Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
What ought I to do? What can I hope? What is man?
Evidence that early societies raised these
questions can be found in the generation of rather complex codes of conduct embedded
in the customs of the earliest human social organization: the tribe. By 600 BC, the Greeks
were successful in reducing many primitive speculations, attitudes, and views on these
questions to some type of order or system and integrating them into the general body
of wisdom called
. Being seafarers and colonizers, the Greeks had close contact
with many different peoples and cultures. In the process, struck by the variety of customs,
laws, and institutions that prevailed in the societies that surrounded them, they began to
examineandcompareallhumanconduct in these societies. This part of philosophy they
called
philosophy
ethics.
The term
ethics
comes from the Greek
ethos,
meaning “custom.” On the other hand, the
Latin word for custom is
mos,
and its plural,
mores,
is the equivalent of the Greek
ethos
and the root of the words
moral
and
morality.
Although both terms (
ethics
and
morality
)
are often used interchangeably, there is a distinction between them that should be made.
Philosophers define ethics as a particular kind of study and use morality to refer to its
subject matter. For example, customs that result from some abiding principal human inter-
action are called
Some examples of morals in our present society are telling the
truth, paying one's debts, honoring one's parents, and respecting the rights and property
of others. Most members of society usually consider such conduct not only customary but
also correct or right. Thus, morality encompasses what people believe to be right and good
and the reasons they give for it.
Most of us follow these rules of conduct and adjust our lifestyles in accordance with the
principles they represent. Many even sacrifice life itself rather than diverge from them,
applying them not only to their own conduct but also to the behavior of others. Individuals
who disregard these accepted codes of conduct are considered deviants and, in many cases,
are punished for engaging in an activity that society as a whole considers unacceptable. For
example, individuals committing “criminal acts” (defined by society) are often “outlawed”
and, in many cases, severely punished. These judgments regarding codes of conduct, how-
ever, are not inflexible; they must continually be modified to fit changing conditions and
thereby avoid the trauma of revolution as the vehicle for change.
While morality represents the codes of conduct of a society, ethics is the study of right
and wrong, of good and evil in human conduct. Ethics is not concerned with providing
any judgments or specific rules for human behavior, but rather with providing an objective
analysis about what individuals “ought to do.” Defined in this way, it represents the philo-
sophical view of morals, and, therefore, is often referred to as
morals.
moral philosophy.
Consider the following three questions: “Should badly deformed infants be kept alive?”;
“Should treatment be stopped to allow a terminally ill patient to die?”; “Should humans be
used in experiments?” Are these questions of morality or ethics? In terms of the definitions
just provided, all three of these inquiries are questions of moral judgment.
Philosophers argue that all moral judgments are considered to be “normative judgments”—
that is, they can be recognized simply by their characteristic evaluative terms such as good,
bad, right, wrong, and so on. Typical normative judgments include the following:
Stealing is wrong.
Everyone ought to have access to an education.
Voluntary euthanasia should not be legalized.
