Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty', 'Identity, Essence and Indiscernibility' and 'Just and Unjust Wars'

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3 ideas

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
Deep ethical theory is very controversial, but we have to live with higher ethical practice [Walzer]
     Full Idea: The substructure of the ethical world is a matter of deep and unending controversy, Meanwhile, however, we are living in the superstructure.
     From: Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars [1977], Pref)
     A reaction: This may be the best approach to ethics. Nearly all applied ethics takes the common sense consensus on values for granted. Personally I think that is because the substructure is the obvious success and failure of human functioning.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue
Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
     Full Idea: Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
     From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
     A reaction: This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia
What counts as 'flourishing' must be relative to various sets of values [Harman]
     Full Idea: If we base our ethics on human flourishing, one implication would seem to be moral relativism, since what counts as 'flourishing' seems inevitably relative to one or other set of values.
     From: Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.1)
     A reaction: This remark seems to make the relativist assumption that all value systems are equal. For Aristotle, flourishing is no more relative than health is. No one can assert that illness has an intrinsically high value in human life.