Ethics

Ethics (from the Ancient Greek ethikos, ἠθικός, or “Theory of Living”, ethos, ἦθος, or “Habit”, as well as arete, ἀρετή, “Excellence” and “Virtue”) is a major branch of Philosophy as well as Culture, and is the study of the value of Good and Morality in ourselves and society. The very concept of Ethics, sometimes specialized academically as “Meta-Ethics” or “Metaethics”, is the analysis and employment of Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, as ethical or moral responsibilities for all of us as a part of Humanity. To be “Ethical” is to not only “have morals”, but to apply ethical guidelines to oneself as a member of a larger whole. Arguably, one cannot even be a Human without being ethical, because without it one is a self-centered sociopath feeding off of others.

What Ethics is Not

It may help to describe a few confusions people may have about being ethical. First of all, Ethics is not about Religion, for at least two big reasons: (1) Any one Religion has vastly different morals than another, and (2), There have been many, many examples of religious people acting in a decidedly unethical manner. So, Religion and Ethics are just not the same thing. Second, Ethics is also not about following the Law, and for similar reasons: (1) One state's or nation's laws do not speak for the whole of Humanity, and (2), There are many examples of unethical laws and law enforcement throughout all levels of government and across all nations. So, Ethics is not at all about being “law-abiding”. Lastly, Ethics is not a matter of following what everyone else around us is doing, either, or doing what we can “get away with”, because: (1) Who defines what is Good and Bad if all of us are just out to “take what we can get”?, and (2), How do you know what is ethical and non-ethical if everyone is pushing the envelope year-after-year, as we have seen in recent years? Therefore, Ethics is not about following the crowd or taking what we can get, and it is not simply being religious, lawful, or both. Not by a long shot.

What the Ancients Taught Us

Much of how we think about Ethics comes from the Ancient Era. In the work of Plato is an Idealism which stretches from the Forms to the Ideal City made up of Workers, Warriors, and Philosopher-Kings all striving to better themselves toward Truth and Health. For Aristotle this is continued with a principle concern being the well-being of ourselves and our neighbors through the skills of ethical Virtue, like Courage, Justice, Friendship, Temperance, and others. Through Synesius, a Neo-Platonist, Seneca, a Stoic, and Sextius, a Stoic-Pythagorean, the Ancient Greek and Roman focus on Ethics as Ethos, a technique as much as a habit, a manner of caring for the Self, epimeleia heautou. This not just being interested in oneself in what we would call a self-centered way, but is a way of working on oneself, bettering oneself in order to live a beautiful life. Xenophon even used epimeleia heautou to show how Agriculture should be managed. Other uses included the responsibility a monarch has for his citizens or that which a doctor has for his patients. This is the work or activity which is the attention, knowledge, and technique of the way we should care for the self, which was not merely an ethical, but an aesthetic understanding as well, and which extended to helping others care for themselves.^[1]

What the Moderns Taught Us

Among many greats during the Modern Era, in David Hume we find a view of Reason as rooting Action in our desires, passions, sentiments, through which, as Kant would later put it, we try to conform the World to our concepts. Ethical sentiments provide Reason with cause for Action, for Hume, an input from the Passions, a view of Ethics as Sentiment, Habit, Custom, which along with other philosophers, picks up on the Ancient Ethos. Immanuel Kant took these concepts a good deal further to both celebrate the Enlightenment as Sapere Aude, or having the audacity to think for oneself and better oneself, and to develop the “Categegorical Imperative”, a regulative principle of Reason through which we should act ethically. For Kant, our moral obligations to each other should be pursued unconditionally, such that if an general Action we desire could be considered normal for everyone, then pursuing that action is a moral imperative. Thus, helping our friends and neighbors is an ethical obligation because it promotes our shared Humanity, while stealing from them or hurting them could never be an ethical obligation. In John Rawls we find a similar broad Liberalism which differs from John Locke, John Stuart Mill, or Jeremy Bentham, all of whom promoted cultural values societies should endorse, even social systems which enforced those values. Instead, Rawls argued the very basis of national and international order requires us to tolerate different views, peoples, and cultures, in much the same way as Kant had argued in his “Kingdom of Ends”. For Rawls, “human rights” should not be violated by “outlaw” or “rogue” states or leaders.

Being Good

In today's world, we are experiencing a clash of cultures and beliefs on a global scale like never before, and academic meta-ethical “isms” may not suffice. Being “Good” isn't always as simple as following a prescriptive or descriptive or “non-realist” list of virtues and values as a “virtue ethicist”, because the emotional or cultural “relativist” choices of other people's virtues might disrupt our own, which also troubles the “realist” conception that what is ethical is somehow a part of the World itself for us to uncover and learn. Being Good also isn't as simple as tracing the outcomes and impacts to others as a “consequentialist” or “utilitarian” in such a complex society for some of the same reasons, because what is a utility to some is dehumanizing to others living on the same street. Perhaps the “deontological ethicist”, the Kantian, has in the end the best approach at judging Right from Wrong, in that the rules and habits of such an ethos come from within us, which we apply to our actions as generally as possible. Being Good still isn't all that simple, however, when the normative deontologist next door is pursuing a set of imperatives which, despite valiant intentions, seem to conflict with our own.

This is why living in a cosmopolitan society has the eventual effect on us as does a river on the rocks rolling in the water. Our sharp edges become smooth and we learn to live in harmony. We do not have to allow our principles to be watered down into “situational ethics”, catching ourselves out with inconsistencies, but in a clash of cultures we cannot help but realize that our values and habits are developed through a process of our lives. This can include all types of values, such as what Art or Music to surround ourselves with, to what etiquette is best to follow in a given scenario. What we learned from the Ancients and Moderns continues today in a timeless renewal of living a beautiful life.

References

1. Parrott, M.R.M., “The Ethos of Modernity” (1996).

Scholarship by M.R.M. Parrott

Dynamism: Life: Volume II: Biological Chemistry and Epistemology Philosophy and Science Treatise ©2001, 2010-2011 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: Jun 2011 Published by rimric press 0-9746106-5-8 | 978-0-9746106-5-8 216 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Afterword, Notes on the Text and Cover Art Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)

Dynamism: Force: Volume I: Quantum Physics and Ontology Philosophy and Science Treatise ©2001-2004 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: Feb 05/Jun 11 Published by rimric press 0-9746106-1-5 | 978-0-9746106-1-0 204 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Both Prefaces, Afterword, Notes on the Text and Cover Art Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)

Synthetic A Priori: Philosophical Interviews Interviews, Discussion ©1998-1999 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: 99,00,02,08,11 Published by rimric press 0-9662635-6-1 | 978-0-9662635-6-5 232 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Both Prefaces, Notes on the Text and Cover Art Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)

The Pure Critique of Reason: Kant and Subjectivity Philosophical Monograph ©1998-1999 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: Oct 2002 Published by rimric press 0-9662635-5-3 | 978-0-9662635-5-8 148 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Afterword, Notes on the Text Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)

The Empiricism of Subjectivity: Deleuze and Consciousness Philosophical Monograph ©1996-1997 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: Oct 2002 Published by rimric press 0-9662635-3-7 | 978-0-9662635-3-4 128 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Afterword Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)

The Ethos of Modernity: Foucault and Enlightenment Philosophical Monograph ©1995-1996 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: May 96/Oct 02 Published by rimric press 0-9662635-2-9 | 978-0-9662635-2-7 160 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Afterword Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)

The Generation of 'X': Philosophical Essays 1991-1995 Academic Papers ©1991-1995 M.R.M. Parrott First Published: Oct 2002 Published by rimric press 0-9662635-0-2 | 978-0-9662635-0-3 160 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025 2025 Edition Extras: Afterword Amazon Paperback (author) Barnes & Noble Paperback (author) Waterstones Paperback (author)