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Applied ethics is the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadership. For example, bioethics is concerned with identifying the best approach to moral issues in the life sciences, such as euthanasia, the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in research. Environmental ethics is concerned with ecological issues such as the responsibility of government and corporations to clean up pollution. Business ethics includes the duties of whistleblowers to the public and to their employers.
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and controversial figures in modern Western philosophy, being called the "father of modern ethics", "father of modern aesthetics" and, by bringing together rationalism and empiricism, the "father of modern philosophy".
In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, it is also known as ethics or axiology.
Reason is the capacity of applying logic consciously by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans. Reason is sometimes referred to as rationality.
Will, within philosophy, is a faculty of the mind. Will is important as one of the parts of the mind, along with reason and understanding. It is considered central to the field of ethics because of its role in enabling deliberate action.
Virtue ethics is an approach that treats virtue and character as the primary subjects of ethics, in contrast to other ethical systems that put consequences of voluntary acts, principles or rules of conduct, or obedience to divine authority in the primary role.
In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting natural phenomena. According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes. Scientific theory is merely a tool whereby humans predict observations in a particular domain of nature by formulating laws, which state or summarize regularities, while theories themselves do not reveal supposedly hidden aspects of nature that somehow explain these laws. Instrumentalism is a perspective originally introduced by Pierre Duhem in 1906.
Aristotelianism is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the social sciences under a system of natural law. It answers why-questions by a scheme of four causes, including purpose or teleology, and emphasizes virtue ethics. Aristotle and his school wrote tractates on physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Any school of thought that takes one of Aristotle's distinctive positions as its starting point can be considered "Aristotelian" in the widest sense. This means that different Aristotelian theories may not have much in common as far as their actual content is concerned besides their shared reference to Aristotle.
The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, published in 1788. Hence, it is sometimes referred to as the "second critique". It follows on from Kant's first critique, the Critique of Pure Reason, and is one of his major works on moral philosophy. While Kant had already published one significant work in moral philosophy, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), the Critique of Practical Reason was intended to develop his account of the will as determinable by the moral law alone, place his ethical views within the larger framework of his system of critical philosophy, and expand on certain themes in his moral philosophy such as the feeling of respect for the moral law and the concept of the highest good.
Aristotle first used the term ethics to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato which is devoted to the attempt to provide a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state, which he considered to be the best type of community.
The transcendentals are "properties of being", nowadays commonly considered to be truth, unity (oneness), beauty, and goodness. The conceptual idea arose from medieval scholasticism, namely Aquinas but originated with Plato, Augustine, and Aristotle in the West. It is believed to be prefigured in the Bhagavadgita, an ancient Hindu classic, which illuminates the doctrines of Yoga. Viewed ontologically, the transcendentals are understood to be what is common to all beings/things/identities, and all things that exist can be judged, or appraised, or may be said to be or possess the innate qualities and characteristics which we consider or deem True, Beautiful and Good. From a cognitive and "first principles" horizon, going all the way back to Aristotle, they are the "first" concepts, since they cannot be logically or deductively traced back to "a prior metaphysics" preceding their Rational unfoldment and display.
The Metaphysics of Morals is a 1797 work of political and moral philosophy by Immanuel Kant. It is also Kant's last major work in moral philosophy. The work is divided into two sections: the Doctrine of Right, dealing with political rights, and the Doctrine of Virtue, dealing with ethical virtues.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” It is also associated with the idea that “[i]t is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will." The theory was developed in the context of Enlightenment rationalism. It states that an action can only be moral if it is motivated by a sense of duty, and its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.
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Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".
Western philosophy refers to the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word philosophy itself originated from the Ancient Greek philosophía (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" Ancient Greek: φιλεῖν phileîn, "to love" and σοφία sophía, "wisdom").
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that examines right and wrong moral behavior, moral concepts and moral language. Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior". The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value, and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called axiology.
Transcendental humanism in philosophy considers humans as simultaneously the originator of meaning, and subject to a larger ultimate truth that exists beyond the human realm (transcendence). The philosophy suggests that the humanistic approach is guided by “accuracy, truth, discovery, and objectivity” that transcends or exists apart from subjectivity.
Aristotle defined inclination in the first paragraph of Metaphysics with the statement "all men by their nature, desire to know." Thomas Aquinas proposed that humans have four natural inclinations - a natural inclination to preservation (life), an inclination to sexual reproduction (procreation), sociability, and knowledge. Inclination in the modern philosophy of ethics is viewed in the context of morality, or moral worth.
The values that a person holds may be personal or political depending on whether they are considered in relation to the individual or to society. Apart from moral virtue, examples of personal values include friendship, knowledge, beauty etc. and examples of political values, justice, equality and liberty. This article will outline some current ideas relating to the first group – personal values. It will begin by looking at the kinds of thing that have value and finish with a look at some of the theories that attempt to describe what value is. Reference will be made solely to Western sources although it is recognised that many, if not all, of the values discussed may be universal.
References
- ↑ "Practical Philosophy". Department of Philosophy. Lund University . 2021-11-19. Retrieved 21 Feb 2024.
- 1 2 Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 41 ("On Universal Practical Philosophy"). Original text: Immanuel Kant, Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften, Band XXVII – Moralphilosophie, 1. Hälfte, 1974, p. 243.
- ↑ Albert Schwegler, A History of Philosophy in Epitome, D. Appleton, 1877, p. 312.
- ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics , Book 1.
- ↑ Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University
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