Chapter Three: The Story of Ethics
Philosophical Ethics
- Widely assumed to have started in Greece in the fifth century BCE.
- Plato. Four cardinal virtues: Wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.
- Aristotle. Four causes: Material, efficient, formal, and final. His philosophy focuses on the actual, not the ideal (like Plato). He suggests that the chief endo human life is “to serve and contemplate God.”
- Epicureans and Stoics. Epicurus focused on pleasure which for him was the absence of pain snd trouble in the mind. Chief difference with the Stoics is the significance of God for the Stoics.
- Plotinus was very influential in early Christian theology.
Religious Ethics
- Religion is often thought of broadly as the rituals, doctrine, faith, notions of divinity, etc of the world’s people.
- Religion can be approached as being more of less identical with ethics.
- A more pragmatic approach is to look for common ground in order to address pressing global issues.
Abrahamic Faiths—Jewish Ethics
- The heart of Jewish ethics lies in the covenant between God and Israel and the commandments associated with that covenant. After 70 CE and the all of the temple, worship shifted from the temple to the synagogue and rabbinic authority became primary. “… the importance of rabbinic literature far outweighs that of biblical in Jewish ethics.”
- Creation tradition is important. It emphasizes the sanctity of all humans and the idea of aiding creation with certain kinds of intervention.
- Other traditions. Prophetic and their call for justice. Wisdom which talks about God’s ways. Later writers.
Abrahamic Faiths—Muslim Ethics
- Centers on the Qur’an. No real instruction no how to be good. The five pillars are the primary religious duties. Adherence to Shari’a is stressed. Shari’a, often translated law, is a system of doctrines and practical elaborations. As in Christian and Judaism, Islamic ethics is not monolithic.
Ethic Beyond Abrahamic Faiths
- Hinduism recognizes four principle goals of life. Generally non-violent and reverent towards all life.
- Jainism. Non-violent to an extreme. Influential on Gandhi.
- Buddhism. Compassion is a pervasive attitude.
- Confucianism is oriented towards good government and ordered society. Hardly a religion.
Professional Ethics.
In the modern age, it is not clear that Christian ethics makes much a difference to the wider society. Instead it addresses issues and tries to be helpful for societal issues. Often that deal with professional ethical issues.
- Business and Management Ethics. The global economy has given rise to new ethical issues that Christian ethics is not well equipped to respond to.
- Medical Ethics. Advances in medical science have generate a whole new set of ethical issues.
- Professional Ethics. Many professions have ethical issues. Professions that involve care of others in some ways have special issues.
- The Relation of Legislation to Morality.Difficult to differentiate between universal values and tastes and conventions.
Seed Basis of Ethical Thought. Things like think tanks, pressure groups, and universities are examples of places where ethical issues are promoted.
Postmodernism. “… postmodernism opens up the possibility of an infinite deferral of final meaning.”