Morals & Ethics

For the purposes of this class, we will doing a moral and/or ethical analysis of our own beliefs to help us understand how to make solid and well reasoned arguments to support our opinions.  We will also use this process to attempt to understand and reason how historical peoples made the decisions they made.  This process supports your argumentative writing skills overall, and supports the development of Historical Thinking Skills (AP).

"Ethics vs Morals: Is there a difference? 

Ethics and morals are both used in the plural and are often regarded as synonyms, but there is some distinction in how they are used.

Morals often describes one's particular values concerning what is right and what is wrong:

• • It would go against my morals to help you cheat on the test.

• He appears to view himself as a kind of culture warrior, striking out against the crumbling morals of modern society.

Jonathan Goldsbie, Now Toronto, 16 Oct. 2014

While ethics can refer broadly to moral principles, one often sees it applied to questions of correct behavior within a relatively narrow area of activity:

• • Our class had a debate over the ethics of genetic testing.

• Anybody, it seemed, could make the music -- if they couldn't play guitar, they could push a button -- and nobody worried about the ethics of appropriating riffs.

Jennifer Foote, Newsweek, 23 July 1990

In addition, morals usually connotes an element of subjective preference, while ethics tends to suggest aspects of universal fairness and the question of whether or not an action is responsible:

• Perhaps you don’t like Kim Kardashian, or her family, or her morals don’t align with yours, or you just think it’s weird that she might have had some plastic surgery, likes to apply makeup in a really complicated way and named her kid “Saint.”

Sarah Boboltz, The Huffington Post, 12 Oct. 2016

• The Frenches, both professors in The Media School, focused on the ethics of making medical decisions for a child who could not express her own wishes yet…

Chris Mura, Indiana Daily Student, 18 Oct. 2016 "

“Ethic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic. 

Accessed 21 Aug. 2020.

STATING MORALS (In this class only)

Please use one of the following "value" terms whenever you state a moral.  The reason is often some confusion arises when proverbs are used and these terms help to clarify the proverbs.

Good, Bad, Right, Wrong or Important

APPLYING MORALS TO AN ISSUE

• 1. You can start with your morals OR you can start with your opinion

  2. Sometimes a particular approach is easier

  3. For every opinion, please write down three morals that YOU believe you are using to come to your opinion. 

  4. Number the morals from 1 to 3 in order of relevance for a particular issue

ADVANCED (Unit 1 Only) 

1. Write down 6 morals that are related to your opinion of your issue 

2. Morals of Others:  Write down morals that you know others believe, but that you do not.  Then draw a line through that moral. 

3. Write down morals that you think are the #1 morals of others, and that you believe, but are not using for your opinion

4 Number all of the morals you believe.

ADVANCED (2nd Semester)

• 1. Write down 3 of the morals that support your opinion

  2. Write down a counterargument opinion: While some people believe _(opposite of your opinion)____ that is wrong because __(use the below morals to argue against that counterargument) _________.

  3. Write down 3 morals that support the counterargument 

MORAL RELATIVISM 

Moral relativism is the view that moral judgments are true or false only relative to some particular standpoint (for instance, that of a culture or a historical period) and that no standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others. 

- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

MORAL ABSOLUTISM 

"Moral Absolutism is the ethical belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of the act. Thus, actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the individual, society or culture that engages in the actions. It holds that morals are inherent in the laws of the universe, the nature of humanity, the will of God or some other fundamental source.

It is the opposite of Moral Relativism, the position that moral propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. [. . .]

The ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle believed in a kind of Absolutism or Universalism, opposing the Moral Relativism of the Sophists. Immanuel Kant was a prominent promoter of Moral Absolutism, and his formulation of the deontological theory of the Categorical Imperative was essentially absolutist in nature. Moral Absolutism has been favored historically largely because it makes the creation of laws and the upholding of the judicial system much simpler, and manifested itself in outdated concepts such as the Divine Right of Kings.

Many religions have morally absolutist positions, and regard their system of morality as having been set by a deity, and therefore absolute, perfect and unchangeable."

- The Basics of Philosophy, U Texas 

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_moral_absolutism.html