Hello everyone and welcome to our new saga: Ethics / Moral Philosophy! I hope you enjoyed our Epistemology saga and learned a little something about how certain philosophers think we come to know the things we do.
To start off this saga, I thought we should get to know what ethics (otherwise known as moral philosophy) actually is and discuss one of the most prominent schools of thought within what's known as normative ethics: concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action.
Ethics or moral philosophy is the branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior" – in order to define what makes something good or evil, just or unjust, a virtue or a vice, moral or immoral, and plays a big part in determining the Law. Along with aesthetics (the subject of our next saga) it comprises axiology: the philosophical study of value.
Within the field of ethics, there are three main areas of study: meta-ethics (the study of moral judgement), applied ethics (e.g. animal ethics, bioethics etc), and normative ethics (the study of ethical behaviour). We'll be focusing mostly on normative ethics in this saga as this is the area that will most likely be the most helpful to us in the GAMSAT.
Consequentialism (first coined by G.E.M Anscombe in her 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy") is a school of thought within normative ethics and refers to moral theories that hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis of any moral judgement about that action. A consequentialist might think that a moral action is one that produces a good outcome and an immoral action is one that produces a bad outcome. But you might be able to spot the flaws in this: what makes a consequence good or bad? And who decides this?
According to utilitarianism, the proper course of action should be the one that maximises a positive effect, such as "happiness" or "welfare". Moral philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, or more modernly; Sam Harris and Peter Singer, are all proponents of this school of thought. Utilitarianism can be further divided into act and rule utilitarianism, but I'll leave those for you guys to go into if you so wish.
In terms of how you can use this knowledge in your essays, think about how you can explore the ethics of the arguments, behaviours, or actions you are discussing in your essays. For example, if you're arguing that modern Western societies should reduce our meat consumption, perhaps you might want to take a consequentialist standpoint and argue that eating less meat will reduce harm to animals and the environment – sounds pretty good to me.
Happy researching!
P.S. If you're curious about the tram graphic above, you can read about it here: the classic utilitarian conundrum.
