At its simplest, ethics is a system of moral principles. They affect how people make decisions and lead their lives.<\/p>\n
Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and society and is also described as moral philosophy.<\/p>\n
The term is derived from the Greek word\u00a0ethos<\/em>\u00a0which can mean custom, habit, character or disposition.<\/p>\n Ethics covers the following dilemmas:<\/p>\n Our concepts of ethics have been derived from religions, philosophies and cultures. They infuse debates on topics like abortion, human rights and professional conduct.<\/p>\n Philosophers nowadays tend to divide ethical theories into three areas: metaethics, normative ethics and applied ethics.<\/p>\n If ethical theories are to be useful in practice, they need to affect the way human beings behave.<\/p>\n Some philosophers think that ethics does do this. They argue that if a person realises that it would be morally good to do something then it would be irrational for that person not to do it.<\/p>\n But human beings often behave irrationally \u2013 they follow their \u2018gut instinct\u2019 even when their head suggests a different course of action.<\/p>\n However, ethics does provide good tools for thinking about moral issues.<\/p>\n Most moral issues get us pretty worked up \u2013 think of abortion and euthanasia for starters. Because these are such emotional issues we often let our hearts do the arguing while our brains just go with the flow.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s another way of tackling these issues, and that\u2019s where philosophers can come in \u2013 they offer us ethical rules and principles that enable us to take a cooler view of moral problems.<\/p>\n So ethics provides us with a moral map, a framework that we can use to find our way through difficult issues.<\/p>\n Using the framework of ethics, two people who are arguing a moral issue can often find that what they disagree about is just one particular part of the issue, and that they broadly agree on everything else.<\/p>\n That can take a lot of heat out of the argument, and sometimes even hint at a way for them to resolve their problem.<\/p>\n But sometimes ethics doesn\u2019t provide people with the sort of help that they really want.<\/p>\n Ethics doesn\u2019t always show the right answer to moral problems.<\/p>\n Indeed more and more people think that for many ethical issues there isn\u2019t a single right answer \u2013 just a set of principles that can be applied to particular cases to give those involved some clear choices.<\/p>\n Some philosophers go further and say that all ethics can do is eliminate confusion and clarify the issues. After that it\u2019s up to each individual to come to their own conclusions.<\/p>\n Many people want there to be a single right answer to ethical questions. They find moral ambiguity hard to live with because they genuinely want to do the \u2018right\u2019 thing, and even if they can\u2019t work out what that right thing is, they like the idea that \u2018somewhere\u2019 there is one right answer.<\/p>\n But often there isn\u2019t one right answer \u2013 there may be several right answers, or just some least worst answers \u2013 and the individual must choose between them.<\/p>\n For others moral ambiguity is difficult because it forces them to take responsibility for their own choices and actions, rather than falling back on convenient rules and customs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At its simplest, ethics is a system of moral principles. They affect how people make decisions and lead their lives. Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and society and is also described as moral philosophy. The term is derived from the Greek word\u00a0ethos\u00a0which can mean custom, habit, character or disposition. Ethics covers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,6,7,8,9,12,109],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-july","category-cars","category-coffee-hong-kong","category-conceptual-artist","category-cooking-school","category-economy","category-elecctronics","category-ethics","tag-use-of-ethics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/7stylluz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Approaches to ethics<\/h3>\n
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What use is ethics?<\/h3>\n
Ethics can provide a moral map<\/h3>\n
Ethics can pinpoint a disagreement<\/h3>\n
Ethics doesn\u2019t give right answers<\/h3>\n
Ethics can give several answers<\/h3>\n