Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Ethical Theories
- ABSOLUTISM (morality) - making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules (strict) ->
maintains some things are intrinsically either right OR wrong, fixed for all time, places and people.
- Pros:
- Fair, as all rules are the same for
every situation
- Universal and simple; easy to follow
- Can support universal law, e.g. UN declaration
of human rights
- Allows law to progress
- Popular for religious believers.
- Cons:
- Life is not ‘black and white’ : not simple to make everyone live by the same rules
- Who decides what rules are right or wrong?
- Every circumstance is different
- Absolutists can be intolerant to/of cultural diversity
- RELATIVISM – nothing is intrinsically right or wrong (flexible) -> popular modern day theory, the belief
that everyone should be tolerant towards other beliefs and views.
- Pros:
- Allows for diversity
- Allows that life isn’t black and white = situations are all
different
- A dependency thesis: depends on society to decide what is right/wrong
- Stands apart from religious authority
- Cultures will allow acceptance and a greater understanding
of cultures if using relativism
- Cons:
- Just because of different views, doesn’t mean
they’re right; Nazi, etc
- Cultural relativism reduces what is ‘good’ to what is
socially acceptable
- Relativists often seen as selfish
- Doesn’t allow law to progress
- Too forgiving to certain situations
- Too many ‘grey’ areas
- Absolutism vs. Relativism
- Relativists...
- would see the religious significance and that the importance of
the practise to the religion /religious community and will
therefore not condemn it.
- Absolutists...
- can appear to be intolerant to views of others e.g. if
they’re against the cruelty to animals, they would be
against the religious methods of slaughtering animals.
- Deontological theory
- ABSOLUTISM = deontological theory ->
doing what is right, following rules and
duty.
- Able to take strong moral positions
on certain actions.
- Not flexible enough to take
into account special
circumstances/cultural
groups.
- Concerned with the nature of each individual’s act
themselves – based on laws
- acts are intrinsically
right or wrong.
- Teleological (consequentialist) theory
- Relativism = teleological -> what is right/wrong,
depends on the end or outcome of an action.
- An action isn’t intrinsically good, but good by the virtue (righteousness) of the
result
- Weaknesses: how can you be sure of what the end is? Do ends
justify the means?
- Concerned with the
consequences of actions.
- Utilitarianism + Situation Ethics = Teleological
Theories.
- Act -> Consequence =
Important