardless
of ethnic group, gender, culture, age, marital status, medical diagnosis, social standing,
economic level, political or religious beliefs, or any other individual characteristics. Everyone
should be treated in the same way.
 Social justice - is based on the application of equitable rights to access and participation in all
aspects of goods and services provided in a society, regardless of their individual
characteristics. Everyone should have access to the identical resources that might improve
their standards.
As a Corporate, one should carry out distributive and social justice by enabling the inclusion and
empowerment of all stakeholders who are affiliate of the organization to exercise their rights.
An unfair treatment to the affiliates while practicing the profession, will impact gaining the public
trust which will negatively affect the brand value.
1.6 Contemporary philosophy: Action, Ethics, and Responsibility

Philosophy of Action
The action as a concept is one of the major sub-disciplines in contemporary philosophy. Philosophy of
action is chiefly concerned with human action, intending to distinguish between activity and passivity.
The understanding is further elaborated to action being voluntary, intentional, culpable, and
involuntary actions. The theory of action is pertinent to legal and ethical questions concerning
freedom, intention, belief, responsibility, and so on. It is related to the mind-body problem, the
concept of causality, and the issue of determinism. Action has ties to central human concerns such as
responsibility and autonomy.
Action & Mere Behavior:
There is to be more involved in a person's doing something than merely the fact that his body moves
in a certain way. This ‘something more’ separates the Action from Mere Behavior.
A convulsion of one's leg doesn't appear to be an action in any sense, but nervously tapping one's foot
certainly is an action.
Host of terms for capturing such distinctions had been proposed by the philosophers. The most
common terms are “mere behavior,” “activity,” “action,” “full-blooded action,” “intentional action,”
“intentional movement,” and so on.
The Meta-Physics of Actions:
1. Causalism vs. Non-causalism:
Desires, beliefs and intentions provide explanation of the action, but there is a question as to whether
that is a causal explanation.
 The bell rang because someone pushed the button.
 The bell rang because it was time to eat.
In 1, it is quite clear that one is explaining the bell's ringing by pointing to the cause of that event
(someone pushing some button). In 2, by contrast, one is explaining the bell's ringing by pointing to
something that cannot have been its cause.
2. The Individuation of Actions:
If a task is performed, how many actions are involved? And what is their relation? This remains the
key observations.
In the previous example, the button is pushed that rings the bell. How many actions are involved here?
And what is their relation? It's quite clear that a ringing of bell is a very different thing than pushing a
button but it was the pushing of button that rang the bell. The current issue concerns the actions
involved – are these two actions or a single action?
When someone does something X by doing something Y, there is only one action involved. In the
example, pushing a button and ringing of bell is a single action.
3. Action and Determinism:
The issue of determinism is frequently posed with respect to freedom in human action. The theory
holds that a person's reasons for acting are the cause of his action. This entails that the agent was
caused to act so.
In principle, one could hold that when the reasons cause the action, this just amounts to the agent
causing the action.
All that is needed for a free action is that the action be guided by the agent in a certain way. Such a
guided action could well be one that was unambiguously causally determined.
The Epistemology of Actions
The actions of individuals are guided by the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its
methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.
It is understood that we have knowledge of our own actions "without observation.“ A project director
might be able to schedule the project accurately without having reports on it, provided that his
subordinates carry out his orders.
This is described as a case of 'practical knowledge,' and it is accepted that our knowledge of our own
actions is of the kind that produces the action. ‘Practical knowledge’ holds for more than just our
knowledge of our actions, and extends to our own beliefs based on a passive knowledge.
Philosophy of Responsibility
People and groups are evaluated as responsible or not, depending on how seriously they take their
responsibilities. Often this is done informally via moral judgment. On the other side, this also is done
formally through legal judgement.
The moral philosophy has tended to ask two simple questions about responsibility:
 “What is it to be responsible?” and
 “What is a person responsible for?”
The first question is usually taken while enquiring about moral agency. What features of (normal,
adult) human are involved in our holding one another responsible? The second as a question is used in
case of holding people accountable for their actions. It is a question most often asked in connection
with causation and accountability.
These two apparently simple questions (“What is it to be responsible?” and “What is a person
responsible for?”) about individual responsibility points to the previously stated four points:
1. Moral agency.
Normal human adults represent our paradigm case of responsible agents. What is distinctive about
them, that we accord them this status?
 Human beings have free will, that is, distinctive causal powers or a special metaphysical
status, that separates them from everything else in the universe;
 Human beings can act on the basis of reason(s);
 Human beings have a certain set of moral or proto-moral feelings.
The above points are principally concerned with evaluation of the self.
A rational/moral agent chooses to act in the light of principles – that is, he deliberate among reasons.
Therefore standards of rationality apply to all adult humans, and when they fail to act rationally, it is
simply and crudely considered as a Bad Thing.
2. Retrospective responsibility.
In assigning responsibility for an outcome or event, we may simply be telling a causal story. The
responsibility attribution is concerned with the morality of somebody’s action(s).
Among the many different causes that led to an outcome, an specific action is identified as the
morally salient one. Example:
 If we say the captain was responsible for the shipwreck, we do not deny that all sorts of other
causes were in play. But we do single out the person which we think ought to be held
responsible for the outcome.
Philosophers sometimes distinguish this usage, by speaking of “liability responsibility.” Retrospective
responsibility usually involves a moral judgment of the person responsible.
This judgment typically pictures the person as liable to various consequences: to feeling remorse (or
pride), to being blamed (or praised), to making amends (or receiving gratitude), and so forth.
3. Prospective responsibility.
This form of “responsibility” is as a synonym for “duty.” When we ask about a person’s prospective
responsibilities, we are concerned with what he ought to be doing or attending to. The term describes
a particular person’s duties or used to single out the duties, or “area of responsibility,” that somebody
has by virtue of their role.
This bears at least one straightforward relation to the question of retrospective responsibility. We will
tend to hold someone responsible when he fails to perform the duties. Hence, referring to the ship
examples, a captain is responsible for the safety of the ship; hence he will be held responsible if there
is a shipwreck.
In terms of prospective responsibility, then, we may think that everyone has a duty to make certain
amends when certain risks of action actually materialize – just because all our actions impose risks on
others as well as ourselves. The duties assigned to an individual shall also encompass the ‘rights’ to
make necessary amendments in case of a foreseen risk. In this case, retrospective responsibility is
justified, not by whether the person controlled the outcome or could have chosen to do otherwise, but
by reference to these prospective responsibilities.
4. Responsibility as a virtue.
While theories of moral agency tend to regard an agent as either responsible or not, with no half-
measures, our everyday language usually deploys the term “responsible” in a more nuanced way. As
just indicated, one way we do this is by weighing degrees of responsibility, both with regard to the
sort of prospective responsibilities a person should bear and a person’s liability to blame or penalties.
A systematic arrangement is desired to overcome the nuanced way of weighing the responsibility and
making the meaning of responsibility more clear.
Once clarity is established,
 The responsible person can be relied on to judge and to act in certain morally desirable ways;
 In the case of more demanding (“more responsible”) roles, a person can be trusted to exercise
initiative and to demonstrate commitment; and
When things go wrong, such a person will be prepared to take responsibility for dealing with things.

1.7 Linking Philosophy,Ethics & Its implications

Relationship between Ethics and Philosophy:

There is no one opinion about the relation between ethics and philosophy. Hegel and Green, believes
that ethics is based upon philosophy. Rahall believe that philosophy is based upon ethics.
This is a debatable opinion. Be it what it may, it is definite that the two are closely related. The
relation is based upon the following factors:
 Ethical ideals are founded in the moral order of the universe. Being a normative science,
ethics details ethical ideals. These ethical ideals are founded in the moral order of the
universe. Thus their study takes ethics into the field of philosophy.
 Ethical ideals are based upon the nature of objects. Ethical judgments are categorical
imperatives. They are themselves based upon the nature of objects for which ethics has to go
to philosophy.
 Philosophy expounds ethical assumptions. The three self-evident postulates of ethics arc God,
freedom of will and the immortality of the soul. The description of their nature and the
analysis of their validity is the subject of philosophy.
 Philosophy details the relation of man to the world. Ethics treats man as a self-conscious
being, not a natural fact. Thus, for the discussion of the relation between man and God, world
and society, ethics has to turn to philosophy.
 Philosophy systematizes both facts and values. Ethics being a science of values is related to
philosophy because the latter systematizes both facts and values.
 Many philosophical problems come under ethics. Ethics has to explain many philosophical
problems.
Ethics Vs Philosophy:

Ethics Philosophy

Moral Principles a person can follow. Study of the fundamental nature of knowledge,
reality, and existence as an academic discipline.
Comprise of moral guidelines and advice a human Contains theories and ideologies postulated by
can follow in his lifestyle. philosophers concerning specific subject matter in
life.

There is o specific origin; has a strong relation to There are specific founders or several pioneering
religions and morality in human society. figures known as philosophers.

Cannot be separated according to period, country Has varied branches according to period school,
and subject matter since they are universally movement, country, subject matter, etc.
considered moral principles.