Ethics A short history...as old as the montains...

Once upon a time......more exactly 2300 years ago in Greece there lived a man called Socrates... We know only about Socrates’s theories from the writings of his student Plato. Socrates (Plato) maintained that the GOOD is what all good acts have in common. We know the GOOD but we do not remember that we know it. We are born with this knowledge of the GOOD.

Knowledge and the Good... According to Socrates (Plato) what is good and what is not good is a matter of knowledge, knowledge we have when we are born,but do not realize that we have. If ”we seek wisdom” we will be able to remember the Good again and so be able to tell good acts from acts that are not good. Unfortunately only very few of us will reach this stage of ”wisdom”.

Aristotle... Aristotle Plato’s student was of a different oppinion... He points out that in every matter there are extremes... Extremes are rearly good. The good lies usually somewhere between the extremes We should seek the golden road between the extremes because that is where we will find the GOOD.

The Middle ages... During the Middle Ages christian philosphers like Thomas Aquinas taught that those actions are bad which God forbidds us to perform. The Church will inform us what these actions are which are sinfull.

Immanuel Kant 1780 the German Philosopher Kant maintained that we can ourselves find out if an action is bad or not by using his test: If you can without contradiction will that the maxim of the action will become a universial law then the action is not bad.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number of people... The English philosophers Jeramy Bentham and John Stuart Mill where of the oppinion that acts were only good is they benefitted more peple than they harmed. They maintained that if an action brings more pleasure than pain then it is a good action; if it brings more pain than pleasure then it is a bad action.

Intuition The English philosopher Moore maintained that good and pleasure must be two different things. We cannot define what acts are good like Mill did but we nevertheless can tell good acts from bad.

The meaning of a word is its method of verification The so called logical positivist who lived in Viena would have none of this... In their oppion sentences containing words like good or bad, beatiful or ugly, etc. are totally meaningless because how do you verify that something is good or bad, ugly or beatiful? You cannot verify it, so such sentence are not scientific, they are simply utter nonsense!!

OH!! The so called emotivists who mostly lived in the United States and Britain agreed that such sentences are meaningless but said that they nevertheless had a function. This function was to express the speakers positive or negative attitude towards the action or object.

I recomend it... Arround 1950 some British philosophers came along who maintained that these sentences have a meaning of a sort... The meaning of: ”this is a good act” is simply: ”This action should be done in these type of circumstances”.

That all depends....on.... Today there are any oppinons on what good and bad really mean or stand for. Many philosophers maintain that the circumstances in which the act was done determine its nature i.e. If it is good or bad. The act is neither good or bad intself but the circumstances in which it was perfomed make it so.

An example... Suppose that a city is deciding where to build an airport. Only two sites are possible sites for the airport. Unfortunately there are also problems with both of them. Rare birds nest on the former site and they would probably all die if the airprt was build there. If the second site is used the population of the city would have to live with a lot of noice from the aircrafts and more pollution from them as well as higher crash risk.

How would the different philosophers answer the question of where to build the airport? Plato would suggest that we ask experts where to build it. A modern follower of Plato would say we should ask all kinds of experts not only philosophers, but engineers, biologists, etc. Aristotle would suggest we should see if we could not save the birds by moving them elsewhere and building on the first site.

Kant’s suggestion... Kant would tell us to use his test to see if we, without contradiction, could suggest that the first site or the second site would be used. ”Can you, without contradiction, suggest it is always (in similar circumstances) allright to sacrifice nature (here the birds) for the benefits of man (here the airport)?” ”Is it always allright to build an airport even if it increases noise and other pollution?”

Bentham and Mill... Ask us to examine on which of the two sites the good effects of building the airport (for the greates number of people) minus the bad effets of building it (for the greatest number of peple) is greatest (cost-benefit analysis).

The modern philosopher... Would suggest that we examine closely the circumstances surrounding the decision to build an airport. As well as if these are really the only two possible sites. Maybe not all relevant factors were taken into account when the decision was made to build an airport, maybe these two sites are not the only alternatives, etc.