What is philosophical ethics? I offer four sketches:

1st Sketch: Our Class Mission

        Our class mission gives us a way to begin to think of ethics. From this angle, the aim of ethics is

                                      "to come to life more fully
                                so as to ACT more wisely and effectively
                        to reduce suffering and to promote possibility
                                            for our common life."

                a) The mission starts with something POSITIVE: "To come to life more fully"
                b) The mission looks to ACTION and CHARACTER, to VIRTUES "so as to act more wisely
                    and effectively."  Virtues are good habits of attitude and action that become part of one's
                    chosen character. These need to be cultivated through conscious daily practice. Think of Z&Z.
                    Think of Covey's definition of virtues including knowing what to do, knowing how to do it, & wanting to do it.
                c) The mission includes CRITERIA (Measuring Rods for Evaluation):
                                    "to reduce suffering and to promote possibility for our common life."
                d) The mission thus points to OUR LIFE AMONG OTHERS: "for our common life."
 
2nd Sketch: What is ethical to do is WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE WHOLE AND FAIR TO EACH PARTICIPANT-PART.

          "Good for the Whole" looks to the social or community context. Actions have consequences (for you, for others and for group structures). Steps 5 & 6 of the Star -- social utility; consequentialist reasons

          "Fair to each Person (or Participant Part)" looks to persons (and in an ecological perspective, to all forms of life.  Persons have rights. Persons are not to be treated as things.  Step 4 of Star.

3rd Sketch: Ethics asks us to LIVE MINDFULLY: to take some care about how we ACT
                (and even about how we think and speak and feel) and to be willing to look at REASONS.
                          ( A variant of Anthony Weston's characterization in his Practical Companion to Ethics)

    This formulation looks to both heart and head.  Sensitivity to our own inner and outer conversations and to the situation of others and willingness to look at reasons.

4th Sketch: Philosophical ethics is a NORMATIVE DISCIPLINE
                    aiding us to LIVE MINDFULLY  (or TO COME TO LIFE MORE FULLY)
                      with openness to REASONED DISCOURSE
                           using CRITERIA founded in the nature of persons and community
                                    PLUS the best available REASONING and EVIDENCE
                                        to reach  decisions about what is best to do.

This is best remembered via the one sentence translation of "good reasons" ethics:  To say

On the other hand, here are three stances that can fail to take reasoning into account:

     Dogmatism: being unshakably committed to one answer. Not open to reconsideration or revision
     of position in light of principles and evidence. "My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts."

     Rationalization: Giving some reasons (at times any "reasons" however faulty) to support one’s
     already existing position. Often we "shoot from the hip" -- taking a stand without much careful
     thought and then -- to save face -- we dig in and justify our position no matter what.

      Some forms of Relativism: However, here we must move carefully.

     Cultural Relativism (JGS) seems acceptable. It is a descriptive and explanatory approach used in the
     social sciences that makes us aware that the beliefs and values of a people must be seen in the
     context of their culture. This method of inquiry is good in that it makes us slow down and seek to
     understand what is going on and why from within a cultural system of meanings and values.

     Strong Ethical Relativism (JGS), however, does seem to be an evasion of careful thinking. Such
     relativism is normative and makes the (questionable-I believe false) assertion that
     "It is impossible to make any value judgments based on criteria larger than cultural conventions."

     According to this view, it is not legitimate ever to make a judgment of the form:  A is better than B
-- e.g. you can't say kindness is better than cruelty or freedom is better than slavery or respect of persons is better than rape --
if you intend to mean MORE than just that such and such a culture says so.

     To accept ethical relativism means that there is no place from which to stand to criticize and reform
 cultures. For example, no way to condemn slavery, apartheid and the holocaust. The deeper philosophical issue is
WHY things are wrong or WHAT MAKES THEM wrong? In other words:

     whether things are wrong (i.e. destructive, i.e. increase suffering and restrict possibility) just
     because people say so -- the "saying so" makes them wrong? OR

     whether we can appeal to deeper criteria in the nature of persons and communities to make  trans-cultural value judgements (for example, claiming certain human rights deserve to  be respected whether people say so or not)?

Anthony Weston notes: "Relativism becomes damaging when it becomes another way to resist careful and open-ended thinking."
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Descriptive and Normative Disciplines:

Descriptive disciplines describe what is or was (or they may predict what will be). They may also give
explanations of why things are as they are. Thus, the customary morality or religious morality can be studied by e.g. the social sciences from the outside -- no value judgment made -- simply empirical description. Purportedly value-free.

Normative disciplines do make and justify evaluative judgments. Philosophical ethics is a normative discipline. Religious ethics and law are also normative disciplines.  See similarities and differences below:
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 RELIGIOUS ETHICS:

     Religious ethics in the context of Juadaism, Christianity and Islam, are usually authority-based. They
     can be more or less open to reasoning and evidence.

     Religious ethics usually starts with certain sacred texts that are seen as expressing the will of God.

     Some religious communities subject their texts to study using modern methods of scriptural
     interpretation. Some do not.

     What I am suggesting is this: Religious people can also be thoughtful and be committed to the
     common good. They can be open to self-correcting understanding, open to criteria and facts. They
     can give reasons for what they do although these reasons will often go back to scripture as a
     premise. When religious people operate in this wider fashion, we have an interesting "religious ethics."

Some religions or religious subcultures have passed through the fires of modernity and adapted and some have not.  Those that have not remain in a pre-modern worldview that does not recognize one of the key happenings of modernity (1500 CE -present): namely, that ethics and science and art gained their own autonomy (became their own persons) freed from the control of the church or state.  Once such differentiation takes place then religion must confront
        modern science and its methodology and
        modern philosophical ethics and its methodology and
        modern art and its methodologies.

Once such differentiation takes place then religion can become self-conscious in a new way of its own assumptions and methods.

Does such a religion at the crossroads of modernity accept modern science (in whole or in part)?
Does such a religion at the crossroads of modernity listen to the insights of philosophical ethics?
Does such a religion at the crossroads of modernity open to new forms of expression in art and literature etc.?
Does such a religion at the crossroads of modernity engage with modern methodologies for interpreting history and interpreting
        scripture?
Does such a religion at the crossroads of modernity begin to speak of the possibility of development of doctrine and development of
        moral teachings and development of forms of worship and development of forms of organization and governance?

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Similarities and differences between philosophical ethics and religious ethics

                Both are normative disciplines -- i.e. they make and evaluate
                                                                           value or "ought" judgments.

                They differ in their starting points and often in their method of proceeding.

                    Religious ethics starts from authoritative texts (e.g. the Bible) seen as the word of God.

                   Philosophical ethics starts from criteria based on the nature of persons and the nature of
                    communities.  Criteria such as (a) "what is good for the whole and fair to each person (or
                          participant-part)" or  (b) "what reduces unnecessary suffering and promotes constructive
                   possibility for our common life." In other words, philosophical ethics takes its criteria from
                        human experience over time.

             Religious ethics sometimes is willing to reevaluate its understanding of scripture based on new data (e.g. with regard to
                    slavery), sometimes not (e.g. in the case of gay rights).

            Philosophical ethics is always willing to be self-corrective
                    in the light of deeper understanding of the nature of persons and communal life,
                    in the light of new evidence and new reasoning.
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LAW (or the legal code):  Roscoe Pound’s definitions
                                                                                O           S        C                A             R
A) law in the sense of the legal order, i.e "the regime of Ordering Social Conduct and Adjusting Relations  (OSCAR)
                by the systematic and orderly application of the force of the politically organized society."

B) law as "the body of authoritative guides to conduct or decision" -- this has

         a) a precept element --
              (i) rules in the strict sense -- detailed legal consequences for definite states of fact,
              (ii) principles -- authoritative starting points for legal reasoning
              (iii) precepts defining conceptions
              (iv) precepts establishing standards

        b) a technique element -- how to develop, interpret and apply the precepts

        c) an ideal element -- ideals embedded in the legal tradition

C) law as the judicial process to which today we must add the administrative process.
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Similarities and differences between Philosophical Ethics and Law

            Both are normative disciplines.  However, there are differences. Memory device: SSAS

      A)   Starting Points:

                Law takes as its starting points for reasoning
                        what is laid down by the
                        legislature or the judicial branches of government -- (see LAW in sense B above.)
 
                Philosophical ethics starts from criteria based on the nature of persons and communal life.
 
      B)   Sanctions:

                Law has at its disposal the FORCE of the politically organized
                community.    Hence, the sanctions of law can be such things as
                punishment, fines, etc.

                Ethics can only persuade, not force.  However, people can and do
                    often express their disapproval for unethical actions and policies.
                    (e.g. shunning, boycotts, non-violent protests, etc.)

       C)  Attitude:

                Sometimes law takes into account the subjective state of the actor;
                        sometimes ignorance of the law does not count as an excuse

                Developed philosophical ethics always takes into account both --i.e.  the outward destructiveness of the act
                    (RED and GOLD of Traffic Light model) plus the inner state of the agent. (GREEN of the Traffic Light Model).

        D)  Scope:

             Law and ethics also differ in scope.  Generally, law tries only to enforce outward behavior.
             It is concerned primarily with public acts.(although sometimes the law looks at so-called  "private" acts as well -- e.g. laws
                against sodomy).

             Ethics especially if we think of ethics as both minimal and aspirational has much wider scope --  looking to inner and
                    outer, to private and public, to the growth of the person in the virtues and in  mindfulness.

Because Law and Ethics differ, we can speak of

                    (a) something being not legal but ethical ( --L but E);
                    (b) something being legal and not ethical ( L & -- E);
                    (c) something being legal and ethical (L & E) and
                    (d) something both not legal and not ethical ( --L & -- E)

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ECONOMICS as an evaluative way -- prudential -- self-interest maximizing decision making
                        in context of certain "laws" such as the "law" of supply and demand.

        Economics is sometimes seen as simply a descriptive discipline.  Sometimes however, it does seem to function as recommendatory -- as counseling what one "should" do at least based on a theory of self-interest maximizing.
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ETIQUETTE -- norms required by good breeding or developed taste, often prescribed by some authority to be observed in social or official life.
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Reminders:

        1) Philosophical or good reasons ethics -- when seen from the inside -- demands four C's:

a) Commitment                               [Recall the virtue dimension developing into aspirational green]
b) Criteria (ethical criteria)  EC                                 [Recall one sentence translation!]
c) Case-specific facts (or facts of the case)  FC         [Recall one sentence translation!]
d) Careful thinking (reason and reason enough)          [Recall one sentence translation!]

        2) Such ethics, like science, is capable of ongoing revision. Recall the features of moving from minimal to aspirational ethics:
 

a) moving from extrinsic motivators (reward/punishment; praise/blame) 
   to intrinsic guides (nature of communities and persons or other participant-parts)
        Here heart and mind both enter -- sensitivity to persons and situations -- to the feeling and spirit
        dimensions as well as the problem-solving dimensions.

b) moving from Me-centered to ever-wider WE-centered world -- moving up the domains --
    from the WE of one-to-one relationships, to the WE of institutional enterprises, .  .  .
    to the WE of the Great Web of All Life.

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